Books on proper grammar

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While I am not trying to become an author, I'm still trying to perfect my writing skills, and produce clear and concise writing.

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What you consider clear and concise will depend on what you are trying to produce. As with any writing style, you need to keep the audience in mind and know what you are trying to say before saying it.

The rules of grammar can be bent depending on what you are writing. See poetry for example.

What exactly are you trying to write or are already writing?

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More formal or business related correspondence - e.g., letters, e-mails, thank you notes, and so forth. A lot of my writing will go to investors, the General Counsel of certain businesses and corporations, various law firms, and higher-ups and financial institutions.

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Gotcha. You would've loved my technical writing professor at LSU. He was a grumpy old dickhead, but he knew his stuff. He lavished in chopping down the long-winded writing of English majors.

My advice would be to look for books on technical writing.

I would look for books more on effective business writing and not focusing on grammar - or both. But it sounds like you are looking to hone a style more.

I struggle with similar things, I write reports which can be more long winded with lots of explanation. Can't recommend any books but I usually read anything important I write to someone I don't know a few times and make big edits - reading through asking myself stuff like is this necessary / has it already been covered / can it be more concisely covered in another way as well as making sure I'm writing in an active voice and using strong / confident language.

ETA:

Simply going back over what you wrote one time and saying "how can I cut this down".

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I've found that a lot of my writing is often much too wordy, and it contains hollow sentences often inputted for fluff. I'm trying to trim the fat and write effective, clearer, and more concise business related correspondence.

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My writing is often too wordy, containing unnecessary sentences and I'm trying to write more effective, clear and concise business correspondence.

- For me, getting the general framework down and then reading back over it a couple times helps a lot. I get really bad at this sometimes because of the way I write for work and I also write as a hobby at home sometimes so I have to focus on the intent / audience.

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Strunk and White's Elements of Style

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be sure to get the third edition or earlier. the fourth got PCed.

Bryan Garner has a couple books on effective writing, but they are skewed to legal writing.

If you want a book about writing a book on grammar, Garner wrote a book about his time writing with Justice Scalia. Shockingly, it was a decent read.