J. I. Rodale (1898–1971)

Fron the publishers of Organic Gardening Magazine, Rodale publishing, this is a small book ... for all the stuff it covers. And it covers it well!
It has made me look good - a buncha times. Years ago, for example, my parents had retired and were putting in a garden when my Mother expressed a desire for a row of asparagus. It so happened I had just been perusing that very topic myself and told her so.
I got the book back three years later! And that's not the ONLY time I've had to "borrow it show more back". Its that helpful AND interesting.
The fact that it deals with Organic methods means it stays useful ... and will, years from now. show less

This brawny reference of correlative convolutions (without all of the reciprocative stalemates of garden-variety thesauri) can vamp up any mythmaker's most pedantical wisps of print. This elephantine index could out-Herod itself only by metathesizing its database into electronic format. In other words, it's a big thick stick writers should carry only while walking softly.

Published some 6 years after the Word Finder, Rodale's Phrase Finder is a distinctive thesaurus, a phrase dictionary, and a guide to names in mythology and literature. My gripe with Roget's Thesaurus is it always suggests things I could have through of myself: Rodale's Phrase Finder (and the companion book Word Finder) jog me out of sounding like a moderately educated early 21st-century person. (Very useful for a writer, even if you just want to get out of your own voice.)

The Phrase Finder show more says a rival might 'pluck a crow' with his enemy if he suddenly met him on the street (or 'raise Cain' or one of several more familiar phrases). It gives shades of meaning ('quarrel--see other entries for argue, squabble, discord, disagree'). If you are looking for something other than 'fighting' or 'shouting' in a sentence this is book for you.

The Phrase Finder also gives examples of famous doctors and artists, i.e. "she was a virtual _____, a very accomplished painter." It gives famous names for various personality traits and adjectives for various animals ("When the Baroness entered the room she (insert the word for resembling a fox, a cow, a partridge, a crocodile, etc.)" The Phrase Finder also explains who famous mythological and historical people were -- not what they did or when they were born, but how they are remembered (as embodiments of friendship, bravery, guile, etc.)

You may send your readers running for a dictionary but you won't sound like everyone else in the heap. J.I. Rodale was a writer, editor and publisher: he knew his way around the language and this book will help any writer think of less-cliched ways to express themself.

-Lisa Shapter show less

This book takes you a step past the standard thesaurus. Say you are looking for a word to go with "perishable": "She cleared away the cobwebs and opened a dark cupboard that contained single can labeled '_____ perishable'". This book offers 15 choices, to suit a comic, Lovecraftian, modern, Victorian, or neutrally descriptive tone -- and may jog your memory for more. This book is a listing of adjectives and adverbs (and sometimes verbs) compiled by the founder of the publisher that printed show more it (who was also an author and editor). It thinks like a writer (and editor) and it's a big help if you do any kind of writing. Seek it out (unless writing advice books have frightened you out of ever using adjectives). show less