Book of miracles - I’m not kidding

Published by neil on February 28th, 2008

The above is a shot of what is sat on the corner of my desk right now - and it brings me joy. Despite only relatively recently discovering this hefty tome, I can quite honestly say it is the single most important tool for writing after a pen and paper - I place this book as more important than computers and word processors!

The Synonym Finder by J.I.Rodale, first came into my life thanks to Jen (and further thanks to her for sourcing this copy), who has a treasured hard cover version shipped with the rest of her most precious books when she moved from the US. Mine is a lowly, but pristine, soft cover version as the hard cover is impossible to locate (even a well cared for soft cover is no easy find!).

This is no ordinary Thesaurus

Oh no. This book is magical.
I have owned and used thesauri in the past and found them to deliver less than they promise. Lists of alternate words would pass my imagination by and the book would return to the shelf with a shove of dissatisfaction.

The Synonym Finder, on the other hand, rarely fails to surpass my expectations. Perfectly usable alternative words pop out of the pages in bunches, offering more choice than you can imagine thus breathing life and colour into one’s writing.

What are you talking about?

If you have never used one of these, or have never undertaken any serious writing, let me offer an example scenario:

1. You read back along a recently written paragraph, only to discover you have used the word ‘disgust‘ in each of the three sentences. The word fits very well in the context of each.
2. Your choice is to completely re-write two of what are already excellent sentences, or, you reach for your Synonym Finder.
3. Under ‘disgust‘ you see: nauseate, sicken, turn one’s stomach; satiate, glut, surfeit; offend, repel, repulse, outrage, scandalize, shock; gross out; cause aversion, dissatisfy, annoy.
4. You discover at least two words you can use to simply swap out two instance of ‘disgust‘, and you may find a word or two that suggest a little more than you had originally written providing the inspiration to expand on your first words.

Many sentences in TableRappers has been saved from the cringe reaction as a result of this book, and it will therefore remain a critical part of my writing arsenal.

Now it is at this point I would normally provide you with a nice, clean Amazon link so you might delve further and make a purchase. Sadly, this book is not easy to find, and the majority of copies available will be used to some degree (thankfully the one photographed above, that arrived in the post today, is almost as new).

The place I would start is AbeBooks.co.uk. I have purchased from these guys a couple of times now and have been extremely happy with the speed or service, and the pricing of books. They list rare and out of print book, mostly used but some are brand new, from across the globe. Obviously costs for shipping will be higher if the book you want is coming from another country, but you can often find appropriately located copies to keep costs down.

Tags: books, Inspiration, tools, words, Writing
Posted in Featured, Writing |