If you don’t know, The Elements of Style (also known, after its authors, as “Strunk and White”) is the definitive grammar book. First published in 1919, it’s been read by literally generations of writers. I’ve mindlessly skimmed through and pretentiously bragged about owning Strunk and White for years, but I’ve never actually read it cover-to-cover. Having read it, I have to say it’s the only grammar book I’ll ever need.

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I just finished Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, and I gotta say that it was pretty sexist. In one of the early scenes, Petruchio and Kate have a battle of wits. Their argument was a lot of fun to read, and I was hoping that their relationship would continue like that. Instead, Petruchio psychologically abuses Kate until she’s docile and obedient. I know that the play is notable because of this misogynistic controversy, but I wasn’t prepared for what I got.

I decided to try and read a Mandarin Phrasebook that I bought in Beijing for my book this week. It’s short (less than 300 pages) and written pretty informally, so I expected it to be an easy read. I was completely wrong. It took me about two weeks to read the phrasebook, and I was plugging away at it constantly. Reading any reference book cover-to-cover is hard, but a phrasebook is espcially hard, because I’m working on my language skills the whole time. I had to spend 30 minutes reading ‘X-Rated Shots’ (a tiny gag gift I got a while back) last weekend so that I could stay on schedule. This was a pretty rough book to read.

Not to say it didn’t have an upside: my Chinese dramatically improved. Just reading phrases every day made me think about how I would say the phrase in Chinese, or how I would translate the Chinese back to English. Comparing my way with the book’s way was really eye-opening. It’s fun to think about all the different ways you can say something, and it’s a lot of fun to do that in another language.

All told, I don’t have a lot to say about this book. My Chinese improved, but it was a rough ride. I’m just glad I finished it.