On Speaking Well: How to Give a Speech with Style, Substance, and Clarity
by Peggy Noonan
Prior to writing columns for the Wall Street Journal and Time, Peggy Noonan was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. In this book she shares her wisdom about speaking and speechwriting.
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Copywriting Is… 30-or-So Thoughts on Thinking Like a Copywriter
by Andrew Boulton
Andrew Boulton is an advertising copywriter, lecturer, and columnist from the U.K. He is clearly a man of letters, but apparently not a numbers guy: this book has neither chapter numbers nor page numbers. I counted 36 chapters and 220 pages in which Boulton reflects on the creative practice of copywriting. Here are some highlights.
“We are in the business of purposeful attention—getting noticed, of course, but then doing something meaningful with that attention…The very nature of the job is to be, not the loudest voice, but the most compelling—to say something conventional and familiar in a way that feels extraordinary and unavoidable.”
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The Little Book of Confusables: Simple spelling and usage tips to help smart people avoid stupid mistakes
by Sarah Townsend
This book disambiguates 600 commonly confused words. Examples include: aggravated, agitated; a lot, allot; assume, presume; coherent, cohesive; discreet, discrete; enervate, innervate, innovate; faze, phase; feasible, plausible; flaunt, flout; fortuitous, fortunate; historic, historical; hoard, horde; indolent, insolent; literal, littoral; loath, loathe; sleight, slight; tack, tact; tortuous, torturous; unkempt, unkept; vain, vane, vein; and wet, whet.
I was happy to learn that French quotation marks are called « guillemet ». I’ll be careful not to confuse that with guillemot, “a sea bird that nests on cliff edges.”
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On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
by William Zinsser (1922-2015)
William Zinsser taught nonfiction writing at Yale and he was editor of Book-of-the-Month Club. In a nutshell, the message is that good writing is clear, simple, and unpretentious. My father gave me a copy of the third edition of this book when I graduated from high school in the 1980s. While recently rereading it I was amused by Zinsser’s description of a new invention called a word processor—almost like someone describing their car as a horseless carriage. But otherwise the book stands up to the test of time (and there’s a newer edition available).
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Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography
by Eric Idle
This is an autobiography of a very funny writer and performer. The book includes many stories of how Monty Python projects came to be. But it is also the story of friendships and the healing power of comedy.
Continue reading “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography”An interview with Peter McGraw
author of Shtick to Business: What the masters of comedy can teach you
about breaking rules, being fearless, and building a serious career.
October 15, 2020 — 38 minutes — Book Review — Amazon
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Copywriting Made Simple: How to Write Powerful and Persuasive Copy that Sells
by Tom Albrighton
This is an excellent introduction to copywriting, offering general advice on the process as well as specific tips for print advertisements, audio and video scripts, sales letters, emails, brochures, and social media posts. The book is divided into three parts: plan your copy, write your copy, and improve your copy.
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Federal Plain Language Guidelines
Although oriented towards helping U.S. government employees write clear regulations, the Federal Plain Language Guidelines offers great advice for any nonfiction writer. It includes a section on writing content for web sites.
Here are some highlights.
“Address one person, not a group. Remember that even though your document may affect a thousand or a million people, you are speaking to the one person who is reading it. When your writing reflects this… [it] has a greater impact.”
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The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase
by Mark Forsyth
The Elements of Eloquence is about “the figures of rhetoric, which are the techniques for making a single phrase striking and memorable… They are the formulas for producing great lines.” Mark Forsyth writes with a sense of humor and he quotes examples from The Beatles, John F. Kennedy, Shakespeare, and Yoda.
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Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content
by Ann Handley
Everybody Writes is a catchy title, although a more accurate one would be Writing Tips for Content Marketing.
Here’s the secret formula: “The multiplication signs are important, because if the value of any one of these things (Utility, Inspiration, or Empathy) is zero, then the sum of your content is a big fat zero, too… Utility x Inspiration x Empathy = Quality Content.” I think she means product—not sum—but I like the idea.
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The Key Point 