Describer's Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms & Literary Quotations

I used the older print version of this while getting my Masters and must've been the only one who knew about this. Several years later, I was ecstatic to discover this in kindle format, especially since my print version was in tatters.The book format is as thus:There are sections that are made to resemble a dictionary format. Truly though, it's more like a thesaurus with literary examples. These larger sections are "Properties of Things," "Structures and Spaces," "Earth and Sky," "Animals" and "People." Now, herein is the particularly genius part of this book. Let's say you usually have a hard time describing buildings when writing. In that case, you'd flip to "Structures and Spaces," skim the subsections until you find "Types of Buildings and Dwellings" or "Parts or Features of Buildings" (whatever your situation calls for). Then there are phrases that roughly describe the idea you might have. Under "Types of Buildings" there is "small rural or resort-area house" and the suggestion to call this a cottage or cabin. The whole book works this way and at the end of each section are literary examples pertaining to each subject. This book is so diverse it helps describe people right down to the peculiarities of face or body shape, or alternatively, landscapes, skies, buildings, animals, and more.This book is power! Stop reading this and buy it.

This was a gift....I use mine and like it.

I purchased the first edition many years ago, and loved it. Naturally, I was excited to learn there was a newer, expanded edition so I did not hesitate to buy it. However, all of the quotations are now grouped together at the end of each chapter as opposed to each section like in the previous book. The reader has no idea (or have to guess based on the passages) which quotation refers to which section. Also, some of the good, more vivid quotations were eliminated entirely in place of mediocre narratives. For example, one of Martin Cruz Smith's passages from Polar Star which was, for some reason, in the 'Patterns and Edges' section of the first edition should have been moved to 'The Body' in the second edition instead of omitted:"She had gone into the sea, touched bottom and returned with no apparent signs of corruption aside from the stillness of death. After the tension of rigor mortis all flesh became slack on the bone: breasts sagged on the ribs, mouth and jaw were loose, eyes flattened under half-open lids, the skin bore a luminous pallor mottled with bruises."Another deletion (under People) was one of E.L. Doctorow's:"A lean face, pitted and scarred, very thick black eyebrows, and carbon-black eyes with deep grainy circles of black under them. A heavy five o‘clock shadow. But the skin under all was pale and unhealthy-looking."- E. L. DOCTOROW, Loon LakeIn my opinion, both descriptions are evocative and engaging. Concise in both the telling and showing. Perfect examples for The Describer's Dictionary. Needless to say, I am disappointed with this updated version and will probably not use it often. I will definitely carry on with the original.

I found this helpful in providing alternative descriptions. After identifying repetition in my work, this provides alternatives to saying the same old thing. I’ve used sticky notes to mark sections which are particularly beneficial. Helpful tool!

This is a great book to have on hand, if you are a writer. I really don't know what I would do without it. It has great examples, and has helped me to relearn some of the ways that I write my novels.

This book is absolutely incredible and a must have for writers. It leaves nothing out and describes everything in such a way that it can be used and even provides examples.

Mr Grambs, I noticed that you have made a career of plagiarizing the contents wholesale, across the world wide web and Amazon.com, out of Mr. S***l's big book without citing the author or the title of his original work anywhere in your works. Without overtly saying the words I wrote this, you have carefully left the impression that Mr. S***l's words, like, "psaloid" and "adumbrate", are your own words.You have deliberately steered the seekers of accurate knowledge to view these stolen chapters as your own without any form of attribution.Huffington Post and others across the web need to know that you are using material compiled by somebody else in a wholesale fashion without citing the author or mentioning anywhere in your published books the original source material.The first edition you published with WW Norton, in 1993. What a shame that even after 20 years of calling this material your own, nowhere in this reference work do you even leave an impression that it could have been written by somebody else. You just released a new edition in Sept. 2015 and again you chose to withhold the source.You have duped the public by using whole sections of the original published book without attribution. One of your earlier reviews states that even Stephen King has a copy on his desk.Kudos, to you, Sir! Does this mean that you go down in history for being the first man to publicly dupe Steven King?

This is a thesaurus for the person who knows what he needs to describe but cannot think of the right word. Excellent reference book. I am glad that I aded it to my writer's library.

It wasn't what I expected. My bad, not the authors.

辞書は通例語から意味をたどるが、意味から語にたどり着く辞書もある。Reverse dictionary と呼ばれるが、本書もreverse dictionaryの一種である。6部のテーマ、「事物の特質」「構造と空間」「大地と空」「動物」「人間」「感覚、気質、行為」からなる。例えば「真っ直ぐでない」意味の関連語を知りたい場合、「事物の特質」のnot straight を引くとcrooked, bent, askew, linear, linealが得られる仕組みになっている。Crooked, bent, askew までが反義語、linear, linealが同義語である。普通の辞書より数倍引きにくく、得られた答えも英和辞典で再度引き直さねばならないことが多い。かなりの英語力のある英語のネイティブスピーカーを対象に書かれているからである。しかしパラパラめくって拾い読みすると、普通の辞書では得られない情報が得られることもある。引用例も豊富である。何時しかこのようなreverse dictionary を引きながら英語の文章を書ける日が来るのを願って机の上に置いている次第である。

This is as it says "A Describer's Dictionary". The examples of writing that it pulls from force you to look at ordinary objects in different ways. Moreover, it has been a great guide for future reading as I am able to view snippets of description from numerous authors and then research each of their works in turn. "The Describer's Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms and Literary Quotations" is clear and concise with a well organized index.It sits on the right side of my desk for inspiration or reference.

O.K. but if you have a thesaurus or other grammar book you don't need it.

My daughter is a budding author and really appreciates all the helpful assistance she receives from this book. Very comprehensive.