The Joy of Vocabulary

I bought this book some time ago and just recently started to use it and I am very impressed. It has the same things as the others: word families, roots, stories, and exercises. However, the "thinking with your new words" section is genius! It's the best exercise I've seen which aids one's "recall." Having to take a description or phrase and narrow it down to a specific word instead of vice versa (determining a single word's meaning from the surrounding context) is the best way to add and retain/recall words to one's SPEAKING vocabulary (we all have one in addition to reading and writing). It's this part of our vocabulary which is the sorely lacking. I wish the authors would do a newer and bigger book with more words and with only this type of exercise (by the way, how could I get in touch with them to offer this suggestion?). We'd all be (like the Victorians who raised the art of conversation to unparalleled heights) a lot more eloquent!

This book taught me many new words that are valuable for everyday conversation. It is divided into different categories such as: number words, medical words, words from other languages, figurative expressions, etc. The authors give a definition and a sentence for each new word. They give exercises to help you master the words. The book also tells the history of some words which is often a good way to remember the word. However, sometimes these can get boring since they are all basically the same. I used this book to study for spelling bees, and I recommend it to students and adults alike. You will learn from this book.