It's not often one comes across a book which purports to contain instructions on both writing and life. Does the concept work?
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Bookshelf
Quick look: Audio for Authors
in Audio, Bookshelf, Quick looks, Reviews
This book provides compelling reasons for including audio as an integral part of the writer’s portfolio and tools of the trade, not merely an add-on or afterthought.
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Review: A-Z of Storytelling Techniques
As the title suggests, this book comprises 50 “techniques” of storytelling.
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Review: My very first Updike
Inside a second-hand bookshop, by Terry Freedman
Not quite nearly fine: some terms used by antiquarian booksellers
Like all professions, book selling has its own peculiar nomenclature.
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Book review: All That Is Evident Is Suspect
in Bookshelf, Oulipo, Reviews, Audio, Oulipo book
Review of a collection of writings from the Oulipo, including minutes of meetings, lectures and correspondence.
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Review: Writers' London
A great reference book for those who love London, and are interested in the places associated with well-known writers dating from centuries ago to the present day.
Read MoreReview: Write Your Book In A Flash
UPDATED! Now includes an audio version. The next time I write a book, WYBIAF is going to be open right there on my Kindle for easy reference.
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Covid-19: Time to read The Plague?
in Bookshelf, Video, Short form, News & views
In his novel The Plague, Camus described fairly accurately people’s attitudes and behaviour during a plague. It seems rather apposite in our current circumstances.
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Books, by Terry Freedman
World Book Day today -- free books!
Free books!
Read MoreReview: Oulipo and Modern Thought
If your interest in the Oulipo goes beyond simply trying out their techniques, and you wish to learn about the context in which it was conceived and the developments in went through, you will find this book very useful.
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Review: Alastair Humphreys' Great Adventurers
The stories in Great Adventurers are designed to help the reader believe that they can do it too, backed up by much more substantial evidence than vague and vacuous pronouncements like "You're wonderful, you can do anything."
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Review: The Art of Mindful Reading
Can reading help you achieve mindfulness? And can mindfulness enhance your reading pleasure?
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Book Review: The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Victorian Age
This book not only contains a huge sampling of both prose and poetry, but places them into an historical context.
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Review of the Oulipo Compendium
Review of The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem
If you are a teacher of English or creative writing, you will find this book to be a rich source of material to discuss and analyse with your students. And if you are a writer, this book will I’m sure prove to be a good investment in extending your craft.
Read MoreReview of the Penguin Book of Oulipo
The word Oulipo is an acronym of a French group, Ouvroir de littérature potentielle. This is usually translated as Workshop of Potential Literature, although given its association with the sharing and critique of work on creative writing courses, the word ‘workshop’ might be ditched in favour of ‘work room’.
Read MoreRevoke of the Penny Borough of Ourselves
One of the techniques employed by the Oulipo is known as N+7. This is where you take each noun, and replace it with a word that is seven words on in the dictionary. Of course, results vary according to what dictionary you use. The following article is an N+7 version of my review of the Penguin Book of Oulipo. Enjoy!
Read MoreReview: Short-Form Creative Writing
Short-form writing is neither quick nor easy, but the effort is, in my opinion, worth it. This book explores the form with useful information, challenging exercises, and interesting examples.
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Should writers aim for unmindfulness?
in Bookshelf, Moments, Reviews, Quick looks
Perhaps a useful aim of writers is to lead the reader to put the book or article down, and disappear in a flight of imagination. After all, surely one measure of success is that what you’ve written led someone to think of something, or to make connections, that had not occurred to them before?
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