New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage
For years, the essential reference for writers, editors, book designers, proofreaders, indexers, and reference librarians in matters of style, publishing procedure, manuscript preparation, editing, typesetting, and usage has been the Chicago Manual of Style, first published in 1906 and now in its 14th edition (LJ 10/15/93). The title at hand is the most recent challenger to Chicago's dominance in the field. It seeks to set itself apart from the big orange book by including several chapters on grammar (Chicago doesn't treat grammar at all) and to court the nonprofessional writer and publisher by being less prescriptive and more flexible. Chicago essentially presents one style-its own. The New York Public Library Writer's Guide is a friendlier volume with 150 short sidebars on language and usage, including examples from William Safire, Norman Mailer, E.B. White, the Washington Post, and other popular and authoritative sources. Whether a volume like this is useful depends on the ease with which one can find the answers to the thousands of procedural questions that come up when putting words on a page for publication. Unfortunately, by including the grammar chapters and narrative side articles to little advantage, this work makes look-up more complicated, thereby diluting its usefulness. How many people will browse this book for pleasure? And anyone publishing something of length will still need to use a more comprehensive grammar reference. Its softer focus may make this guide more appealing for the home market, but the result is less useful as a manual. Stick to Chicago. You may also want to consider Marjorie Skillin's useful Words into Type.Paul D'Alessandro, Portland P.L., Me.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.