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

The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a grammar books written not as a textbook but as a popular non-fiction book, part how-to and part analysis and history. It’s interesting if you are into that kind of thing, and I suspect most fans would fall into a type, say INTJ: People that look for patterns, and that have a high standard of competence for themselves and others. It seems this is a very good description of this book’s target market. I found it interesting (and yes I occasionally test into this group). I enjoyed the discussions of grammar and history. The writing was very engaging, surprising given this topic that can be quite dry. The last large section contains what you’d expect in this kind of book, a long list of common errors with discussion, and another listing of the author’s pet peeves, grammatically speaking. If anything, it was a bit long, especially that last bit. I listened to this on audio. This wouldn’t be a great experience for those wanting to take notes, but for those listening for story and for style, audio is fine.

View all my reviews