When I heard Mark Forsyth had a new book coming out I was really excited. I had a bit of a book crush on The Etymologicon, and loved The Horologicon too. So I immediately snatched it up when Icon Books e-mailed me, and read it more or less straight away. 
 I was a bit unsure if I would like it as much as the previous two, because it was about using words rather than their meaning and history. It's certainly less quotable (I did a whole separate post of snippets from The Etymologicon), but that doesn't mean it wasn't good, just different. 
 In some ways The Elements of Eloquence is more useful. You can use what is in it to make your writing, and speaking, better, or I suppose more stylised. A lot of the elements were things I recognised as being right, but didn't really know why, it was interesting to see a bit of why. It was also good to learn the elements that I didn't know. 
 I read this whilst doing NaNoWrimo, and I do think it improved my writing a little, or at least made me more aware of how I was writing things- even if I would have written it like that without reading The Elements of Eloquence. 
 Mark Forsyth is great to read. Easy, but interesting and informative. Intelligent and witty. I would certainly recommend his books to anyone interested in English and words. And his blog too. He was, after all, a blogger before he became a 'writer'. I also recommend the hardback over the kindle version, it's a beautiful book. 
 I certainly advocate a return to learning rhetoric in schools, and all the students should be set this to read! n fact they should just read it anyway.