- Paperback: 290 pages
- Publisher: Random House USA Inc; 2nd edition edition (18 Aug 1988)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0394729366
- ISBN-13: 978-0394729367
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13 x 2.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 559,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Reader over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
8 reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Buy This Book
1 Nov 2002
Format:Paperback
If your students refuse to learn how important it is to focus on INDIVIDUAL WORDS-- if they insist on thinking that it is sufficient to 'get their point across in a rough way'-- if their sentences are as a result sometimes nonsensical, suggest this book. And then make them read it-- including the appendix at the back.
Among other valuable aspects, the book uses examples of bad writing from famous authors-- simultaneously reassuring the student that a mistake can happen to the best of us, and reminding the student that vigilance is always necessary.
26 of 31 people found the following review helpful
The Granddaddy of Fisking
24 May 2003
Format:Hardcover
THWACK! Down comes the headmaster's birch-rod on the sensitive knuckles of the bumbling pupil. Botch that passage again, lazybones, and I'll have your hide!
Poet-novelist Robert Graves and historian Alan Hodge have written a delightful book containing a very quirky 126-page critical history of English prose, a few short chapters listing every conceivable principle of clear & graceful writing, followed by some 200 pages of the most carping, anal-retentive editing & revising you've ever seen. Unlike most style-book authors, who criticize hypothetical or anonymous examples of bad prose, Graves & Hodge courageously tackle many of the biggest names of their era (Hemingway, Aldous Huxley, Bernard Shaw) and relentlessly pick, pick, pick until the carcass is clean and the bones lie strewn about the lair. Then they put it back together again PROPERLY, the way the author should have done it the first time. As G&H themselves note, the book might as well be subtitled "A Short Cut to Unpopularity".
Of course, if any headmaster ever treated me the way G&H treat their victims, I'd be outraged. Luckily, we are not one of their hapless victims suffering under their harsh tutelage; so, although we wince in sympathy with those being raked over the coals, we can also profit greatly from their chastisement. "The Reader Over Your Shoulder" is the most painstaking and explicit guide ever published on the craft of revising one's prose. Ideal for self-study. But beware: G&H get under your skin and stay there. Even as I write this review I can sense these two meticulous sadists hovering over my shoulder and I ready myself for a thrashing.
This review refers to the out-of-print, unabridged 1944 edition.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
This is my favorite book in the world
24 May 1999
Format:Paperback
This is my favorite book. For years I struggled as a writer, unnecessarily as I now know, because I had never been taught the principles of clear communication.
This book teaches those principles. I recommend it to any writer who is trying to improve his work.
This book teaches a hard-core discipline of writing. To follow its principles will not only improve your writing ability, it will make you a better person.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
