Top Ten Tuesday: Books on Writing and Grammar

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic from The Broke and the Bookish is "Top X Genre Books." I'm preoccupied with preparing my students to write their fieldwork assignments, so I've got grammar and writing on the brain. Hence . . .

My Top Ten Books on Writing and Grammar

1. On Writing Well by William Zinsser. A classic, and rightfully so. I also highly recommend Zinsser's Writing to Learn.

2. Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle.

3. Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day by Joan Bolker. A new favorite, this book got me over my writing blocks and into writing my dissertation.

4. The Careful Writer by Theodore Bernstein.

5. The Art of Fiction by John Gardiner.

6. Getting the Words Right: How to Rewrite, Edit, and Revise by Theodore Cheney. I'm not a fan of some of Cheney's other works (especially Writing Creative Nonfiction), but this book is a great overview of the revision process.

7. Garner's Modern American Usage by Bryan Garner.

8. Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog by Kitty Burns Florey. An entire book on sentence diagramming!

9. Negotiating with the Dead by Margaret Atwood.

10a. The Gregg Reference Manual by William Sabin. A nuts-and-bolts workhorse of a book that lays out the basics of professional communication.

10b. Words Into Type. Another classic. Words Into Type isn't so much about writing and grammar, but about the whole process of turning a manuscript into a final printed work. An extremely useful primer for would-be authors.

I currently have in my reading queue The Subversive Copy Editor, How to Write a Sentence, and Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks, so I may be adding to this list in the coming weeks.