Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Little Book of Wonders
"The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

This little gem comes with a whopping punch. For anyone looking to speak better, write better, or plain communicate better, this book offers sound advice and helpful examples. Writers will like the chapters on Style and Composition, grammaphiles will enjoy the rest, and everyone will benefit. Strunk started it, and E.B. White (of Charlotte's Web fame) finished it, touched it up, made it a classic. The book is so well written; after I finished one chapter I fell asleep and had a dream of completing a sentence correctly or choosing the right word, just the right word. I'm not saying it was pretty, I'm saying it was effective. Writers of fiction and non-fiction narrative will gain greatly from this book, from rules and advice like use the active voice, be clear, and omit needless words, you'll take a lot from this tiny bible. It's exciting to know this book exists, even more exciting to own it and flip through it whenever I need a sound word of encouragement and advice.

I like the cover. It's elegant in a mainstream, tongue-in-cheek, way.

1 comment:

wheazzle said...

This is a great book. I cary it with me every where. In fact I'm bringing it to the wedding.