Fiske WordPower: The Most Effective System for Building a Vocabulary That Gets Results Fast 2nd Edition

I have perused "Fiske Word Power" from cover to cover and have studied and memorized every single word in this book. It was a herculean task, but I would not do it again and I do not recommend this book to my family or friends. Here's why:1. The majority of the words are either as easy as pie, or completely arcane. On the one hand, you have easy words such as "frugal", "succinct", "nuance", and "migrate". On the other hand, recondite words such as "tergiversate", "persiflage", "desuetude", "lepidopterist", "balletomane", and "oenologist". In my opinion, such obscure words do not merit studying.2. Some definitions are passé or no longer standard. The clearest example I can remember is the word "reprobate". The book defines this word as follows: "it means 'a hardened criminal' or [...] 'a repeat offender'".3. Some pronunciations are incorrect and some don't include the "schwa" sound when it should be there. For example, amoral (wrong stress: AY mor uhl, instead of ay MOR uhl), pseudonym (no schwa: SOO doh nim, instead of SOO duh nim), officious (no schwa: oh FISH us, instead of uh FISH uhs), sporadic (no schwa: spor AD ik, instead of spuh RAD ik), desultory (wrong sound: DEZ ul tor ee, instead of DESS uhl tor ee), hirsute (wrong sound: HEER soot, instead of HUR soot), fluctuate (wrong sound: FLUK tyoo ate, instead of FLUHK choo eyt), amorphous (wrong sound: ay MORF us, instead of uh MOR fuhs), and the list goes on. I had to look up every single word to make sure the pronunciation was correct, and I made slight or major changes to 80% of the words.However, I will give the devil his due: this book is not completely bad. I enjoyed the grouping of the words which made studying more effective. I also liked the writing style of two of the three authors (you can tell when you're reading that the author changes from one chapter to another).Overall, I have learned a lot of new and useful words, but I have also wasted a lot of time memorizing esoteric words that I will probably never use or even encounter in everyday situations. I have also spent more time than I should have looking up definitions and pronunciations as a precaution. If I had to do it again, I would not use this book.

I live in Australia and English is my first language. I have quite a few vocabulary books and enjoy learning new words.I thought this might turn out to be too basic, but it’s not.It doesn’t take too long to do each day. So it doesn’t seem like a chore.One other thing I really appreciate is the hints on how to pronounce the words. Knowing what a word means is important, but so is pronouncing it correctly. Keep in mind, some words are pronounced differently in different countries eg. In the US vs. UK.I still have many pages to go, and look forward to learning many new words!