Cecily's book reviews
In general I've written reviews of every book I've read since I joined GoodReads (RIP) in May 08, along with one or two I read prior to that. More recent reviews tend to be longer (sometimes a tad too long?).
I always carry a book, though I don't get as much time as I'd like to get engrossed - life is busy, but in a good way.
Too many of my favourite authors died without writing enough!
Apart from reading, and writing about reading, I enjoy Scrabble, good restaurants, woodland, and attending the theatre.
A superb reference book covering all aspects of the development of the English language, its vocabulary, usage, orthography, spelling, variants, punctuation etc.David Crystal wears his expertise lightly, which makes the book a delight to use and very accessible, with lots of illustrations, diagrams, photos and examples. There are also appendices and lists for further reading.
In general, Crystal is a pragmatist who loves language; he is certainly not an authoritarian pedant. He accepts and explains language change, explaining controversies such as whether or not it's acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition (it is) so that readers can make up their own minds, aware of the implications of whichever choice they make.
