Customer Reviews
Very, very irritating - By: lexo1941, 16 Nov 2008 
There are a few newspaper-sponsored style guides out there, for people who want to write the kind of English that those papers happen to favour, & "Guardian Style" is, by a long way, the most annoying one available. If you start from the idea that good stylein a paper should be as close as possible to plain educated speech, then this book will help to explain why the Guardian is such an annoying paper to read, especially if you are the sort of person who it is clearly aimed at. I am, I think, the Guardian's idea of one of its kinds of reader, & yet while I find its news coverage fairly adequate (although when I really want to know what's going on I read the Financial Times) I find their op-ed content insufferable. "Guardian Style" is chiefly of forensic interest: it will show you the many waysin which a supposedly left-liberal paper fails, over & over again, to have the courage of its supposed convictions.
If you really want to read a good guide to journalistic style, I recommend the "Economist Style Guide". The Economist's uncritical reverence for the free market is genuinely loony, but its attitude to language is sensible & manages to be straightforward without being too obviously biased - unlike the Guardian, which (as this book demonstrates) would be printedin Newspeak if the publishers thought they could get away with it.
badly written - By: D. Westlake, 12 Apr 2008 
If you have ever wondered why the writingin the Guardian is often so appalling, here is your answer. The irritating tone of this guide is snotty & pompous; embodying a kind of Guardian speak faux-piety poorly disguising smug complacency.
Strangely Brilliant - By: JoseGold, 12 Dec 2007 
While it sounds dry & obvious to say that this is the guide to grammar & word usage for the newspaper The Guardian, that is what this is.
However, the result is far far more compelling & enjoyable than the description. This book is like a mad cross between the 'Grammar is important' ethos of Eats Shoots & Leaves & the random fun of Schott's Miscellany & is better than either.
While I could continue to describe the contents of the book, citing my favourite entries, whatever I say is going to sound boring. Trust me, if you enjoy language you will enjoy this book a lot (not alot).
