The Sense Of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide To Writing In The 21st Century (2014) - Plot & Excerpts
Pretentious, insightful, mediocre. This is a book by a man who likes to read and write. This is also a book by a man who wants to be known for liking to read and write. Not overly, but enough so. You get this odd mix of clever, self-indulgent, and I’m-the-teacher-teaching styles that don’t make this the best of reads. That this book begins with Pinker dissecting four pieces of writing and explaining why each of them is so great with the first being the work of his good friend Richard Dawkins and the second of his wife should give you some sense of what sort of book this will be. That the author should also explanibrag throughout the whole piece is self-evident from the first page.It’s no Strunk and White and it certainly does not rise to the task of replacing that slim volume for the 21st century. It’s good, but it’s not that good. I'm a sucker for style manuals, and this one aligns with my tastes in almost all its advice, so it's probably unsurprising that I liked it. It's fairly sprightly and readable as these things go, with only the sixth (and longest) chapter diving into granular grammar/style advice about particular word choices. Instead, most of the book is devoted to macro-level issues of style. Recommended for the sorts of people who like thinking and reading about why "bibulous" is an okay word but "pulchritudinous" isn't, or who like it when the advice-giver admits that "think about how a less knowledgeable reader would experience this text" is basically impossible to follow as a matter of cognitive psychology. And then gives that advice anyway.
What do You think about The Sense Of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide To Writing In The 21st Century (2014)?
Fun read for a layman (although I must admit I only glossed over the sentence diagramming chapter).
—ukeindo
you should read only chapter 6 that`s all folksother stuff is just author`s taste of grammar
—akd123
Started off stronger, got a little wearying a third of the way through. 2.5 stars
—RMac
Title says it all. Many examples with notations on why they're great - or not
—Elmarie
