a book to look for

A friend has recommended this book to me:

Reading the OED by Ammon Shea

I might find more good information like this:

"Tricoteuse" is an even less useful word than peristeronic, in that it means "a woman who knits; specifically, a woman who during the French Revolution would attend the guillotinings and knit while the heads were rolling."

Things to aspire to be??? Ah Madame DeFarge, I presume.