IF YOU HAVE EVER FELT the paralyzing and strangling helplessness of hunting for the right word when you need it the most, then you know the real value of a rich vocabulary. There is no man on earth so alone as the one who is addressing a group of associates and, at the moment of putting across an "idea" which may make the future for him, finds himself struggling hopelessly for the right word to convey that idea. He is alone then ; there is no one who can help him, no matter how much we may wish to. He is alone with a mind that is struggling valiantly to broadcast the right word conveying the right idea.

Unless the right word is immediately available, the idea may as well have died at the very moment of conception. Remember there is more truth than poetry to the old jingle "... for want of a horseshoe nail a kingdom was lost." It is equally true that for the lack of a single word one's whole future may be lost.

This volume is a truly splendid collection of related vocabularies so arranged that the user can place his finger immediately upon the category of words that he needs for use or for study. To make these collections even more readily accessible for use and study, the collections of words have been divided vertically into groups. These are the major divisions for all words of verbs, adjectives, and nouns, the inverse order to the one by which we learned our wards as children, but the correct order in which we must learn our words as adults to improve and enrich our vocabularies.

Anthony Burgess: English literature - A Survey For Students
It is a great book for students of English literature and for those who want to learn more about the historical background of English writers. I can only recommend this book, even though I hate it at the moment (I have to study it for my finals...) Enjoy the reading! :)