Best Book on Grammar

[Sion]

I need to get better at grammar (partially to blame on my teachers, majority of blame is for me). I want to just knuckle down, nose to the grind stone, and learn. What is the best book you know that teaches on this subject? (or website, or whatever medium) My many thanks.

PS. I have already read Shrunk & Whites Elements of Style.

[Leoff]

I'll check my library for something more academic, but as a light read that covers quite a lot of ground I recommend Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, by Lynne Truss.

[Burning]

For an academic treatment, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar by Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey Pullum is good.

It is not intended as a writing how-to book. It's intended to teach the rules of English syntax and morphology. So you won't get any "here are common mistakes" type guidance. But it will provide a good basis for analyzing sentences to see if they are well formulated.

While the author's are linguists, they are very good at explaining to a non-specialist audience, and the end of chapter exercises are pretty good.

Be warned: Their use of terminology will not always match up with what you remember from school. This is deliberate. They disagree with a lot of the traditional analysis of English grammar presented in schoolbooks (which have apparently been ignoring the contributions of linguists since at least the late 19th century). They are pretty good at identifying these differences and putting forward the reasoning behind their analysis.