The Sense of Style

This book is about writing clear, graceful, and precise non-fiction texts. At first glance it might look like another manual on writing, such as the famous Elements of Style by Strunk and White, or On Writing Well by William Zinsser. This is not so.

What sets The Sense of Style apart from other manuals on english prose that I have read is the angle that Pinker takes when he talks about writing. Rather than a rulebook filled with holy commandments about grammar, punctuation, construction of sentences, composition, etc., what one finds here is a reasoned discussion on the craft of writing, built on many examples of good prose and bad prose. To make the discussion even more useful, Pinker often backs up his comments with extended research in neurolinguistics, allowing the reader to fully understand why some sentences have a beautiful ring to them, while others just suck.

To borrow a clichéd metaphor, by the end of the book I felt that Pinker gave me a thread and a fishing pole, rather than feeding me with something he fished himself.

So why the three stars? Far too many uncommon words that do not add any value to the text, while just making the read more difficult. I get that Pinker is the chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, but often I just felt like he was flexing. Probably a re-read of the Elements of Style would have helped in omitting needless words.