Quick looks
The style is plain and simple, and all the more powerful for that.
Read MoreThe real history of news is not about a chronology of technological inventions.
Read MoreThe stand-out aspect of this collection for me is the way it has been organised into categories, a brave choice I think.
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These stories really provide a short glimpse into a culture of which I am almost completely ignorant.
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This is just a very quick heads-up. I’m just about to send off four reviews to Teach Secondary magazine. I will post the reviews here once they’ve been published there (that’s the deal), but here are one-liners to whet your appetite.
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One of the things I think can add to one’s enjoyment and also improve one’s writing is to read stories from other cultures.
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This article is an excerpt from a longer one that appeared on my Eclecticism newsletter.
Read MoreI’ve been sent the following books by publishers, and will review them in due course. Here is some information about them.
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Here are a few of the books I’ve been sent for review recently, covering AI, maps, time travel and language.
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My Jane Austen collection
Since I read Northanger Abbey when I was in my twenties, I have to say that in the interim it has much improved. Clearly, Jane must have taken a creative writing course or two because it is now much funnier, more cutting and more modern, what with her stepping outside the story to comment on her characters and the novel form itself.
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A very timely publication. The first section is replete with anecdotes about trigger warnings and similar. Some of these are, in my opinion, ill-informed (such as the charges levelled against Jane Austen) while others are ridiculous (like the rewriting of parts of the Noddy books).
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Here are a couple of suggestions for your reading pleasure. They are not Christmas books, but big hefty tomes that need a bit of time to wade into.
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Back in April 2023 I reviewed The Writer’s Journey, and this is a companion volume by the same author.
Read MoreI recently received this book, and I’m enjoying it very much. It looks at the (usually hidden) existence of maths in literary works.
Read MoreThis is packed with useful information. I’m especially looking forward to reading the the sections called How to Show Instead of Tell, and Using the Techniques of Fiction to Enhance Nonfiction.
Read MoreThis comes out on 2nd November. It has a very readable style, and interestingly the footnotes are in a different font from, and bigger than, the main text.
Read MoreThis book arrived recently, and I’m very much enjoying reading it. It’s a kind of guided tour or survey of the types of fiction that have appeared in the last fifty years (mainly).
Read MoreBerkman has written an interesting and very academic examination of the links between maths and literature.
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This is a book about strategy and meeting objectives rather than a how-to-write guide.
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This book is aimed at the small business person who has more energy than money to spend on publicity. That sounds like a description of most writers!
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