Reference Books

As you can see, I spent last weekend giving this blog some additional features as I especially wanted to share some superb resource books. I've had my copy of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style by my side since my university days and it has proven its value to me over the past 30+ years, now careworn though it is. I have kept the Oxford dictionary as my vocabulary bible since my move to Asia, where the Queen's English still prevails, and am lucky that it is also loaded on my Treo mobile phone for constant and instant reference (for example, I just consulted it to see if 'careworn' had a hyphen or not...). Our copy (this one is shared with my spouse as we both refer to it frequently with pleasure) of Larousse Gastronomique (we have the hardcover edition) is another resource constantly consulted both for writing assignments and to settle issues of discussion and curiosity. Decades ago, a food writer (later managing editor) in Hawaii, John Heckathorn of Honolulu magazine, highly recommended the Larousse Gastronomique and we've never forgotten: thank you, John.
You will see that the recommended books also include several that relate to the writing of fiction. There are three reasons for this: one, even a non-fiction article has to have a bit of 'storytelling' to engage the reader or it will present like a clipping from an encyclopedia (I'm talking feature article, not news reportage here); two, there are lessons to be learned from character development that can be applied to your presentation of an interview subject; and three, many of you have asked me to extend my writing tips to the realms of fiction and beyond, which I will attempt to satisfy in coming months.
Perhaps noticeably absent from my list is the recent best seller, Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. Although I found it very entertaining, with some funny examples of poor punctuation, the book should NOT be a grammatical reference as it suffers from very poor editing. Read The New Yorker's review of it by Louis Menand at (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/06/28/040628crbo_books1) to understand what I mean. As with any endeavour, credibility is lost when you do not 'walk the talk' and 'practice what you preach'. The book ends up sending a confused message.
However, what this all underscores is the importance of reading, reading, reading. Learn from both the successes and failures of others.

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