Ben Yagoda: 6 books

From a critically acclaimed cultural and literary critic, a definitive history and analysis of the memoir. From Saint Augustine?s Confessions to Augusten Burroughs?s Running with Scissors, from Julius Caesar to Ulysses Grant, from Mark Twain to David Sedaris, the art of memoir has had a fascinating...

What do you get when you mix nine parts of speech, one great writer, and generous dashes of insight, humor, and irreverence? One phenomenally entertaining language book*.* In his waggish yet authoritative book, Ben Yagoda has managed to undo the dark work of legions of English teachers and...

From a critically acclaimed master of language, a look at the trends, phenomena, and battles on the front lines of modern American English. In You Need to Read This, language expert Ben Yagoda writes about the cuckoo things we have done to the English language. His witty, insightful, and wise...

Ben Yagoda's How to Not Write Bad illustrates how we can all write better, more clearly, and for a wider readership. He offers advice on what he calls "not-writing-badly," which consists of the ability, first, to craft sentences that are correct in terms of spelling, diction (word choice),...

From an acclaimed cultural critic, a narrative and social history of the Great American Songwriting era. Everybody knows and loves the American Songbook. But it’s a bit less widely understood that in about 1950, this stream of great songs more or less dried up. All of a sudden, what came...

In writing, style matters. Our favorite writers often entertain, move, and inspire us less by what they say than by how they say it. In The Sound on the Page, acclaimed author, teacher, and critic Ben Yagoda offers practical and incisive help for writers on developing and discovering their own style...