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Book Review – Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on August 6, 2026

Let’s Review Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen

Dave Kerpen has a rather interesting book here. This book is thoroughly likeable, if you will.

Likeable Social Media

This book was required reading, as a part of my Community Management class at Quinnipiac University.

And it made for an excellent read.

For Kerpen, a lot of social media success comes from listening to, and then surprising and delighting customers and potential customers. Are your posts what they are interested in? If you received this post, would you bother clicking on it?

Case in point for surprise and delight

In May of 2015, my husband, parents, and I went to a Mexican restaurant in my parents’ town. We had eaten there before, but not so much that they knew our names or our usual orders or the like.

My husband and I did not visit my parents too often. And he visited them even less than I did. To the restaurant, even if my parents were repeat customers, my husband and I surely did not look like repeats.

There was a short wait until we got our food. Without prompting, we received a little appetizer, which mainly consisted of little breaded and fried mashed potatoes, configured a bit like sticks. There were three bits of sauce in different colors.

The potatoes and sauce, most likely, were leftover odds and ends. It may have taken the chef all of ten minutes to make the dish. I did not see anyone else getting the appetizer. We thanked the server. The appetizer tasted good.

They served us our food, and you would think that would be the end of it. But it was not. We did not order dessert. Yet we received a plate of flan and four spoons anyway. No one asked us. We just got the flan (it tasted really good). We were not charged for either little extra.

These twin activities impressed us, so much so that I have even linked back to the restaurant. Win-win!

Surprise and delight your customers. Or, as I would like to say, where’s the flan?

Being Likeable

By no coincidence, Kerpen named his company Likeable Media. From its positive name to its obvious association with Facebook, the book and the company are all about creating positive and meaningful experiences for customers and potential customers.

Kerpen begins with listening and with careful, accurate, and specific targeting. For example, not all women in their 50s or 60s and beyond have the same interests. He strongly urges marketers to dig deeper.

He also encourages them to have empathy for their customers. Is a post interesting? Would it be welcome to the customer base?

The first fans should be preexisting customers, with perks for the really rabid fans. Another skill to master: engaging in a true dialog.

This means not just accepting praise, but also effectively and expeditiously responding to complaints. It also means owning up to your mistakes when you make them.

Honesty

Kerpen advocates authenticity, honesty and transparency in dealings, and promoting an exchange by asking questions, which goes right back to listening. From listening, comes the surprise and delight.

Did the restaurant hear us complaining about slower than normal service? Possibly. The appetizer and the flan certainly helped to quell those complaints and win us over.

Because he is talking about social media (and not restaurant service), Kerpen’s flan moment does not just cover coupons and offers. It is also the sharing of stories as social capital.

Some of this includes stories of the company (e. g. how a product was invented that spawned an industry). But it also encompasses the stories of the customers themselves.

Imagine being a soft drink company and asking customers who drank your soft drink during their first date to share their love stories? Attach this promotion to Valentines’ Day and maybe even ask a couple about their future plans…

Finally, rather than hard selling, Kerpen exhorts marketers to simply make it easy to buy. Good products and services will always have customers. Generally, you do not need to massage demand. But you do need to make it easier for customers to open their wallets.

A terrific, breezy read, well worth your time.

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Rating for the Book and for Dave Kerpen Himself

5/5 stars

Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans, A Book Review

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on August 4, 2026

A Look at Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans

Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans was a book that I might have read a little too late in the semester. In all fairness, I read this book toward the end of my first social media class at Quinnipiac (ICM 522).

Hence it felt like I already knew a lot of what she had written, but that was likely more a function of timing than anything else.

Sorry, Li.

Been There, Done That

So the Liana Evans book is interesting. However, I had just read a ton of other works about very similar work, strategies, and ideas. Therefore, it ended up being maybe one book too many. Plus it ended up an optional read, anyway.

Furthermore, other works seemed to have said it better. So these days, books just do not get published fast enough to take proper advantage of trends and new insights. Hence blogs, in general (although not always!) end up more current and relevant.

What Was the Best Thing I Learned from Liana Evans and Her Book?

Possibly the best takeaway I got from the book was when Evans talked about online communities, particularly in Chapter 33 – You Get What You Give. So on page 255, she writes –
• You need to invest your resources, such as …
† Time to research where the conversation is
• Time and resources to develop a strategy
† and Time and staff resources to engage community members
• Time to listen to what they are saying, in the communities
† Time and resources to measure successes and failures
• Giving valuable content
† It is similar to a bank account
• Don’t bribe the community

And ~

† Rewards come in all fashions
• Research who your audience is
† Give your audience something valuable and/or exclusive
• Don’t expect you’ll know everything
† Listen to what your audience says
• Admit when you are wrong
† Thank your community

Finally, much like we have been telling people for years on Able2know – listen before you speak!

