The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads

by Ammon Shea

A surprising, lively, and rich history of that ubiquitous doorstop that most of us take for granted.
Ammon Shea is not your typical thirtysomething book enthusiast. After reading the "Oxford English Dictionary" from cover to cover (and living to write about it in "Reading the OED"), what classic, familiar, but little-read book would he turn to next? Yes, the phone book. With his signature combination of humor, curiosity, and passion for combing the dustbins of history, Shea offers readers a guided tour into the surprising, strange, and often hilarious history of the humble phone book.
From the first printed version in 1878 (it had fifty listings and no numbers) to the phone book's role in presidential elections, Supreme Court rulings, Senate filibusters, abstract art, subversive poetry, circus sideshows, criminal investigations, mental-health diagnoses, and much more, this surprising volume reveals a rich and colorful story that has never been told-until now.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Microhistory, Books About Books, Science, Adult, Sociology

240 pages, Paperback

First published October 5, 2010

About the author

Ammon Shea is the author of two previous books on obscure words, Depraved English and Insulting English (written with Peter Novobatzky). He read his first dictionary, Merriam Webster's Second International, ten years ago, and followed it up with the sequel, Webster's Third International.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

"The telephone book is as unemotional and impartial an observer of history as one could hope to find. Its judgement is unclouded by all of the vicissitudes that make human recollection of past events so fraught with inaccuracy." -- the author, while skimming through a 1979 phone book, on page 140

Remember "Let your fingers do the walking."? Or how about "You know the name - look up the number."? Does "It's in 'the book'" mean anything to you? For certain segments of the population, they will know exactly what 'book' is being referred to in all of those phrases. For the other younger generations, these now-dated slogans might seem as remotely mysterious as the dark side of the moon. Fortunately, Shea's The Phone Book is a lightheartedly accessible sociological-historical text that casually examines the late 19th century origin, the 20th century acceptance / popularity and then the 21st century decline - thanks, Internet and cell-phones - of the big yellow book that would appear every year on American doorsteps. The author piles on a decent amount of random trivia / factoids (like calling into question that Alexander Graham Bell is the true creator of the telephone, or that U.S. attorneys were actually forbidden by law from advertising their services in the business directories until 1977) amidst personal observations and character pieces on folks who collect, 'rescue' and/or repurpose old editions from the trash heaps. This may sound like the most boring topic / subject imaginable, but Shea has actually crafted an occasionally interesting little read.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Color me underwhelmed. I was totally taken with the description for this book and was ready for something funny and interesting. Instead Shea starts off by ripping other micro-history books that use the phrase "changed the world" in the title. I have read the banana book, and in fact bananas (and our demand for cheap bananas) did in fact change the course of history in North America and the book was better written than this. But after this bashing, he does sort of go on to claim that his subject did in fact change the world, he is just too cool to use that in the title.
And as a public librarian, I found his disgruntlement with the New York Public Library in general, and specifically for not having a copy (in print! on the shelf!)of a Boston phone book from the 1970s to be ridiculous. Librarians HATE it when we can't find things. However, things do get lost, stolen, misplaced, etc. When the NYPL didn't find the microfilm copy, and contacted the author who felt the library was "apathetic" to his quest. That sucks, man. But I am surprised they had it in the first place. Yes, it would be nice to browse endless shelves and find all kinds of quirky subjects, phone books from Arvada in the 1970s, and dusty tomes of god-knows-what. But in a real world, even a research library like NYPL has to keep things in storage, discard items not checked out in a long time and collect popular items. The author guffaws at the ridiculousness of popular searches on the internet, but dude, those are the people paying the property tax bills. I also like charming weird little books on interesting subjects, but patrons at my library want to read James Patterson and books on poker. A balance is hard to find, and it upsets many librarians - but the mission of most public libraries is to house a collection that the community wants. Collecting every single item that Shea might deem worthy AND keeping it on a browse-able shelf isn't realistic anywhere.

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love unusual non-fiction subjects (in the sense that while there are plenty of books dealing with, say, the Civil War, there is a lack of them on, well, phone books), but it is patently unfair of me to expect all of them to rival Mary Roach.

This one doesn't, but it was a fun read. I particularly liked Shea's section examining the place phone books hold in pop culture: specifically, ripping them in half as a show of strength, and reading them aloud as a show of obstinacy. Turns out, Senator Strom Thurmond, everyone's very favorite racist, didn't actually read the telephone book during his record-breaking filibuster of the Civil Rights Act. I, for one, was pleased to hear that this unappreciated book had been spared at least that indignity.

