The Other Big Three

When professional writers are asked "what are the books you keep within arm's reach of your desk or computer?", many of the lists have for years included Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. Fowler's Modern English Usage is also popular, as is The Chicago Manual of Style and Karen Elizabeth Gordon's delightful The Deluxe Transitive Vampire and The New Well-Tempered Sentence. Dictionaries are still common, despite their availability on the web, as are thesauruses.

There is a reason for...