It’s dangerous to review a much-loved and respected classic; even more so for an author. So I face this review with some trepidation. The story is, of course, of its time; a period when readers had fewer distractions, were happy to read wordy stories, and were educated enough to understand the subtleties of language. I …
Continue reading The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe: #BookReview.
Offering help for writers and language learners, this series of posts is a resource for all word lovers. This week’s words: Resign, Really, Dog eat dog, Yuan bei, ‘Resign’ belongs to an odd category of words known as contronyms. A contronym is a word that is its own antonym; a word that has …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #50
Subtitled ‘A Manual for Writers’, this is a scholarly work that attempts to analyse what makes a story ‘literary’ rather than ‘genre’ and advises on how to go about achieving this distinction. Presented in two parts, after a brief introduction to the topic, the book looks first at ‘Structuring the Story’, in which the author …
Continue reading Story in Literary Fiction, by William H. Coles: #BookReview.
Monday; the weekend over, a new week starting. Here, in Lydbrook, we’d had a pretty busy few days and were missing our usual walks in the Forest of Dean. The sky, alternately threatening and promising, made us wonder about our best option. The village has two very good, and reasonably-priced, pubs that serve …
Continue reading A Taste of Village Life
Until I read this short, I hadn’t realised how good Poe was at comic writing. This is a tongue-in-cheek dig at the horror genre that had me laughing out loud. Although some of the constructed names are a little juvenile, I suspect they would have been thought quite revolutionary at the time. The story, inasmuch …
Continue reading The Devil in the Belfry, by Edgar Allan Poe: #BookReview.
Offering help for writers and language learners, this series of posts is a resource for all word lovers. This week’s words: Fable, Assonance, sort of, back against the wall Fable – Roget’s thesaurus lists these alternative words: maxim, fantasy, fable, narrative. Under the sub-heading ‘fable’ are a further 42 replacements, including fiction, tale, …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #49
Translated from the original Italian, this melancholy novel captures the nuance and subtlety that can so strongly influence a young mind. The wrong thing said, the poor choice made, the misunderstanding never fully comprehended until much later, all act as controllers in the lives of those still forming. This is the story of two young …
Continue reading The Solitude of Prime Numbers, by Paolo Giordano. #BookReview.
The picture is a small version of a large image that's one of almost 400 I have on a site called Picfair.com. It's a place that sells photographs that can be used for any reason, at very reasonable rates. I'm hoping to earn enough from my work there to improve my website and to obtain …
Continue reading Creative #Writing #Contests Table Updated
At the moment, patiently awaiting the first view of the new book. While we wait, I thought I’d make a few comments about why I wrote ‘War Over Dust’. Actually, why I wrote that and its predecessor ‘Blood Red Dust’ and will write the one yet to come in this trilogy. Science fiction attracts writers …
Continue reading Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.
Fantasy? Science Fiction? Magical Realism? This book is all of these. But it’s also a thoughtful, imaginative, and ultimately terrifying cross genre piece that stirs both emotions and ideas. We’re plunged into an undefined land, except that it must be the so-called civilised world, in an undeclared time, which must be the future. What is …
Continue reading Till They Dropped, by Sue Knight, Reviewed.
Offering help for writers and language learners, this series of posts is a resource for all word lovers. This week’s words: Eager, Definitely, All talk and no action, Gigil. Eager – Roget’s thesaurus lists these alternative words: willing, active, fervent, excited, and desiring. Under the sub-heading ‘willing’ are a further 71 replacements, including compliant, inclined, …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #48
Offering help for writers and language learners, this series of posts is a resource for all word lovers. This week’s words: Background, Aposiopesis, Almost, A clean slate Background – Roget’s thesaurus lists these alternative words: circumstance, concomitant, accompanying, distance, surroundings, rear, spectacle, knowledge, information, stage set, and ornamentation. Under the sub-heading ‘information’ are a further …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #47
The third book in the trilogy, and a fitting conclusion to a compelling story, Pilgrims of the Pool draws the threads together and weaves an ending that’s the only one possible. The book combines three strands, weaving them into a cohesive tale that takes the reader into different worlds. Nick Blaketon, in his continuing search …
Continue reading Pilgrims of the Pool, by Linda Acaster, Reviewed.
A virginal, shy, geeky, young woman falls for a broken-hearted medic on a TV reality show. This comedy romance is peppered with characters that are probably common to this televisual form of torture sold as entertainment. I don’t watch it; it’s not ‘real’ in any proper sense of the word, and generally brings out the …
Continue reading The Leftover, by Brooke Williams, Reviewed.
Offering help for writers and language learners, this series of posts is a resource for all word lovers. This week’s words: Weather, absolutely essential, Sesquipedalianism, Natsukashii ‘Weather’ belongs to an odd category of words known as contronyms. A contronym is a word that is its own antonym; a word that has two opposing meanings! This …
Continue reading Looking for the Best Word? Tip #46
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Antidote to the Novel
Stuart Aken 