Books and book reviews

Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career by Saying What You Mean What is the book about? Are you wondering how Josh Bernoff feels about modern business writing? The title of his book says it all—front-loading at its best! If you’ve had enough of verbal ducking and weaving in business writing, this book is for you. No more hiding behind jargon, weasel words and cowardly passives. Instead boldly say what you want to say. As Bernoff explains, clear writing that expresses

Run out of things to read? There is a new book in town: “The African Svelte: Ingenious Misspellings that Make Surprising Sense” by Daniel Menaker. A seasoned author and editor himself, Menaker has spent many years collecting spelling errors that—while remaining errors—follow their own fascinating logic. The people who make these types of errors are usually those who may have heard a certain turn of phrase spoken out loud but have rarely seen it in writing. So, when they do commit that

Even if you think you have read enough style manuals to last you a lifetime, you should give this one a try. Good writing is worth reading about Steven Pinker is no unknown and definitely does not need me to recommend his book. He’s a household name in linguistics and cognitive science—in part because he is such an entertaining writer. The title of his latest book “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century” says it

When you think about it, food is a living expression of history and culture. In his book The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu, Dan Jurafsky takes us on a whirlwind journey through the history of common foods and unveils their often unexpected origins and what they tell us about human psychology.