Writing advice has changed over the centuries. In the beginning, which I’m arbitrarily choosing to be the invention of the modern novel, the audience was select and unusually literate. Writing advice at the time was very much about quality and the effect on the discerning reader. Let’s face it, when literacy is not a close-to-universal […]
I remember two books from my childhood very distinctly, both unusual for a child barely learning the mechanics of reading. One was my Mother’s college biology book with exquisite transparencies of the insides of frogs. The other was a glossy book with photographs, specifications, technical schematics and the history of Japanese war planes from the […]
For writers, bookshops are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you were probably first inspired to have writing ambitions somewhere in a bookshop, surrounded by the wonder of words; On the other hand, bookshops and the books in them can be the greatest obstacle to writing that was ever conceived.
Though her reputation preceded her, I had never read a book by Ursula K. Leguin before this one. I’ve always been a fan of the old-guard of science fiction and fantasy writers, of whom she is a much revered member, so when I spotted this book for a bargain and the synopsis seemed thoughtful and […]
Aspiring writers have always been told to write what they know, and to read the classics. If everyone would have stuck to writing what they knew first hand, the written word would never have gone very far. The advice about the classics, however, hasn’t been brushed off as easily. Although you expect writers to be […]
Libraries and bookshops might be great places to meet people, but I fear sexual equality is in peril in these houses of intellect and tripe. I was at the biggest mall in the world yesterday, and in it is one of the largest bookshops I’ve had the pleasure of losing myself in, Kinokuniya. Yesterday was […]
If my Mother was around today, I’m sure she would recommend I read a book by Ayn Rand, just as my Father does on a regular basis. I’m quite sure she had read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged in her youth and would have thought highly of them. Her sister, my aunt, was and still […]