Rating

Review: 4/5 stars.

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for social media resonate with you, then check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Book Reviews on Social Media, SEO, Analytics, Design, and Strategy

• Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0, a Book Review
† The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition, a Book Review
• Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson, a Book Review
† Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, An Updated Book Review
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk
† Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen
• The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott, A Book Review
† The Numerati by Stephen Baker, a Book Review
• Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, a Book Review
† The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani, a Book Review

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The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition, a Book Review

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on June 25, 2026

A Look at The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition

The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger is one of those books where you are getting a message.

That Message

It is a pounding, relentless message.

Here is a message.

Oh yeah, a message.

Look, a message!

You get the idea. It. Never. Stops.

And what is this grand and glorious message? It is this: Markets are Conversations.

Um, okay. Is that all there is?

Yeah, that is it. Oh and by the way, did ya know that markets are conversations?

You just told me that.

And Then There is Even More of it

Yeah, well, they are. Did I mention that markets are conversations? Oh and by the way, marketers and PR people are mean and nasty and awful. And they and other typical business people are a vaguely (and not so vaguely) sinister stereotype.

Whereas all of the other people (somehow, there are no details of who these typical business people and PR personnel are) are righteous, pure, just and true.

They are individuals and deserve to receive our communication, and our undivided listening attention, like all individuals, yes?

Uniqueness?

Like, uh, I am unique, just like everyone else?

No, no, no! You are a unique and wonderful and special person with marvelous gifts and enormous accuracy in understanding good and positive and possible markets.

And yet you do it all while making fun of typical business people who obviously not only do not have a clue but are also, let’s face it, heartless, cold, inaccurate, not listening, not worthy of the time of day or a significant study.

And otherwise they should be ignored and forgotten, left to die on the vine.

But me, I am a marketing type. The kind you said was evil.

So you are. Well, you are evil, then.

Cut it out already!

You do not even realize that I get it, this thing you are talking about, this point you keep dancing around as you keep beating the same old tired drum. Markets are conversations! Okay, great. I get that. And I have read it before although, in fairness, it was likely copying you.

But after that, and after repeating this mantra at least a good 16 or so times in your book, what else have you got to say, other than that the creature known as Business as Usual needs to die?

Fine, I get that, too. I have worked in plenty of traditional corporations, and I know that the work there can feel soul-killing.

But at the same time, there are people who thrive in such environments, people who seem pleasant, intelligent, respected and even, at times, hip.

Out of touch?

But, but, but, those people are supposed to be like Richard Nixon in wingtips on the beach, so cluelessly out of tune with everything that they cannot possibly be reeled in.

Reeled in, to the Cluetrain way of thinking?

And at some point, and of course I am exaggerating, but the bottom line is, the book decries business as usual and stereotypical thinking, yet it turns right around and stereotypes the very people who it claims need to change the most.

That is, of course, a lovely and time-honored way to get people to listen to you and change their methodologies to your way of thinking: make fun of them and make them feel small.

Not.

Where is it going?

So somewhere along the line, Cluetrain feels like it lost its way, like it cannot figure out how to be brief.

Like it cannot comprehend that talking down to people – while it criticizes business as usual for talking down to people – is more than a little ironic, and that they are not on the happy end of that irony.

Like it has almost become the very thing it says not to be: a business method and rule and playbook.

Some Positives from the Cluetrain Manifesto

There are interesting observations in here, to be sure. But overlong tales of this, that and the other diverting digression bog those observations down. The Internet is full of people who are spouting and selling hokum!

Yes, well The Refreshments said that before, and better: the world is full of stupid people. This is not, sadly, news.

Oh and big business is not nimble and providing individual attention is lovely and wonderful, but hard to do if you are very large and/or if the number of individuals you are addressing is huge. This is not front-page material, either.

One Nugget

There is one nugget of interest. When you are dealing with said enormous number of individuals, you generally do not need to address them all as individuals. You just need to work with a few and the others will see that you care about individuals.

And then you are pretty much set there.

This makes sense in a Groundswell (a far better book, in my opinion) sort of a way, in that there are more people online who are reading and lurking versus writing or critiquing, so a message to one can be like a message to a thousand.

