8 great books for writers
It’s never too early to think about that perfect holiday gift for the writer in your life. How about books that will make the arduous tasks of writing and editing a little more fun?
Here are eight titles to enjoy:
1. “Wretched Writing: A Compendium of Crimes Against the English Language”
A “celebration of the worst writing imaginable.” Reading this book is like driving past a car wreck—you want to look away, but you can’t.
2. “I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar”
Any editor would judge you unfit for duty if you made mistakes like these.
3. “Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong”
These aren’t just simple typos. Someone made these mistakes using frosting.
4. “The Book of ‘Unnecessary’ Quotation Marks: A Celebration of Creative Punctuation”
I had always thought the use of quotation marks was fairly straightforward. Not so.
5. “Passive Aggressive Notes: Painfully Polite and Hilariously Hostile Writings”
We’ve all wanted to leave them, but these folks actually did.
6. “Damn You, Autocorrect!: Awesomely Embarrassing Text Messages You Didn’t Mean to Send”
Smartphones create dumb people, and autocorrect makes fools of us all.
7. “Lonely Planet Signspotting: Absurd & Amusing Signs from Around the World”
My favorites: the sign on a traffic light that says, “This light never turns green,” or the one that warns, “Caution: blind drivers backing out.”
8. “William Shakespeare’s Star Wars”
The Bard tackles “Star Wars” in five acts using iambic pentameter. For example, Han Solo’s line to Chewbacca as Solo forces him into the garbage chute: “Get in there, you big furry oaf! I don’t care what you smell!” becomes this:
“— Get in, thou furry lump!
I care not what thou smell’st within! Unless
‘Tis death, must be a sweeter smell than this
Attack! Now go, be not afear’d, my friend!”
PR Daily readers, any books to add to the list?
This article was first posted on Ragan Communication’s PR Daily.