That said, I think I will decline to take Shea's recommendation that an old phone book from someone's childhood hometown would make an excellent gift on their next birthday. I don't see that going over too well with anyone I know.

[Seth Arnopole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the kind of book that I like to keep on my shelves. I’m a sucker for trivia, bits of obscure history, and authors who like to delve into very specific subjects.

[Craig Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads by Ammon Shea was written in 2010 but even at seven years old I take issue with the statement that everyone uses it. Shea should know upfront that I am a rotary-dial-loving non-cellphone-owning telephonophile, yet when I need to look up a number even I look for it on-line. I admit it would be handy to have an up-to-date phone book as I keep all of my directories downstairs in the cupboard above my fridge, yet my computer is upstairs so I always have to go up a flight to make a call when I don't already know the number. However even if I did have a current phone book, it would be murder on my eyes as the size of font has shrunk to minuscule proportions in the last few years. Phone books in my youth also had fewer columns per page and were thus much easier to read.

What I do share with Shea is a love of phone books. As a child I was genuinely excited when the new Toronto and Mississauga-area phone books arrived. I turned over the pages of the massive Toronto directory looking for unusual last names. I still remember a heckuva lot of them, like Ggoome, someone listed with the surname and initial Ee E, and the stalwart listing Q'Part Mrs, whom I actually phoned in order to enquire specifically about her last name. I cannot recall a word of that conversation from forty years ago, yet I addressed her as if her last name was French, hence que - PAR. All the Pizza Pizza franchises used to be listed alphabetically by the street they were on, and every single one of them had the same number, 967-1111. I also remember the Royal Ontario Museum controversy, or should I say, The Royal Ontario Museum controversy, as Canada's preeminent museum was listed in the white pages under T.

Why am I so interested in phone books? I love words, names, lists of words and names, and ordered lists of words and names to be particular. The phone book is a book with my name both figuratively on it as well as literally in it. I started reading The Phone Book on a train ride from Helsinki to Joensuu and finished it two days later on the flight home to Toronto. Shea covered many topics--often, too many--starting with the debate over the true inventor of the telephone. An introduction such as this could be deemed necessary as a lead-in to the main topic at hand, telephone books. But Shea often drifted off-topic, taking up pages discussing the effect of scents on his senses and how synaesthesia draws him to buy books. There was no reason to go on and on about the fetish he has for the smell of books (he denies that it's a fetish, but I am calling a spade a spade here). I got the feeling pretty soon that these tangential topics were merely page fillers for what would have been an otherwise shorter book (202 pages).

The first phone book was not even a book. It was a list of fifty names published in 1878. In the earliest days of telephones, one didn't need to know any phone numbers, as an operator used to connect callers on a switchboard. In the early twentieth century tests were conducted on phone book layouts to ease as well as accelerate number lookups. Column width, indentation, print size and many other factors were analyzed to produce the most effective print layout. Even as early as the fourth decade of the last century did people look to the phone book for exploitative commercial reasons. Shea wrote of one midwest business that looked to use the Manhattan directory to create its own mailing list:

"Templin [directory supervisor of the New York Telephone Company in the 1930's], not a man to take kindly to such deliberate misuse of his book, flat out refused to assist, saying that he had 'no intention of aiding them in their nefarious schemes.'"

If only we had Russell Templin around today to deal with telemarketers.

The phone book can be blamed for one of the greatest election miscalls in American history. The November 3, 1948 headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune, "Dewey Defeats Truman", can blame its own telephone exit polls on the phone book for this inaccurate result:

"In 1948 the telephone was not yet as ubiquitous a household fixture as it is today; it was more an implement owned by the upper class, the members of which greatly favored Dewey. The pollsters took what they thought to be the pulse of the electorate by calling random numbers taken from telephone books across the country. Except that they weren't truly random--as soon as they chose the telephone book, they unwittingly skewed their results in favor of the people who owned telephones and who happened to be more inclined to vote for Dewey."

In addition to the white-paged residential listings of phone books, Shea provided a history of the yellow pages and explained why its pages were traditionally yellow. He compared the Manhattan pages of 1979 to those at the time of writing, thirty years later, and had many interesting observations about the state of technology and how it affects advertising. The yellow pages of Manhattan, keep in mind, so we're not talking about a small rural town, had no listings whatsoever for funeral preplanning in 1979, yet 23 listings in 2009. The yellow pages of 1979 had more than a dozen pages of ads and listings for typewriters, yet in 2009 there was "but a single store that has chosen to run an ad in the small corner of the current telephone directory that deals with typewriters. It reads, 'YES! We still repair IBM Selectric and Wheelwriter Typewriters'--with an enthusiasm that feels born of desperation."