All of that panning for gold, and only one nugget? Perhaps I am cynical, and I have clearly read far too many Internet marketing books lately for my own good. But The Cluetrain Manifesto just left me cold. Although it did, happily, remind me of this video:

Rating for the (IMHO) Drastically Overrated Cluetrain Manifesto

Review: 2/5 stars.

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for social media resonate with you, then check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Book Reviews on Social Media, SEO, Analytics, Design, and Strategy

• Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson, a Book Review
† Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, An Updated Book Review
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk
† Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen
• The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott, A Book Review
† The Numerati by Stephen Baker, a Book Review
• Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans, A Book Review
† Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, a Book Review
• White Space is not your Enemy by Kim Golombisky and Rebecca Hagen, a Book Review
† The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani, a Book Review

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Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson, a Book Review

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on June 23, 2026

Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson

Kristina Halvorson has really got something here.

Content Strategy for the Web is a short, snappy read that combines information about Content Strategy as a discipline with tips and tricks for throwing a lasso around your own company or site’s content.

Kristina Halvorson is essentially the doyenne of Content Strategy. Her main idea:

You probably need less content and not more.

Figure out which content you have and archive whatever is not working for you, e. g. fulfilling some sort of purpose. Good purposes include building trust and expertise, answering customer questions and facilitating sales.

Not such good purposes are things like get some content out there because we’re naked without it! Another not so great purpose is content on the site because the CEO wrote it but it is not very good and/or it is off-topic. Ouch.

Archive that Stuff!

For whatever currently published content that does not fulfill a good purpose, either archive it or get rid of it entirely. It does not help you, and it may very well harm your company.

With a website, this means unpublishing some posts and pages (on WordPress, just make them drafts), and creating redirects.

Get Organized, Says Kristina Halvorson

Get someone in charge of content. Not surprisingly, a Content Strategist comes to mind but definitely get someone to steer the ship.

Listen to the customers and the company regarding content. The company may be sending out content that is confusing to the users. The users may be asking for something that cannot quite work.

It may or may not be in the company’s best interests to fix either problem, but at least you will know what the issue is.

And start asking why content exists out there in the first place.

This process begins with a content audit. That is, know what you have out there. Then talk to the users. And, once you finish these processes, you can start to think of a strategy.

Yes, it is really that much time before actually creating any content. Why? Because doing the ramp-up now will save a lot of headaches later. Think it’s a bear to audit and check every single piece of content on your site now?

How are you going to feel about it next year, when there are, what, 100 to 300 more pieces of content to go through?

I bet it would thrill just about anyone to only have as much content to deal with as you have right now, at this very moment. So start swinging that lasso now. It is time to audit.

And Now, How Does it All Shake Out?

I have to say, I can see where Ms. Halvorson is coming from. However, there was also a large chunk of the book devoted to, essentially, justifying the Content Strategist’s existence.

And perhaps this was necessary with what at the time was a new discipline. I don’t know. But it does make for an edge of defiance, e. g. this discipline is good enough!

It is. So don’t worry.

And, in 2026, content strategists are more respected and in demand than ever. But AI is becoming a bit of a threat. But we shall see…

Rating

Review: 4/5 stars. I still think this is a decent book although it may be becoming dated by now.

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Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for social media resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Book Reviews on Social Media, SEO, Analytics, Design, and Strategy — Halvorson is not the Only One Out There!

† The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition, a Book Review
• Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, An Updated Book Review
† Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk
• Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen
† The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott, A Book Review

• The Numerati by Stephen Baker, a Book Review
† Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans, A Book Review
• Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, a Book Review
† White Space is not your Enemy by Kim Golombisky and Rebecca Hagen, a Book Review
• The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani, a Book Review

Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0, a Book Review

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on June 18, 2026

Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0 – Yeah, I am a Fan

Web analytics matter!

We Go Way Back

First of all, the first book about this general topic that truly caught my eye and made a huge impression on me was Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity.

As a (hopefully) former data person, I can relate to the idea of needing web analytics. E. g., the measurements of how your website does. Why do you want to measure with web analytics? Why, you need to see whether your message is actually going anywhere.

For e-commerce sites, the ultimate test is, naturally, whether you are getting sales. But it can be hard to tell, particularly in a complex organization, whether the website drives sales or offline marketing efforts do. Or both, or neither, for that matter.

And even measuring orders via these channels may not tell the entire story, as customers may see offline advertising and then come online to buy, or they may do the reverse and buy in-store after researching a product online.

