The Highly Selective Thesaurus for the Extraordinarily Literate

If you are, or if you know someone who is a lover of the English language, this is a great book to have.

This is a very useful thesaurus that definitely fills a gap left by normal thesauri. However, Ehrlich often picks words that are not really synonyms but more like particular examples or even vaguely related terms. For instance, under "priest" he gives, as a synonym, "bacchante." Sorry, but a bacchante is a female worshipper of Dionysus. I can't really think of any instances where "bacchante" would be a good synonym for "priest", even if you're speaking figuratively. Another example- under "street," he gives "cul-de-sac" (is that really such an obscure word?). Everyone knows a cul-de-sac is a kind of street, but not a synonym for it. Ehrlich does this again and again, probably because he had difficulty finding enough real synonyms to fill up his book. As Ehrlich himself advises in the preface, if you come across a word you're not familiar with, be sure to look it up in a dictionary before you use it as a synonym.

I purchased this and another thesaurus hoping to find some creative words to use when I write. This was extremely disappointing. There are definitely some impressive words, but few that could be used even in a scholarly article or report. If you have several thesaurus reference books, this might make an interesting addition, but don't expect to use it very often.

I can't seem to express just how helpful this book was to me and my pursuit of intillectual goodness.

I received this book as a gift and immediately realized it's not a reference volume. I later noticed that an arrogant neighbor of mine also owns it, and I also noticed his copy appeared not to have been read or otherwise perused. It then occurred to me that, to have real value, a book like this should be USED. I decided to take this book to the office, and every time I write an interoffice email, to replace one of my own words with a term from this book. Carefully and seriously done, it can really upgrade your interoffice communication by giving you a tiny verbal edge, and will subconsciously upgrade other people's respect for your writing skills. And if some of them are made to feel small through my skookum vocabulary (as mentioned in another review), that's just tough rocks.