Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style

An utterly delightful book to read, Dreyer's English will stand among the classics on how to use the English language properly.

Elizabeth Strout

A mind-blower--sure to jumpstart any writing project, just by exposing you, the writer, to Dreyer's astonishing level of sentence-awareness.

George Saunders

Playful, smart, self-conscious, and personal . . . One encounters wisdom and good sense on nearly every page of Dreyer’s English.

Wall Street Journal

Dreyer can help you . . . with tips on punctuation and spelling. . . . Even better: He’ll entertain you while he’s at it.

Newsday

Benjamin Dreyer's brilliant, pithy, incandescently intelligent book is to contemporary writing what Geoffrey Chaucer's poetry was to medieval English: a gift that broadens and deepens the art and the science of literature by illustrating that convention should not stand in the way of creativity, so long as that creativity is expressed with clarity and with conviction.

Jon Meacham

It is Benjamin Dreyer's intense love for the English language and his passion for the subject that make the experience of reading Dreyer's English such a pleasure, almost regardless of the invaluable and practical purpose his book serves in such dark and confusing times for grammar and meaning.

Ayelet Waldman & Michael Chabon

This work is that rare writing handbook that writers might actually want to read straight through, rather than simply consult.

Publishers Weekly

Destined to become a classic.

The Millions

Meet the guardian of grammar who wants to help you be a better writer. Benjamin Dreyer sees language the way an epicure sees food. And he finds sloppiness everywhere he looks.

New York Times

The joy of Dreyer’s English is that it’s written by an editor who so clearly loves words, has a sense of humour and prizes clarity over nit-picking

Financial Times

On every page, the serious stuff is spiced with his distinctive humour… This is what to look for in a language book: authority without arrogance. There is always more to learn.

The Economist

An informative and entertaining handbook on how to write clearer English. It’s pithy, witty and a near perfect example of the kind of writing it advocates.

Sting

A fascinating guide to grammatical ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ - practical and useful

Sebastian Faulks, Sunday Times

If learning about the pillars of punctuation and grammar doesn’t excite you, let Benjamin Dreyer change your mind. As the copy chief of Random House, Dreyer has invaluable insider knowledge on how to become a better writer, and he shares his enthusiasm about everything from how to use split infinitives to the value of the semicolon. Here, he analyzes the English language without dipping into the drab technicalities, crafting a pleasing read for anyone who has an appreciation for the written word.

Time Magazine: Best 10 Non-Fiction Books of 2019

Dreyer promises to reveal "some of the fancy little tricks I’ve come across or devised that can make even skilled writing better", and does so with accuracy, style, and humour […] you can’t help warming to a writer who has – perhaps through a process of déformation professionnelle if nothing else – become this attuned to nuances of meaning, and even spelling.

Guardian

Boisterously well written ... I recommend it highly.

Independent

Pleasurable and instructive […] You can read Dreyer’s English right through with unalloyed enjoyment, and learn a lot from it: not only from its rulings but from its attitude. Sane, tetchy, prankish and intensely pragmatic. Benjamin Dreyer is wise and bitterly experienced and fantastically good company. You should buy his book and read it.

Times Literary Supplement

Useful and interesting

Strong Words Magazine

Brilliant

Guardian