Or they could just be coming online to think about it and compare and mull it over and could convert to a paying customer days or weeks or months later. Or never.

What if You are Not in e-Commerce?

And what about sites (such as my own) where nothing is (currently) offered for sale? My ultimate customer becomes, of course, someone to hire me, either permanently or temporarily.

And this would mean as a consultant or a partner or a founder or a director or whatever, but that might be months away. What happens in the meantime?

I might be able to dope some of that out with SEO and seeing where I am in search engine rankings, but just because people can find my site does not mean they are going to convert into hiring me or are even in a position to do so.

My mother (I miss her) could find my site and read it, but she was not going to hire me at any time. Unless I wanted to come and clean the gutters or something.

How do you or I know what is happening?

Enter Web Analytics

It is, admittedly, still an imperfect science. But Mr. Kaushik breaks it down and describes the reports that you need to understand just what is happening with your site. He talks about what is essentially a Trinity strategy: experience, behavior and outcomes.

User Experience

It is not enough to just track sales (outcomes). It is also about user experience and behavior. This is much like in the offline world, if you think about it.

Going to a restaurant is an experience and many of them are packaged as such. But it is a far different experience going to a McDonald’s or a Chik-Fil-A versus a Bertucci’s.

And that experience differs from going to Legal Seafood’s which in turn is different from Blue Ginger (celebrity chef Ming Tsai’s restaurant).

You can intake the same amount of calories. You might even be able to get in the same quality and types of nutrition. And you might enjoy a Big Mac as much as you enjoy one of Chef Tsai’s specialties. Aside from price, what are the differences?

These are Web Analytics for What Sort of User Experience?

When you go to a McDonald’s, a part of the price is wrapped up in the experience. For chain entities in particular, it is about sameness and predictability. If you find yourself in rural Oshkosh and have never been there before, you see the golden arches and you realize what to expect.

For Bertucci’s, even though it costs more and there is table service, there is still a similar vibe. You go there because you can depend upon it to be a certain way.

And Blue Ginger is also dependable in the sense that it is very upscale so you know you are going to be treated a certain way and it will look a particular way and presumably the food will taste in a way that reflects that kind of investment, both by you and by Mr. Tsai and his team.

Enhanced User Experience

Mr. Kaushik shows how understanding analytics can help you to enhance user experience. And this, ultimately, drives user behavior. While conversions (sales) are the ultimate in user behaviors, he does not forget about other valid behaviors.

Hence for the e-commerce site, product research is a valid and valuable behavior. So is printing a map to a brick and mortar store. Or comparing prices.

And for a non-e-commerce venture (again, I will use myself as an example), valid user (reader) behaviors are things like reading my writings and getting to know me.

I put myself out there in order to be known, because that is a piece of the hiring puzzle (why are there interviews — it is not to know about skills, which should already be obvious. It is to see if there is a personality and a culture fit).

Plus it enhances networking. Know me, think I am worthwhile (at least, I hope you do) and you might think of a place where the company might need me, or someone I should meet. And I do the same, in turn, for you. And cosmic karma gets us both into better places.

Back to the Book and More Web Analytics

But I digress. Time to get back to the book.

The book has a lively, engaging style. It is long but I sailed through it. And Mr. Kaushik (who is very gracious and seems to be very approachable, by the way) is clearly having fun and loves what he does. It is a refreshing joy to read a book where the author is constantly delighted.

Read his book. Learn about analytics. Make the web a better place.

May your bounce rate be low, and your conversion rate high!

Rating

5/5

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for social media and writing resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Book Reviews on Social Media, SEO, Analytics, Design, and Strategy

† The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition, a Book Review
• Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson, a Book Review
† Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, An Updated Book Review
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk
† Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen

• The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott, A Book Review
† The Numerati by Stephen Baker, a Book Review
• Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans, A Book Review
† Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, a Book Review
• White Space is not your Enemy by Kim Golombisky and Rebecca Hagen, a Book Review

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Book Review: Zen in the Art of Writing

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on July 23, 2024

Check Out This Book Review on Zen in the Art of Writing

Zen.

So for the social media writing class at Quinnipiac, we were required to purchase Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. However, the book proved to be optional.

Yet I read it from cover to cover, and I just plain devoured that thing.

Fiction Writing Zen

So as a fiction writer, I particularly loved his ideas about how to, well, get ideas. On Page 33, he wrote –

“… in a lifetime, we stuff ourselves with sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and textures of people, animals, landscapes, events, large and small. We stuff ourselves with these impressions and experiences and our reaction to them. Into our subconscious go not only factual data but reactive data, or movement toward or away from the sense of events.

