An illuminating exploration of reference books through time and across cultures, from the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi to Wikipedia.

Lively and erudite ... Lynch offers a reference book of reference books, a magical volume of infinite regress ... You Could Look It Up can serve as a reminder of our enduring and impudent desire to keep the chaotic universe in some kind of neat and serviceable order. -- Alberto Manguel (Editor's Choice) The New York Times Book Review [A] wholly absorbing chronicle of the reference book. The Wall Street Journal A casual but fascinating read that feels like sneaking into a library after hours, it offers an absorbing glimpse into the world-changing and frequently turbulent history of the reference shelf. NPR.org As readers make their ways through this book, they are certain to discover a wide variety of must-haves ... Great stuff for anyone who loves knowledge, deep or trivial. -- starred review Kirkus Reviews Anyone who enjoys reference books will embrace this erudite compilation and Lynch's appreciative, fluent commentary. Publishers Weekly No harmless drudge he, [Lynch] takes a broad view of his subject and includes lively pages on several dozen radically different works ... The serendipity of its contents is part of the book's fun [along with] its high anecdotal and amusement quotient. -- Michael Dirda Washington Post Especially fun for librarians, You Could Look It Up will entertain and enlighten many scholarly inclined readers and anyone who loves traditional reference works. -- starred review Booklist Fascinating ... You Could Look It Up is a history not simply of reference books as a genre but of the broader question of how we organize information and why. Shelf Awareness You Could Look It Up is an entertaining, enlightening look into the vast, complex world of reference books and their tireless compilers across the ages, extending far beyond the familiar works of Samuel Johnson, Peter Roget, and Noah Webster. -- Steve Kleinedler, executive editor, THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE A stunning tour de force, Lynch's new book is compulsively readable. No one has ever packed so much fascinating information about reference books into one volume. Polymaths of the world, delight! -- Bryan A. Garner, chief editor of BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY and author of GARNER'S MODERN ENGLISH USAGE highly readable ... exuberant The American Conservative

Jack Lynch is a professor of English at Rutgers University. He specializes in English literature of the eighteenth century and the history of the English language. He is the author of several books including The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of 'Proper' English, from Shakespeare to South Park and Samuel Johnson's Insults: A Compendium of Snubs, Sneers, Slights, and Effronteries from the Eighteenth-Century Master. He lives in New Jersey.