Like Chekhov's gun (if a gun appears in Act 1, it has to be fired at some point), actions like someone clearing their throat are pointless if they add nothing to how we see them as a character.
Read MoreReview: Storycraft, by Jack Hart
Bookshelf
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Review: The Go-Between
I also started to ponder: why the obsession throughout the book with belladonna?
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Review: How to write short
This is a very different book from Short-Form Creative Writing: A Writer's Guide And Anthology, both in content and style, but covers similar ground.
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Quick look: You talkin' to me? The Unruly History of New York English (The Dialects of North America)
in Bookshelf, Quick looks, Reviews
One of my ambitions, once this pandemic is over, is to visit New York if I can. In the meantime, this look at the various cultures and dialects in New York is a reasonable substitute for actually being there.
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Listening, by Terry Freedman
Books of 2020 -- now with audio
Yesterday I published a blog post entitled Books of 2020, a list of the books I’ve (mostly) read in 2020. Well, it’s a bit of a long read at around 4,000 words, so I’ve created an audio version of it as well.
Read MoreBooks of 2020
These are the books I’ve encountered in 2020. I’ve read most of them, and reviewed many of them.
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Since I drew this cartoon, the names of the authors have changed, but the issue remains the same!
Books I'm determined to finish this year (gulp)
These are some of the books I’ve started this year, and which I’m determined to finish this year. Well, maybe I’ll settle for reading a bit more of them at least.
Read MoreA shorter review of the Penguin Book of The Prose Poem
Arranged in reverse chronological order, this book will help you find great examples of innovative approaches to writing poems, dating back to the 1840s. But what exactly is a prose poem?
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On This Day, by Terry Freedman
On this day #7: Review of Help! for Writers
in Bookshelf, On this day, Hardware, Reviews
On 22 December 2015 I published a review of Help! For Writers, by Roy Peter Clark. I liked the book back then. Do I still like it now?
Read MoreReview: Leaving the Atocha Station
This is a very clever book. Too clever, in fact, for any one person to fully appreciate I think.
Read MoreReview: Ethan Frome
(Amended) The pages in my copy are marked (in pencil of course) all the way through, to highlight wonderfully-crafted sentences.
Read MoreReview: Chronicle of a death foretold
It was with some foreboding that I opened this book.
Read MoreReview: Book of Clouds
I’ve never been to Berlin, but I feel like I’ve come to know it through this book.
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quotation marks, by Terry Freedman
How are literature and orgasm related?
If this were true, I’ve wasted a lot of money on literature courses, and there are a lot of Eng Lit teachers and authors making money under false pretences.
Read MoreReview: A Little History of Poetry
The poets featured each enjoy a potted biography that places them and their work in the context of the time. Extracts rather than whole poems are presented, and this is both an advantage and a disadvantage.
Read MoreReview: Who will run the frog hospital
If you like stories about teenaged angst, and especially female teenaged angst, you will like this book. Well I don’t and I didn’t.
Read MoreReview: The Comfort of Strangers
Rather than write the traditional sort of review, I thought I would do it in the form of one of those quizzes one sees in popular magazines. Answer each question honestly, and keep a note of your answers on a sheet of paper so you can add up the score at the end.
Read MoreReview of Things Seen, by Annie Ernaux
There is something to be said for short pieces that stand alone as impressions but yet together form a tapestry of a whole picture. Once certainly gets a sense of the aspects of Paris which, as in any tourist-attracting city, are not to be discovered in the guidebooks.
Read MoreReview: Giovanni's Room
Giovanni’s Room, which is the only work of James Baldwin’s that I’ve read so far apart from a few articles, also starts at the end. The result is a story that is intriguing and gripping within the first few minutes.
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Review: Closely Observed Trains
There is some very beautiful writing in this book, and plenty of humour.
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