“These are the stuffs, the foods, on which the Muse grows.”

This is not just why writers should also be voracious readers. It is also exactly why writers need to have lives.

We need to travel, have relationships, cook, consume media, work out, get involved in politics, and do all the other things that make up a life. Without knowing the trappings of living, it can be hard to write about it.

But not impossible. After all, people have been writing genders that are not their own since at least Homer wrote the Iliad.

Spoiler Alert: I Loved It

First of all, that is just a great way of looking at things.

Because what Bradbury is doing is essentially giving the aspiring writer permission to get inspiration from everywhere, and from everything. Since the smallest memories can do it. So don’t give up on your weirdness. And don’t suppress it. I love this concept.

Furthermore, on Page 50, he writes about praise. And as writers, we might aspire to everyone loving us, and buying our works or at least reading them or, at minimum, being aware of them.

However, Bradbury offers a rather different definition of success –

“We all need someone higher, wiser, older to tell us we’re not crazy after all, that what we’re doing is all right. All right, hell, fine!”

Therefore, really, it is okay to want to be loved. And it is one hundred percent, totally okay to be weird.

Who knew?

Zen Takeaways

I recommend this writing book above all others. Yes, really! It is just that good.

Review: 5/5 stars.

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for writing resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Book Reviews on Writing

• The Elements of Style, by Strunk, White, and Kalman – this work is a classic for a very good reason.
† Stephen King On Writing – I bet this guy is going places.

Book Review: Stephen King On Writing

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on July 16, 2024

Book Review: Stephen King On Writing

For my social media writing class at Quinnipiac, we were required to purchase Stephen King On Writing although it turned out to be an optional work. I think the work was decent.

But… I’m not overly ecstatic about it.

Frankly, I prefer William Zissner and Ray Bradbury (link below).

A lot of people seem to fall over themselves with praise for King. Me? Eh, not so much. I would say, though, that this is the best thing I have read from him.

Nuts and Bolts from Stephen King

One area that I feel he handles well: the question of how meticulous attention to detail needs to be. On Pages 105 – 106, he writes,

“For one thing, it is described in terms of a rough comparison, which is useful only if you and I see the world and measure the things in it with similar eyes. It’s easy to become careless when making rough comparisons, but the alternative is a prissy attention to detail that takes all the fun out of writing. What am I going to say, ‘on the table is a cage three feet, six inches in length, two feet in width, and fourteen inches high’? That’s not prose, that’s an instruction manual.”

Agreed, 100%. I see far too many fiction writers getting into far too much detail, and it’s maddening. Readers are intelligent (generally), and can follow basic instructions.

However, the writer needs to provide the framework and then let the reader run with it. Otherwise, it’s an instruction manual, as Stephen King states.

And the corollary is also true – for writing which requires meticulous instructions and step by step information, woe be unto the writer who decides everybody knows what a flange is, or a balloon whisk, or EBITDA.

Or any other term of art known more to insiders than to the general public.

Stephen King also exhorts would-be writers to read a lot and write a lot. Basic information, to be sure, but it makes good sense. Without practice or comparisons or even attempts to copy, none of us would learn how to properly craft prose.

What the Hell Did Adverbs Ever Do to You, Steve?

But here’s where we part ways.

King writes, on Page 124, “The adverb is not your friend.” On Page 195, he clarifies his statement:

“Skills in description, dialogue, and character development all boil down to seeing or hearing clearly and then transcribing what you see or hear with equal clarity (and without using a lot of tiresome, unnecessary adverbs).”

It’s funny how he makes the above statement with the use of the adverb clearly.

Show us on the doll where adverbs hurt you.

I see his point. But I’m not so sure that a lot of aspiring authors do. The gist of it? Make sure to choose your words well. A part of this is what editing is for, but it’s also to be able to best get across your point(s). You can write –

She waited nervously.

She waited, drumming her fingers on the table until her brother told her to cut it out or he’d relieve her of the burden of having fingers.

The second example is more vivid. It shows, rather than tells. But sometimes you just want to cut to the chase. There’s nothing wrong with that. Adverbs, like passive voice and other parts of speech and turns of phrase (even clichés!), are legitimate writer tools.

You can still use them.

In all, a decent work, albeit a bit redundant in parts. I didn’t want to read the memoir portions of the work although I can see where they would interest others.

