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This reflection on the new fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style was first published at News-Sheet, but the book deserves as much mention as possible.

source: University of Chicago Press

We live in good times for style wonks. Not only are great English-style resources from the past like the Oxford English Dictionary available in new ways (via CD-ROM or the web), but good new books keep coming out. For instance, for H.W. Fowler lovers, Bryan Garner's Dictionary of Modern American Usage is hardly a replacement — and isn't even really an equal. But at least it's a respectable companion. (See David Foster Wallace, "Tense Present," Atlantic, April 2001 [unfortunately, not published online]).

But now the definitive owner's manual for writers — the sanely great Chicago Manual of Style — is out in its fifteenth edition, and I'm pleased to say that it's a gem. When someone says, "let's see what Chicago says," the whole city can be proud to be associated with this concentrated source of text-makers' wisdom. And the new edition exceeds even Chicago's former excellence.

The last decade (since the fourteenth edition came out) has been one of unprecedented change in publishing. (Witness the existence of this website itself; the first HTML site wasn't published until January 1992.) And one of the best things about the new edition is this: that it absorbs and digests the electronic publishing revolution and at the same time it is more of a book itself than ever. Classic, bookish touches make this truly a book for book-lovers, including summary heads at the beginning of every paragraph; the use of gorgeous old-style figures; and the tasteful use of slate-gray type to ratchet down the intensity of explanatory examples.

Chicago has always set an example of thoughtfulness on difficult questions, humility in its judgments, and clarity in its explanations. May those qualities find their way into the works we publish, too.

(Buyer's tip and self-serving plug: You can currently get a juicy 30% discount on The Chicago Manual of Style through Amazon.com. If you'd like to support the work of the Octothorp Press while you're at it — at no cost to you — you can use the links in this posting to buy it.)

Originally published as "Style Wonks in Paradise" at News-Sheet on August 5, 2003.

Considered in this review: The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

first published Jun 2, 2004