Elizabeth Little Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Elizabeth Little is one of the renowned authors from the United States, who has tasted huge success with her recent novels. Particularly, she likes to write her novels based on the nonfiction, thriller, and mystery genres. Author Little was born in St. Louis, Missouri, The United States. She spent most of her growing years in St. Louis and completed her graduation from the Harvard University. She earned her degree in Bachelor of Arts. Before beginning her writing career as an established author, Little had contributed to a number of initial works. Later, her written works went on to appear in numerous reputed literary magazines such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Book Reviews, as well as a few other publications. Author Little is received a grand success and wide appreciation with the publication of her book titled ‘Dear Daughter’, which is the most recently released book by her. Before this book, she had contributed to nonfiction with a couple of her works. One of them revolves around the confessions by a Language Fanatic and the other is about cross country traveling in search of the languages of America. The book, Dear Daughter, helped her to gain critical acclaim. It also went on to be listed as a bestseller in the Los Angeles Times list of bestselling books. The novel has been released worldwide and has also been nominated for the Macavity and Barry Awards in the category of the Best First Book. It was also long listed for the John Creasy Dagger from CWA. The popular novel has also won the Critics Strand Award in the Best Debut Novel category. As of today, author Little lives in Los Angeles, California, along with her caring family. After the success of Dear Daughter, author Little got the chance to feature on the program called All Things Considered. She is represented by the literary agent named Kate Garrick from The Karpfinger Agency.

One of the earliest books written by author Elizabeth Little is titled as Biting the Wax Tadpole’. This book was published by the Melville House publishers in the year 2007. Author Little has described the central theme of the story in this book in the form of the confessions of a fanatic of languages. With the help of this book, the author has given a decidedly unstuffy look to the world of the languages. She has made use of her own favorite examples from the languages difficult, plain made up and dead to depict that the study of languages is an important tool for traveling across the different place of the world. The main benefit of doing so is that it can be done without leaving the home comforts. In this excellent exploration of the world travel, author Little has included a language called Shona, that lacks distinct words like ‘green’ and ‘blue’. She has also described as to why the numbers from 1 to 4 are considered as plural by the Icelandic speakers.

Other illustrations given in the book by author Little are related to the search of a language that does not have verbs and the attempt to understand the exact meaning of Swedish names given on the IKEA products. On the whole, the novel is filled with a number of hilarious sidebars and it also addresses a few classic instances of mistranslation. An example of this given by author Little is the attempt of the Chinese shopkeepers of finding a phonetic equivalent for writing the word ‘Coca Cola’. And they end up choosing a set of characters who pronounce it as ‘ke kou ke la’. Even though both the words sounded the same, the literal meaning of the used phonetic was ‘bite the wax tadpole’. The distributor of Coca Cola did not quite have this thing in mind, but it surely gave the readers a chance to grab a hilarious story to read. In the end, the story described by author Little proves that languages can take you to some of the most interesting places in the world.

One more well-known nonfiction book written by Elizabeth Little is titled as ‘Trip of the Tongue’. The Bloomsbury publication, USA, released this book in the year 2012. In this book, author Little has described an adventurous search for the American languages. Author Little states that even though America is known to be a nation full of English speakers, the United States of America’s linguistic map hardly appears to be monochromatic. A lot of differences can be seen as far as the languages are concerned in America. Many scholars have given their expert inputs that Spanish may play an important role in the national future of America. But, it seems to be a gross misrepresentation to think about America as a bilingual country. In contrary to the beliefs of many people, the languages in America have a lot of varieties, similar to their origins. These diversities can be clearly seen in places like Detroit, South California, and Nevada, where people often speak Arabic, Gullah, and Basque respectively. The citizens of America also like to speak Asian, European, as well as the languages of the American Indian. They even speak jargons, pidgins, and creoles. Being a Queens resident, which is regarded as one of the most culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse places on planet Earth, author Little began wondering how these different tongues have proven to be a cause in the shaping of the American experience.

Shortly after, she decided to get her questions based on languages on the road. In the book’s plot, author Little has explored the many languages and cultures of her nation in an attempt to search what the others think about the others. She has tried to find out who they are socially, individually, and politically. The book represents both the celebration of the multiculturalism of America and a reflection of what the Americans value and fight for. In the course of the description of this interesting book, author Little has seemed to be witty and an endearing tour guide for the original and memorable trip. She wonderfully describes the cultures and linguistic diversities in many places of America. Her dedicated efforts proved fruitful after the book’s release as she received wide appreciations from one and all. The book’s success also helped her to gain the motivation for writing a few more books in her career. Currently, she is working on the story of the 4th book of her writing career.