I bet this guy is going places.

Review: 4/5 stars.

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for writing resonate with you, then in addition, please be sure to check out my book review blog post on the ever-popular The Elements of Style, by Strunk, White, and Kalman. It’s a classic for a reason.

Book Review: The Elements of Style, by Strunk, White, and Kalman

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on July 4, 2024

Book Review: The Elements of Style, by Strunk, White, and Kalman

As a part of the Quinnipiac social media writing class, we had to purchase and reference The Elements of Style (illustrated) by William Strunk, E. B. White, and Maira Kalman.

Rather than just reference this work, I read it from cover to cover. And it turned out to be an easy read, considerably more comprehensive and better than I had remembered.

If you ever want to easily know what to do, and how to do it, when it comes to grammar and punctuation, read this book.

Simple Rules

Simple rules emerge in clear and concise prose which never talks down to the reader. It contains all of the rules that so many people should have known, and should have learned years ago. Yet these days it seems that so many people just plain don’t know.

Case in point: forming possessives. Therefore, on Page 1 the guide just says, “Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding ‘s.”

That’s it, no more.

It seems a pity to so much as comment on this.

Seriously, apostrophes are never for pluralization unless the sense would suffer. For example, The Oakland A’s is obvious. But The Oakland As makes it appear as if you’re missing a word or two.

Punctuation

Information about punctuation remains equally succinct. Hence on Page 15, the guide says,

“A colon tells the reader that what follows is closely related to the preceding clause. The colon has more effect than the comma, less power to separate than the semicolon, and more formality than the dash.”

Easy to follow and remember, the above two sentences tell more about colons, semicolons, and dashes than I think I learned in most of my formal education.

Do YOU Know the Elements of Language?

Furthermore, language comes across as something knowable, with rules and formal logic. This is instead of what English can sometimes seem like, e. g. a messy stew of words from all over the world.

The work gives the English language structure and predictability. Both of these things make it a lot easier to know the rules.

Rules, of course, can be broken. They were probably made to be broken. But at first you need to know what you’re throwing out. Keep the baby, not the bath water.

There is but one thing left to say, and the Elements of Style certainly says it.

Write better.

This classic, timeless work will help you to do just that.

Review: 5/5 stars.

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for writing resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Book Reviews on Writing

† On Writing Well, by William Zinsser – a terrific, comprehensive book.
• Stephen King On Writing – I bet this guy is going places.

Book Review: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 22, 2022

Book Review: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser

As a part of our requisite readings for my social media writing class at Quinnipiac, we read On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. This was a terrific book. And sorry folks, but I big time prefer this one to the Stephen King book (see link below).

On Writing Well covers a multitude of issues that writers can face. Zinsser gives writers the freedom to occasionally break some rules, or at least to bend them. Moreover, he gives reasons why one type of construction might work better than another.

This is one of the best parts of this work—an explanation of why selecting one construction will work better. Because sometimes stories are too cute by half or otherwise not serving the subject matter properly.

What’s Important per William Zinsser

For Zinsser, the start and the end pack heavy punches. On Page 54, he writes,

“The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn’t induce him to continue to the third sentence, it’s equally dead. Of such a progression of sentences, each tugging the reader forward until he’s hooked, a writer constructs that fateful unit, the ‘lead’.”

Not only is this good advice for fiction writing, it is excellent for report writing and for writing for the web. How many times have we had to slog through a ton of prose before getting to the good stuff?

How many times have we tried to hang in there when we would rather be doing anything but tackling an opaque garbage can full of prose?

And for fiction writers in particular, if we want to know why a sequel isn’t selling, it just may be because the last sentence of the preceding work didn’t pack enough of a punch.

Active Versus Passive Tense

Many writers get a message to prefer active to passive tense when writing. Zinsser explains why, on Page 67,

“Use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around using a passive verb. The difference between an active-verb style and a passive-verb style – in clarity and vigor – is the difference between life and death for a writer.”

A little over the top, maybe, but it does get the point across.

William Zinsser and Ray Bradbury: Who’s Better, Who’s Best?

I have read other books on writing. I also really love Ray Bradbury’s take.

Don’t dance around your subject. Be bold. And be clear. Be terse.

GET. THIS. BOOK.

Review: 5/5 stars.

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for writing resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Some More Book Reviews on Writing

• The Elements of Style, by Strunk, White, and Kalman – this work is a classic for a very good reason.
† Stephen King On Writing – I bet this guy is going places.