Quick answer
The closest matches are On Writing Well, William Zinsser’s 1976 guide built on the same economy, Dreyer’s English, a Random House copy chief’s rulebook that also throws out three famous non-rules, and On Writing, in which Stephen King cites Strunk’s rule on needless words. Further down: the 1906 British guide that came first, and a copy editor from The New Yorker.
8 books to read after The Elements of Style
On Writing WellClosest match
Zinsser, a journalist and editor who taught writing at Yale, wrote a guide to nonfiction: interviews, travel pieces, memoir, science, sport. Its central demand is economy, cutting every word that does no work. It has gone through many revised editions since 1976.
Why read itIt takes Strunk’s instruction to omit needless words and shows it at work across whole articles, not single sentences.
Dreyer’s EnglishClosest match
Dreyer was copy chief at Random House when he wrote this style guide on punctuation, grammar, commonly confused words and the habits that clutter prose. A chapter called ‘Rules and Nonrules’ dismisses three old prohibitions: never start a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but’, never split an infinitive, never end a sentence with a preposition.
Why read itIt is a short rulebook in the same spirit, but it openly rejects the split-infinitive taboo that The Elements of Style upheld.
The King’s English
The Fowler brothers published this usage guide with Oxford’s Clarendon Press twelve years before Strunk wrote his. It works through vocabulary, syntax and punctuation with many examples, including a long section on ‘shall’ and ‘will’. Henry Fowler later wrote A Dictionary of Modern English Usage on his own.
Why read itIt is the British predecessor: the same belief that plain, correct English can be taught through examples of what goes wrong.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
King combines an account of his own path to publication with practical advice on vocabulary, grammar, adverbs and revision. He finished the book after being struck by a van in 1999. He recommends The Elements of Style by name and quotes its rule on needless words.
Why read itIt treats Strunk and White as part of a writer’s basic toolkit and shows how a working novelist applies their rules.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Truss, a British journalist, wrote a short book on punctuation, from the apostrophe and the comma to the semicolon and the dash. Its title comes from a joke in which a missing or misplaced comma turns a panda’s diet into a shooting.
Why read itIt shares the conviction that small marks change meaning, applied to British punctuation rather than American composition.
Bird by Bird
Lamott’s book on writing and life covers short assignments, bad first drafts, perfectionism, jealousy and finding a voice. The title comes from her father’s advice to her brother, who was overwhelmed by a school report on birds: take it bird by bird.
Why read itWhere Strunk deals with the sentence, Lamott deals with the person at the desk who has to produce it.
Steering the Craft
Le Guin built this short book around exercises on the sound of prose, punctuation, sentence length, repetition and point of view. She published a revised and rewritten edition in 2015.
Why read itLike Strunk, it teaches through short, concrete drills, but it trains the ear for rhythm rather than issuing rules.
Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
Norris spent decades as a copy editor at The New Yorker, the magazine where E. B. White made his name. Her book mixes memoir of that job with chapters on commas, hyphens, pronouns and the dictionary.
Why read itIt shows the rules of American usage from inside the editorial culture that White himself came from.
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