Booking through grammar books

Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos . . . do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries–if any–do you have in your library?

I have three dictionaries..tomes...Oxford, Chambers and Collins. The Chambers belongs to my brother and is a very old edition. Oxford and Collins are fairly recently editions. Apart from those I do have a few assorted pocket dictionaries. I do use dictionaries pretty often and encourage my nieces and nephews to use those too. I do have an original edition of Roget's Thesaurus, a prized possession. I own an old copy of Wren and Martin grammar book. Alongwith that I have one more recent grammar book, which I bought for my nephew and he is yet to take it! I have not needed to check up my grammar for a long time. However, I teach my nephew to do so. I have two poetry writing books. One is written by Mary Oliver-A Poetry Handbook and is a much coveted one. Other I had bought when I started writing poetry and after consulting it for a few days, never opened it again.

I love my dictionaries. I can go through those for hours on end. Same with my much loved copy of Thesaurus. Those open a new world of words. However much one thinks one knows, one ends up feeling humbled by those tomes. I wish I knew each and every word in my dictionaries and thesaurus.

However, with the online thing, most of us have lost the art of checking those very important books. We want instant gratification. Even with words, grammar, punctuations, and writing tools!