The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

If you are word person, you’re going to love The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. Actually, if you’d rather use Strunk and White’s Elements of Style to balance your wobbly dining table than for your prose, you’ll devour Steven Pinker’s latest language missive. From the second page, I found myself reaching to underline passages and take notes. This contribution to the style guide genre reads as if you are having a language discussion with a close friend, who just happens to be a very smart cognitive scientist. Oops! Strike the very in the previous sentence, see page 45. One (of many) strengths in this book is that Pinker meanders into and out of contemporary events and examples, providing examples that introduce a matter of style with the reasoning behind the choices. So that the rule or, better yet, the author’s choice makes sense. Pinker’s writing is humorous, yet packs priceless nuggets of information that stick with you. If you want to ditch the style manuals of yesteryear and dip into a refreshing read, pick up The Sense of Style.