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Featured Books of the Month
- Getting Around Brown : Desegregation, Development, and the Columbus
Public Schools (Urban Life and Urban Landscape)
- Greg Jacobs's log-awaited book on school desegregation is out, and it's in paperback! Woo-hoo! $16.95 from Amazon. There's also a hardback edition that will be available soon.
- Cryptonomicon
- by Neal Stephenson
- Secrets of Cooking: Armenian/Lebanese/Persian
- by Linda Chirinian. This is the book that Willa Grunes recommended to students in Near Eastern Studies.
- Chicago Manual of Style
- Good price for it.
- The New Well-Tempered Sentence : A Punctuation Handbook for the
Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
- Karen Elizabeth Gordon's marvelous little handbook on punctuation is something everyone should have on his desk (right next to the dictionary). It's clearly organized, easy to use, and full of amusing examples.
- The New Oxford Guide to Writing
- by Thomas Kane. This enormously useful book deals with the writing process, from initial planning through final revision. I love it because Kane does not merely spit the rules at you; he explains the reasons behind them. Emphasis on organizing and constructing sentences and paragraphs.
- Usage and Abusage: A Guide to Good English
- by Eric Partridge, Janet Whitcut. Classic reference work on usage, arranged in dictionary form. Like Fowler's, it's hard to put down once you've opened it to look a word up, as other interesting entries keep catching your eye.
- The Complete Plain Words
- by Ernest, Sir Gowers, Sidney Green, Janet Whitcut. Sir Ernest Gowers, a British civil servant, first wrote this book in the 1950s "at the invitation of the Treasury as contribution to what they were doing to improve official English" -- in other words, to teach civil servants how to write clear letters. It has since become a classic and gone through many revisions. Emphasis on the word choice and proper handling of words.
- The New Fowler's Modern English Usage
- by R. W. Burchfield (Editor), H. W. Fowler. "The acknowledged authority on English usage." If you're a serious lover of language, you'll drool over this brand-new reissue of Fowler's.
- A Writer's Reference (Internet Edition)
- by Diana Hacker. A basic grammar and writing handbook, tabbed for easy reference.
- Woe Is I : The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English
- by Patricia T. O'Conner, who has run grammar courses for New York Times employees (let's not pause to think about what the necessity for such a course says about our rapidly declining civilization). Remedial, but lively, accessible, and easier
to read than a straight handbook. If grammar is not your strongest suit, you may learn many useful things from this book. Those who need to brush up their basic skills should also see the first book under Test Prep, below. It's an
excellent grammar reference and contains loads of exercises to help you internalize the rules.
- Revising Prose
- by Richard Lanham. A slim book that concentrates on one thing: how to revise your writing and "trim the fat" from your prose. You may not agree with everything he recommends, but almost everyone will find some useful advice in this book.
and finally...
- Brain Droppings
- by George Carlin. The comedian's latest book includes a wonderful section on use and mis-use of English. I'm not kidding. (It's also a damn funny book.)
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- Kaplan SAT II: Writing 1998-1999
- Just off the presses! Truly excellent preparation for the SAT II Writing Test, and a good all-around grammar reference as well. Buy it now and hang onto it in college. It has excellent practice tests (if I do say so myself--I wrote several of them).
- Kaplan SAT II : Mathematics Level IC, IIC 1998
- Available immediately.
- Kaplan SAT II : Biology 1998-99 (Serial)
- Just became available!
- Kaplan SAT II : Chemistry 1998-99
- Just became available!
- Kaplan SAT 1998
-
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- Creating Killer Web Sites, 2nd Edition
- by David S. Siegel
- Secrets of Successful Web Sites: Project Management on the World Wide Web
- by David S. Siegel
- Web Site Bundle-Creating Killer Web Sites, 2nd Edition/Secrets of Successful Web Sites
- by David S. Siegel
- Database Design and Publishing With Filemaker 4 for Mac and Windows
- by Don Crabb, Jeff Gagne
- Filemaker Pro 4 for Dummies
- by Tom Maremaa
- Planning and Managing Web Sites on the Macintosh : The Complete Guide to Webstar and MacHttp
- by Jon Wiederspan, Chuck Shotton
- Providing Internet Services Via the Mac OS
- by Carl Steadman, Jason Snell, Peter N. Lewis (Introduction)
- MacWorld Mac Secrets (5th Ed)
- by David Pogue, Joseph Schorr
- Photoshop Web Magic
- by Jeff Foster
- Photoshop 4 Type Magic 1
- By Greg Simsic
- Photoshop Bundle-Photoshop Type Magic 2/Photoshop Effects Magic/HTML Web Magic
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- Designing Web Graphics 2
- by Lynda Weinman
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- A Canticle for Leibowitz
- By Walter Miller. If you're one of the few who haven't read it, you're missing out.
- Lord of Light
- By Roger Zelazny. Out of bloody print, can you believe it?
- The All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton
- By Jane Smiley. Lorraine's suggestion.
- An Instance of the Fingerpost
- by Iain Pears. Lorraine's suggestion.
- Moghul Buffet
- by Cheryl Benard. Matt Eliot's suggestion.
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If you think you can live without these books, you're mistaken. That's not really living.
- Paperweight
- Out of print in this country. Ask anyway. And if Amazon can't find it, go to Blackwell's. Paperweight is a collection of essays and columns. Includes the Trefusis wireless addresses and Latin! (the play).
- The Liar
- Brilliantly funny novel. Buy the book, but try also to find the cassette of Fry reading the entire novel (again, Blackwell's may be the place to look). Never gets old. Also available in
hardcover.
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Making History
- His latest novel, about the perils of changing the past. Wonderful. Hardcover here, paperback in the UK.
- Moab is my Washpot
- His autobiography, and I don't know why the hell it takes these books so long to get published here. Available in the UK in hardback and on audiocassette. I have both. Try Blackwell's.
- The Hippopotamus
- Well plotted novel.
- Do you just want to revel in the sound of his voice? Try the audiocassette versions of Where Angels Fear to Tread, Picture of Dorian Gray, and Wilde: The Novelization. But I still recommend getting your hands on a copy of the Liar cassetes. Trefusis should be heard.
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Misc. (suggestions from various people)
- Seeing Like a State : How Certain Schemes to Improve the
Human Condition Have Failed (Yale Agrarian Studies)
- by James C. Scott
- Discourses of the Vanishing : Modernity, Phantasm, Japan
- by Marilyn Ivy
- Night Market : Sexual Cultures and the Thai Economic
Miracle
- by Ryan Bishop, Lillian S. Robinson
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- Selected Poetry
- by Hugh MacDiarmid
- Sleepy Maggie CD
- By Ashley MacIsaac
- Selected Poems, 1954-1992
- by George MacKay Brown
- World's Worst Poet : Selections from 'Poetic Gems'
- by William McGonagall
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- Soul and Spice
- by Heidi Haughy Cusick, Jessica B. Harris
- The New Doubleday Cookbook
- by Elaine Hanna, Jean E. Anderson
- Beard on Bread
- James Beard
- New Recipes from Moosewood
- Moosewood Collective
- The Complete Book of Spices
- Jill Norman
- The New Basics Cookbook
- by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins
- The Classic Italian Cookbook
- by Marcella Hazan
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Jo Miller's Gateway | Pad o' Fun
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