Shea is charming when he takes the reader on a trip down memory lane as he relives his childhood through a copy of a phone book. After having found a directory that was around when he was a boy, Shea lets his fingers go walking through the list of names and he discovers people--and memories--that had been dormant for decades. He can take a different path each time he opens the book, so each trip down memory lane is a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story. He invites the reader to do the same:

"Find an old phone book from some point in your life and take a trip through its pages and your past. Skim the pages or examine them closely. You needn't read it as one reads a book--the plotline is your own, and you can experience it however you prefer."

There are organized groups that wish to ban the phone book on account of its colossal waste of paper and resources. Shea writes about these groups yet offers in defence how profitable it is for the yellow pages to remain in print. As long as it makes money for the publisher and advertisers, we will still have print yellow pages. Offering the public a choice, such as opting in if you wish to receive a phone book, or alternatively opting out if you don't, do not seem to be very effective. Shea provided statistics on municipalities that offered these choices with only minimal percentages taking the opt-out preference.

Shea is a bibliophile at heart who would be a poor second-hand bookseller, as I am afraid he would buy everything everyone brings in to try to sell him. Yet after stating how tragic it is to throw away books, he does admit to a need (however prejudiced) to dispose of books:

"I am not entirely in favor of abstaining from throwing books away. Indeed, there are many books that I feel deserve nothing more than a quick trip to the trash heap and should very likely have never been published in the first place. Astonishing numbers of new titles are published every year--the figure is estimated at over 250,000 in the United States alone. Surely some of these titles should never have seen the light of day. And yet it still tugs at my heartstrings to see so many telephone books thrown away, often still encased in their cheap plastic wrap, obviously not just unwanted but not even judged worthy of perusal."

What Shea finds so sad is the tendency to throw away old phone books. Even the phone companies encourage this, in order to ensure that their latest editions are available. No one keeps old phone books because they are obsolete within a year, as well as being of exceptional girth. Sadly, Shea found that some libraries even disposed of their old phone book collections because of lack of use. In the end, Shea calls for the continuation of the printed phone book for a reason beyond mere childish sentimentality:

"Whenever there is a discussion, or a debate, about why it is that telephone companies continue to print the white pages, there is invariably mention of the fact that some small portion of the population does not have access to the Internet or that some people who have used the telephone book all their lives just don't understand how to make the transition from newsprint to hyperlink.
"But there will always be some portion of the population that does not keep up with the current technology, whether it is because they are Luddites by choice or because technology has simply passed them by. This in itself is not enough of a reason to insist on continuing to use the white pages.
"It should be enough that some people just prefer to have the feel of paper on their hands when they are reading something. I know I do."

I would gladly take in the latest copy of the local phone directory if the phone company knew that there were still customers who used them.

[Wendy Henning · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give it 5 stars but I don't think anyone would believe me, given the topic. Super enjoyable and written with wit and warmth. Points off for no mention of Navin Johnson.

[Cate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some thoughts:
1) This book should be subtitled “The Anecdotal History of the Book that Everyone Used to Use But No One Reads."
2) The author is clearly an eccentric person (and I say this as a person who read a book about the phone book), since he read not only the phone book but also the OED. This leads to two things: exciting word choices and many tangents.
3) He tends to repeat thing, as if he thinks we’ll only read one chapter, or part of one chapter; which I find annoying, especially in short books.
4) A surprising amount of this book is not devoted to the history of the phone book, but rather to the author’s quest to learn about it. To me, this proves the point that people would rather read a book about a person than a list of boring facts; thus answering the question why no one reads the phone book.

[Derkie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although phone book’s users are dwindling in numbers with the new age of technology and ability to store phone numbers in a more convenient electronic device, it’s a breath of fresh air that Shea goes into discussion of those who do still find the phone book useful. In one of the chapters, Shea quotes a social media user in her case against anti-phone book users of the effectiveness of phone books for her and her elderly husband. This leave one to think outside of their own reality to consider the value of phone books for those who are not proficient with current technologies or those who are content without these technologies.

