Fans pick 100 books like Writing Metrical Poetry

I love Bill Bryson’s dry and wry sense of humor, his sharp eye for the preposterous, and his fascination with detail. In his better-known books, it’s travel, but this fits my fascination with language and naming because it tells the story of English.

Well, stories of English, anyway—it’s not a scholarly history (which I’d also enjoy) but more a collection of anecdotes to illustrate some of the quirks of the language. It’s fun and easy reading, and some things piqued my curiosity enough that I dug in further with more authoritative books. 

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.

We all want to use language well. But language pundits sometimes promote grammar rules (e.g. no ‘split infinitives’) that contrast with what we hear in speech all the time.

The source of the discrepancy is traditional grammar books, which originated in the 18th Century, and were based on Latin models. But English has always had a different grammatical structure than Latin, and so some traditional ‘rules’ have never made sense. Instead of relying on such traditional prescriptive grammars, it is much better to refer to modern descriptive grammars, which describes how English is actually used nowadays.

These are based on thousands of examples of real written texts and spoken discourse, and so they can confidently report how English is really used in today’s world. The Cambridge Grammar of English is one of the best examples. 

The Oxford (and, later, Cambridge) literature scholar looks out at the shifting cultural landscape of post-war Britain in the late 1940s and prophesies the postmodern future we now inhabit. It is one of Lewis’s lesser-known volumes (he is the author of the Chronicles of Narnia and bestselling religious books such as Mere Christianity) and one of the shortest.

But this book packs a powerful punch that I have used in teaching law students about our culture three generations after Lewis wrote it. Why are people so confused about morality today and yet so strident in their opinions? Lewis helped me see why, as few others have.

Lincoln was a great communicator, whose greatest speeches deliver emotional power through unfussy language. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of the best-selling page-turner Uncle Tom’s Cabin, knew a thing or two about language. She said Lincoln’s compelling words had “the relish and smack of the soil.” Douglas Wilson’s study is an exercise in historical detection. Sleuth-like he uses the successive manuscript drafts of Lincoln’s speeches and public letters to show his care in choosing his words, and how alert he was to sense, sound, imagery, context, and clarity. Lincoln’s Sword is a masterpiece, a showcase of the literary and political sensibilities that made Wilson an acclaimed winner of the Lincoln Prize.

There was probably never a language documentary as compelling as The Story of English, and the companion book The Story of English was an inspiration for my own book – and my title.

How could the language of a small out-of-the-way island go global and become the entire world’s second language? Conquest? (that’s a plus and a minus) Dysfunctional spelling and crazy grammar? (joke) Political and cultural good fortune? (Definitely.) But what else? And to what ends?

And this language ‘game’ has had so many players besides the English – the Scots, the Irish, the Americans, Africa, and Asia. And of course, 35 years ago no one could have imagined how many more global roles English would be playing.

Mignon is one of my writing idols, so this is rightfully one of my writing bibles.

No one’s better than Mignon—best known as “Grammar Girl” on her podcasts and in her books—at separating fact from fiction when it comes to grammar. She also has an extremely friendly, supportive style that builds trust right away, like getting advice from your neighbor (who happens to be omniscient about language and word usage).

I felt this myself as one of Mignon’s guests on her very popular podcast. Quick and Dirty Tips is like having Mignon’s skill and insight on call, and that’s an amazing and invaluable resource for any writer. 

To be perfectly honest, the title is the best part of this book. None of the text is quite as funny as the concept, but the concept is worth the price of admission.

You can keep your A is for Apple and B is for Ball. I’ll take K is for Knight and D is for Djibouti.

It’s not likely that a toddler is going to need to spell “phlegm” any time soon, but it’s a fun read for the adult — and the grown-ups also need to be entertained by a book that’s going to be aloud 100 times. 

I stumbled upon this one in a library. Yes, they still have things called Libraries. And this book is a little ripper if you are writing fiction. 

If you have ever attempted to write a novel, you would have no doubt found yourself saying things like his heart was racing; he held his breath, a shiver ran up his spine, blah, blah, blah. It’s not until you go back through your manuscript that you realize how many times you have used the same descriptions. Over and over and over again. 

This little gem of a book is jam-packed with alternatives. It offers brilliant tips on expressing the same emotions and feelings with originality and without repetition.

Just as King is a master of fiction, the late, great John McPhee is a nonfiction master. He gained fame as staff writer for The New Yorker, then authored dozens of books on such diverse subjects as fishing, geology, and transportation. (Trust me: His fascinating novel-like prose is more engaging, enlightening, and enrapturing than those topics imply.) In 1999, he finally won a well-deserved General Nonfiction Pulitzer on his fourth try. In this treatise on writing well, McPhee offers insight into his craft, including diagrams of story structure he shared with journalism students at Princeton. The book appeals to my logical side; in my book I say I see writing as like building with Legos, putting together one colorful block at a time to eventually form a 7,541-piece Millennium Falcon.