The Advanced Grammar Book, Second Edition

Rating:
Summary: A Must-Have for ESL Students
Review: "The Advanced Grammar Book" should be on every advanced ESL student's bookshelf. Having seen numerous grammar books published in the US and Britain, I can with no doubt recommend this item. It contains very clear explanations of all complex grammatical structures in English and allows students to practice them thoroughly in context. Each of the 15 chapters revolves around a topic. New structures are introduced through a reading passage, followed by a careful explanation of the grammar points in the form of a chart and a number of exercises. The accompanying Workbook offers even more practice exercises. An additional strength of the book is the fact that the topics are very current and provide the students with the rather advanced vocabulary which is particularly helpful for ESL students preparing for the TOEFL and American college studies.

Rating:
Summary: Isn't that supposed to be "Advanced" Grammar?
Review: I'm not certain to what the author suggests we should advance grammar, but I'm definitely unimpressed with the title.

Rating:
Summary: Superficial
Review: This book covers a wide range of topics, but it does not go into detail in explaing them. The treatment of grammatical structures, especially tenses and conditionals, is broad but superficial, leaving out important cases, thus making the book of limited value for advanced students who require clarification of grammatical nuances, not a survey of topics. It is more suitable as an introductory text for beginning ESL students, as a foundation for further study.