The author’s style of writing provides a personal touch as if the author is bringing you along through his discovery of all things phone book related; however, at times this too can feel like reading a college essay. Unfortunately, the book title may suggest that factual information of the phone book is held within its pages, the text itself isn’t one of academic proficiency to be used as a central basis for research purposes. The book will be most enjoyed by those seeking more knowledge with phone books that comes from a personal instead of academic perspective.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read. (And John suggests the OED book is even better!)

Craig Rowland's review provides a good feel for this book, and Bree's review includes some fun spoiler factoids.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's more like an extended feuilleton or collection of blog posts, but it was engaging and informative. I found the section on the Chinatown telephone exchange particularly interesting. The book could provide an introduction to a History methods class in which students do research to follow up various components. (Especially if the university library has some phone books lying around!)

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of little interesting facts, but not much cohesion. This was a fun read and gave me ideas for my cell phone safety and etiquette curriculum, but not really as exciting as it might ought to be. But it was definitely a challenge to make the phone book interesting in the first place. That just didn't work all that well in the end.

[Cathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is entertaining, witty, and very very clever. I never thought I would say that about a book which is about the telephone book! It really made me think about things, and not just phone books. Lots of funny and interesting information; I'm truly glad I read it.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this on my bookshelf, purchased from a bookstore closing sale several years ago. Forced wot about an obscure topic. At some point the author comments on books that should never have been published and I lol’d.

[Krissy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to learn about the history of the phone book.

[Ike · Rating 3 out of 5]

One word = ripped

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

2020 Catch Up Challenge: library book

[Brandon Mullan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very much needed!

Fun and informational read with the right hint of quirkiness.

Thank you, Ammon Shea.

[James S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are witty and interesting passages, but ultimately I don't think there's enough interesting material on this topic to merit a full-length book. It inevitably becomes dull.

[A G · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is just a collection of anecdotes that are in some way loosely related to the history of the telephone/the concept of a phone book. I learned that Thomas Dewey was short.

[Bree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who could have thought that a book about the phone book could be so interesting? Ammon Shea's expose on the phone book is entertaining, informative and full of interesting tidbits. He is an excellent writer and kept my attention for the whole book. I did not find any part of it lagging or lacking in educational curiosities. I never felt bored. I am anxious to read his book on the OED, I'm sure it was just as good!

Did you know?

*the USPS once thought bombs/rockets were the wave of future of mail delivery and actually attempted it by bombing NJ in mail. I had a friend comment that NY should have bombed NJ a long time ago....and apparently they did. :)

*early telephone operators for the chinatown exchange in SF had to be fluent in English and 5 dialects of Chinese, as well as memorize the entire phone book at that time. Plus they had to know the addresses of those residents who didn't have telephone so they could send messengers to find them if they had someone who called looking for them.

*The first three numbers of telephone numbers beginning with 288 were referred to as BU(tterfield) 8 when asking the telephone operator to connect to a number...it meant 288 (the B and the U being the letters that correspond to the numbers when you dial.) So now we know what the Glenn Miller song "Pennsylvania 6-5000" meant---PA6-5000 or 726-5000....is the number of the Hotel Pennsylvania. It was believed that a mixture of letters and numbers would be easier to remember especially if the letters were made into a word.

*The reason the famous "Dewey Defeats Truman" headlines happened was because of the phone book. Political pollsters believed they were taking a true poll, by calling random numbers from the phone book...BUT only a small number of the population had phones and apparently all those that did supported Dewey...so the poll wasn't all that random.

*Brooklyn apparently seems to have something in the water that spawns people who love to rip phone books...who knew?

*Voila! a phone book dress for those who are fashion forward. more views

If you are the sort of person who loves quirky facts and enjoys witty writing on seemingly mundane topics, this is the book for you. Enjoy!

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I'm in school I primarily read for school (of course) and books from my wishlist and my personal to be read collection. But I'm not perfect and since most of my reading material comes from the library, I'm constantly tempted by the new books on display right near the circulation desk.

I'm a sucker for unusual nonfiction. I like to read the books on topics you wouldn't think had been written about. A prime example is The Phone Book by Ammon Shea.

The phone book is one of those tools that has been part of the telephone culture since shortly after the telephone was first being introduced. At first they were marketing tools to show off the early adopters. They were also aids to help the telephone switchboard operators keep track of a ballooning subscriber list. Later as the telephone became a ubiquitous tool, everyone needed a copy. Now a days with smart phones being minicomputers, the telephone directories are online and there are movements to do away with the printed versions.

