The most recommended vocabulary books

Cute story about a little seed named Purpose who wants to be a tree. I love the picture where he looks so tiny next to the flower and he is holding a leaf in each hand with a sprout coming out of his head. He is oblivious to the fact that what he longs for is already growing inside him. The author has done a wonderful job incorporating the special “talents” of nature to counsel Purpose about the true potential that dwells within him. A great story for children who are trying to figure out who they are and what they want to be. This story would also be great for adults who doubt their abilities or question their potential. A source of inspiration for all ages

So, if builders go to Bunnings to find their tools and I go to Rogets for mine, well then, Merriam-Webster is just another brand of hardware store for writers. But let’s call this one Mitre Ten.

This is a staple of a home office when writing. Have it sitting there in plain sight all day long while you write.

This is another fave of mine because the protagonist is a boy who collects words (rather than stamps or baseball cards). He saves the words he’s learned in a scrapbook until one day, he trips and his words go flying into the air and land in a jumble on the floor. What he discovers are odd and interesting pairings of words he wouldn’t have thought go together. The result is poetic. Finally, he takes a big sack of words to the top of a hill and scatters them into the wind so other kids will make their own connections. This book is fantastic for kids and adults who love words.

This is a classic whole year (or semester) method to learn Spanish. I recommend it both for teachers and students since it is so complete and so well structured, that it can be well profited from both sides. 

The method is designed to fast forward and the new versions have been improved with the help of teachers who already used it, which is so interesting. It’s well organized: 18 units divided in 5 points each (goals; texts-oral and written; grammar; activities for grammar and lexic practice; and a final task to be ideally prepared in group: a script for a radio show).

The pack is completed with audios that show the differences between Spanish language all over the world.

I first read this as a teenager, and its wise counsel has stayed with me ever since. Gowers’ book was originally written as a guide for British government workers, to help them avoid the perils of jargon and ‘officialese’ and write in a way that colleagues and (more importantly) the person in the street could actually understand. 

The fact that I could immediately apply the ideas to my school essays shows you why this book has been continuously in print since the 1950s, and why generations of writers have found it so useful in shaping their own style. 

Practicing exactly what he preaches, Gowers lays down the principles of plain English, in plain English. Read and see why this deserves to be called a classic.

I loved the musicality of this book and its bilingual construction.

I appreciated the centering of the Indigenous languages historically known as Thompson River and Coast Salish. It challenged me to look into the glossary in the back, to pore over the pronunciation guides, to lose myself briefly in the representation of unfamiliar, beautiful sounds while knowing they mean the world to those who hold them dear.

English translations (loon or earth or snake, or even the questions in the refrain) are placed within glancing reach in small print and the first-person narrative is a journey through particular, beloved landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.

This is one of those books I thought about long after I’d finished reading. Through human greed and global warming, the resulting decimation of the planet means food and water are rationed for survival…but so are words. Noa, the leader of the community, believes that words and how they were used, led to the downfall of humanity so allows people to only use a list of specific words. Except for the wordsmiths, who are allowed to know them all. 

As an author whose life is all about words, this was a really interesting book to read – what does it do to a society when ideas, thoughts, creativity are stifled by lack of words? And when everything is rationed – water, food, words, enjoyment – what does that do to a community?

People have always been fascinated by well-established idioms, especially when their original meaning is obscure, such as "raining cats and dogs" and "kick the bucket." But new idioms continue to emerge, fuelled especially by films, television, and the internet, and this book brings together, for the first time, idioms that have arrived in the past fifty years or so. Not rocket science? Catch 22? Move the goalposts? And another sixty or so. Far more than I thought.

Try to get your hands on the original 1963 edition that made Richard Scarry‘s fortune and allowed him to move his family to Switzerland, for the skiing. It’s a fabulous book that’s crowded with scenes of purpose and industry, and with labeled pictures that bespeak the world’s exciting wideness. There are birds (the quail, pheasant, wren, bittern), buildings (a cathedral, pyramid, fort, skyscraper), flowers (clover, pansies, asters, foxgloves), and houses (the igloo, grass house, half-timbered house, chalet). Over time, subsequent editions were stripped of this eccentric specificity and of Scarry’s courtly depictions of traditional social roles (gone, for instance, are the “handsome pilot” and the “pretty stewardess”).

A builder has a tool belt. In that belt, he has a hammer, a drill, a level, a tape measure, and so on. He needs those tools to build whatever he is going to build. 

A writer has a tool belt tool. In that belt, the writer has words. The writer uses those words to build, too–not houses but stories. And unless you are planning on building a shabby shack, you need to fill that tool belt of yours with as many words as you can find. 

I’ve been writing for 23 years, but I still try to add at least five new words to my tool belt every day. Builders go to Bunnings to find their tools. I go to Rogets.