What do wordsmiths read? Here is a trio of recommendations from Grant Barrett, creator of the Double-Tongued Word Wrester's Dictionary and a lexicographer at the Oxford University Press:

Sidney Landau, Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography, second edition. There are several chapters of technical stuff a non-expert probably will just want to skim, but this is not an impersonal book. Landau is highly respected as a lexicographer of quality, so when he uses the word "I" in sentence in this book, it's a passage to pay close attention to.

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