Shea's book covers most of the history of the different uses of both types of telephone books: the residential (white) pages and the business (yellow) pages. He even explains how the yellow pages came to be yellow. He explains the pre-l33tspeak language of the phone book and how it was developed to save space. Just imagine those same phone books without the abbreviations; they'd be a long as Shea's other reading project, the OED.

Beyond the history and mechanics of the phone book, Shea includes chapters about collectors of the book, people who change their name to be placed either at the beginning or the end of the book, and the strong men who rip the things in half. There are so many sundry details, tangents and other goodies that I couldn't put the book down once I started it.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ran across this one just browsing the library shelves. I haven't had very good luck with that method lately, but this one was a lucky find. Who would have thought that the history of the American phone book could be interesting enough to write a book about? It doesn't really read like a history book, so I'm not sure why it is called a history book, but I loved it. It was interesting, clever, quirky, and even literally laugh-out-loud funny at times. I think my favorite part was when the author referred to a person named Gwillim Law, and as soon as I read that I wondered to myself what kind of a name was Gwillim? And where did it come from? Then I saw at the bottom of the page this footnote: "For the benefit of those half-dozen people who will see a name like Gwillim and put this book down in order to go look it up to see where it comes from--it is the Welsh version of William." It appears the author has some things in common with me. :)

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a tough time getting through this one, because despite the fact that I do enjoy quirky non-fiction books about relatively odd or obscure topics from time to time, the organization and editing of this one made it nearly impossible to get through. On top of that, as the book went on I felt the author struggled with presenting interesting information from a research position and fell back on too much personal and occasionally snarky perspective about all sorts of things besides telephone books (including an odd tangent about book-smelling. And vitriol for the sport of curling, etc.).

This could have been a really insightful history about the ways we have organized ourselves and our pertinent contact/business-related information since the advent of the telephone, but instead, it fell way short for me.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an excellent, fun, interesting read! So interesting, that I absorbed all the minutiae with relish and can probably spit it all back out, most preferably during a winning performance of Jeopardy!. Shea does spend about a quarter of the book detailing the history of the phone, which is necessary, but not at that length. Perhaps he wanted padding to get to 200 pages, but the book would have had more substance had it been more concise. Also very, very surprising is his odd sentence structure, which very often flouts popular grammatical conventions, including ending several sentences with propositions. Tsk tsk. I did reach for the dictionary quite often, however, which I enjoy immensely when reading, but the word "putative" has now reached overkill. It's in every new book I read. Enough.

[Margaret Behr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shea turns a seemingly boring topic into an eccentric read in this examination of the phone book and its history. I laughed out loud at this book and admittedly learned a lot, too. He makes me want to read his other book "Reading the OED."

Favorite quote(s): This is a book that is as boring and quotidian, or as vibrant and alive, as you choose to make it.

Every year, Finland hosts the world's cellular-telephone-throwing championships (?!)

Idea to ponder: Outlaws were thwarted by telephone book-lined train cars. Go figure.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was interesting. I give it that. But this is not a book to pick up and try to read all the way through in a go. This is a book to keep in the bathroom and glance at a chapter from time to time. It was good in bursts, but if read as a whole, it just dragged. It gradually became a burden: I had to finish this book. If I started something else I'd never finish it. If you ever want interesting facts on the telephone book: this is it! But be wary and do not treat it as a book to read on train rides or rainy days.

[Margaret Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shea turns a seemingly boring topic into an eccentric read in this examination of the phone book and its history. I laughed out loud at this book and admittedly learned a lot, too. He makes me want to read his other book "Reading the OED."

Favorite quote(s): This is a book that is as boring and quotidian, or as vibrant and alive, as you choose to make it.

Every year, Finland hosts the world's cellular-telephone-throwing championships (?!)

Idea to ponder: Outlaws were thwarted by telephone book-lined train cars. Go figure.

[Margi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. it is filled with quirky tidbits about the phone book, of course, but also about about the telegraph, the phone itself and an array of people. I enjoyed the author's anecdotes; I felt like I was talking to a friend about his dissertation. I don't quite understand why so many people complained about the tangents.. I'm a firm believer that if you want to only know facts you should read an encyclopedia.

[brian tanabe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a great idea, plenty of effort, but this author seems already in a rut (having read Reading the OED). A mere 5 pages after quoting Elmore Leonard (one of many somewhat distracting tangents) to "leave out the part that readers tend to skip," Shea beings his spiral by describing his notes while actually reading a phone book.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd liked Shea's previous book Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, so decided to try this one. Lots of good research, with interesting asides, though I'd definitely recommend reading the other book first.