Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing

(W.W. Norton) This writing handbook aims to help readers make sentences as “enticing … as the tango.” It poses questions such as how verbs evolved into their central role in language, and what we need to know about verbs to write with confidence. The book dips into “a little evolution, a little history, a lot of grammar, [and] a little usage.” Hale has taught at the Nieman Foundation of Journalism at Harvard and UC Berkley Extension. She is the author of Wired Style and Sin and Syntax.