The Complete Handbook for Building a Superior Vocabulary

The most effective English language vocabulary builder available: this time-tested classic has helped millions achieve mastery of English and improve their communications skills in business, the classroom, and in life.

Word Power Made Easy provides a simple, step-by-step method for increasing knowledge and mastery of the English language. Arranged in thematic sections—on everything from how to flatter friends and insult enemies to how to talk precisely about science and medicine—the book is written in a lively, accessible, and often humorous style, presenting ideas and a method of broadening your knowledge as an integral part of vocabulary-building.

This book will help you:

• Speak and write with confidence.
• Read more effectively and efficiently.
• Learn quickly.
• Develop social contacts.
• Increase your earning power.

The author delves into etymology to arm the reader to decode unfamiliar words, provides phonetic pronunciations, gives tips on avoiding common spelling errors, and offers useful sections on which fussy, old-fashioned grammar rules are valid and which are outdated or misguided and can be safely ignored.

Loaded with helpful reviews, progress checks, and quizzes to reinforce the material, this classic resource has helped millions learn to speak and write with greater sophistication.

Word Power Made Easy

Especially since this March, I shop on Amazon vigorously. But I think this is my first time to write a review.

This is the magnificent vocabulary book. I tried to increase my vocabulary so many times but everytime ended up giving up (I am from Japan). This one, I managed to finish a whole book and learn tremendously. I believe that is because the author explains well so that a word logically makes sense etymologically.

If you are good at just memorizing random stuff, numbers or letters, then you probably would not need this book. You can study with an American vocab book (a quality is so shitty I was surprised) and succeed. But if you need a reason or logic for memorizing stuff, then this is the book you need.

As some reviewers commented, I have to admit that some notions in this book are anachronistic, especially if you live in South California. Definitely, I can tell the author was in social science academia, so he was liberal enough and sophisticated at his time; yet, I can see some archaic notions he introduces. Though, it did not really bother me.

This book is superb and exceptional, especially comparing to other American vocab books which are usually very poor quality.

I first discovered this book in High School, when my English teacher made us read it. To be quite honest, I had mostly forgotten about it until recently when someone asked me how I had such a vast vocabulary. I remembered this book and had to buy it again and refresh my memory.
This book doesn’t just teach you words and their meanings (that’s called a dictionary); it teaches you how to figure out the meaning of a word. Word Power Made Easy (WPME) takes a big word and breaks it down to its roots, explaining how that word came to being.
Amazingly, this book also helps with foreign languages (at least Latin based), because if you can break down English words and figure out their meaning, it makes it that much easier to break down an Italian or a Spanish word and discover that the roots for both the English and the Italian are similar enough.
There are tests for you to practice on and by the end of the book, you feel as if you can understand anything a pretentious person might say to you.

The most fun I’ve had been that now the pattern of word creation has been explained; I can create my own words for things that are indescribable and other people will know and understand what I’m saying. A little like Edgar Allen Poe.

This is one of the best vocabulary building books I have ever read. I was introduced to this book when I was in 9th grade many many many years ago by my English teacher. I am not a good reader (I am in fact very slow) so my vocabulary has suffered. Not only do I find this book easy to read and interesting but within the first few chapters you will have greatly improved your understand of words and their roots. Once you start understand the roots of words your vocabulary expands exponentially.

Since vocabulary is my weakest area academically this book had been fantastic in succeeding where all other have failed. I do not remember my High School English teacher’s name but I am forever grateful that she introduced me to this book 43 years ago.

My son has basically the same issues with English as I did but now this book will also be a great benefit for him. He
is in 7th grade and we read this together each day. This book is worth is weight in gold. I actually think it is worth more as I cannot put price on expanding my Son’s education and understand of the world.

If only one person that reads this review finds this book useful. I cannot tell you how much joy something like brings me and more importantly hopefully to that person.

Now here is my disclaimer!

On the other hand if anyone finds this book was not useful and wasted their time, I apologize! Understand that this is my opinion only and I do understand that what I have found useful may not be to others so CAVEAT EMPTOR.

I bought this book with a passing interest in improving my vocabulary. I’d like my vocabulary to be about 10% better. After taking the extensive tests to determine my vocabulary proficiency (which may be a bit dubious), I was a bit disappointed with the halfhearted short chapters that purport to give scientific evidence that building your vocabulary will make you more successful. Consider this excerpt:

“The Human Engineering Laboratory found that the only common characteristic of successful people … is an unusual grasp of the meanings of words. The Laboratory tested the vocabularies of thousands of people … and discovered that those people drawing down the highest salaries made the highest scores.”

This seems to be meant to make you think that building your vocabulary will make you richer, but in fact what this research shows is that a strong vocabulary is a common characteristic among people who make a high salary, not that making a high salary is a common characteristic among people with good vocabularies (consider the sheer number of grade school English teachers who unfortunately don’t make a lot of money and undoubtedly have strong vocabularies).

There are lots of tedious little chapters at the beginning of this book that you can skip through. The practice itself is the useful part. I can’t really feel my vocabulary growing quite yet, but I’ve just started using the book.

Word Power Made Easy is hands-down one of the best vocabulary-building books I’ve ever come across. Norman Lewis doesn’t just give you word lists to memorize he teaches you how to understand the roots of words, making it so much easier to remember and actually use them.

The book is organized in a way that feels like a personal course. It’s broken into sessions with quizzes and reviews that really reinforce what you’ve learned. I love how interactive it is—it’s not just passive reading. You’re constantly engaged and building confidence as you go.

One of the best parts is how practical the words are. These aren’t obscure SAT words you’ll never use again. They’re words that show up in everyday reading, writing, and conversation. I also really appreciate the author’s encouraging tone; it genuinely makes the learning process fun and approachable.

Whether you’re a student, a professional, or just someone who loves language, this book is an incredible resource. Highly recommend!