The Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus 2nd Edition by Christine Lindberg, Erin McKean, David Auburn, Michael Dirda, David Lehman, Stephin Merritt, Francine Prose, Zadie Smith, Jean Strouse, David Foster Wallace, Simon Winchester 0195170768 9780195170764

This brand new thesaurus from Oxford, the most trusted name in reference, is the first to be developed by writers, for writers. In addition to the more than 300,000 synonyms and 10,000 antonyms found in the thesaurus, each of our distinguished editorial board members (including David Auburn, Michael Dirda, David Lehman, Stephin Merritt, Francine Prose, Zadie Smith, Jean Strouse, David Foster Wallace, and Simon Winchester) has contributed frank, funny, thoughtful, and, most of all, word-wise mini-essays on words that they particularly love, hate, admire, or are just plain puzzled by. Even more helpful for writers in search of the perfect word, this new thesaurus contains nearly two hundred word banks, collections of nouns to add exact detail to your writing. (Was it just bread, or was it chapatti, rye, dal, or pita?) Brand-new word spectrums show where your word falls in a line between two polar opposites (passable is three-quarters of the way from beautiful to ugly). Other features include quick guides to easily confused words; helpful, real-world usage guidance to tricky sticking points of grammar and word choice; and careful, expert distinctions among awkward synonyms. The Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus will unlock the power of language and is certain to be the thesaurus that says on the desk–and stays open.