I should have read this book in journalism school.

William Zinsser’s classic guide to cutting the crap out of your writing is a great complement to Strunk & White’s, Elements of Style.

Zinsser restates all the pillars of good writing: cut the jargon; write in a conversational style; keep sentences active; rewriting is more important than writing; with plenty of anecdotes along the way. Not surprisingly, it’s a very well-written book, with very few – if any - wasted words.

These days, with the advent of blogging, e-mail, and now, Twitter, everyone is a writer and Zinsser’s advice is more relevant than ever.

Me? My writing has been poisoned by years of academia. Hopefully, this book can help me to shake off some of the bad habits I’ve picked up over the years.