![]() ![]() “People read with their ears, whether they know it or not,” Mr. Sitting with elbows propped and hands clenched, and with the sunglasses and cap protecting eyes damaged by glaucoma, he listens as students read their drafts and fret over narrative. The only difference is that he can no longer see. And he is still teaching at 90, holding one-on-one counseling sessions for accomplished and aspiring writers at a round wooden table close to those bookshelves. Zinsser taught for several years at Yale University. The book, first published in 1976, grew out of a writing course that Mr. “We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.” “Clutter is the disease of American writing,” he declared in one passage that tends to haunt anyone daring to write about Mr. ![]() Sometimes all you have to say is: Hand me the Zinsser. In newsrooms, publishing houses and wherever the labor centers on honing sentences and paragraphs, you are almost certain to find among the reference works a classic guide to nonfiction writing called “On Writing Well,” by Mr. The many hundreds of books in his Upper East Side apartment stand at attention, as if awaiting instruction from this slight man in a baseball cap and sunglasses who, for a half-century, has coached others on how to write. ![]() The written word looms over William Zinsser. ![]()
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![]() ![]() Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn’t her biggest worry after all. Somebody thinks Rose has something they want and they’ll do anything to get it. Joe’s new to town, but it doesn’t take a vision for Rose to realize he’s got plenty secrets of his own. She’s well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose the rules of drinking, but won’t help with number fifteen– do more with a man. Rose realizes she’s wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true. ![]() When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain: There isn’t enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect. : Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes (A Rose Gardner Mystery) (9781463514587) by Grover Swank, Denise and a great selection of similar New, Used and. She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. Description Book 1: Rose Gardner Mysteriesįor Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad, even before she sees a vision of herself dead. ![]() ![]() The science fiction of that time was more hopeful, much less dystopian than nowadays, and may even sound a little hokey to an adult reader of the 21st century. ![]() The question is, how can Jon return to his own planet before his presence gets the Beans into serious trouble? Jon doesn’t understand money or airplanes or killing animals for meat, but he does seem to understand some things quite well and learn things exceptionally quickly. The Beans come to realize that Jon is from an “advanced civilization” where things are simpler and more honest than they are on Earth. I could picture the story played out on the small screen. ![]() But this story takes place back in the hills of the Carolinas, and not everyone is as welcoming as the Beans are to strangers, especially a strange boy who can run like a deer and who can possibly read minds.Īs I said, this short 140 page juvenile novel reminded me of a TV episode from the 1960’s. Then, the Bean family-Thomas and Mary Bean and their children Brooks and Sally-befriend Jon and try to help him remember and return to his own home. Jon first meets up with some unfriendly, even hostile, people who chase him and are frightened by his exceptional abilities. He only knows that he has fallen through the forgotten door to this strange planet, Earth, and that he is in great danger. The boy, Jon, has lost his memory and does not know who he is or where he came from. The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key is another older science fiction title, published in 1965, and it reads like a vintage episode of The Twilight Zone. ![]() ![]() ![]() The moments we are allowed to intrude on are brief and descriptionless. But instead, the reader is left hanging at every moment of togetherness. ![]() We should feel like we’re in the centre of their relationship. Journal entries are personal this is where people pour out their emotions. So much of the relationship is told through Nic’s journal entries. The relationship between Battle and Nic should be overflowing with new discovery and exploration. There is almost no character development for the two girls in question. And I don’t mean in a self-centred way, but in a they-have-no-depth way. The teens in the book are realistic enough: they are insecure, confused and scattered, but man, are tey shallow. Empress of the World looked like it was worth a read. ![]() A good coming of age story is a good story, regardless of the central characters. I’m not saying that these stories don’t exist (Will Grayson, Will Grayson / Blue is the Warmest Colour/etc), there just aren’t enough of them. Where are the teen lgbt stories? Not the one where the hetero girl has the flamboyant, all-knowing, gay, male friend that helps her through her romantic crisis, but the one where the protagonist is experiencing their own crisis, with someone of the same sex. ![]() I’m so tired of the typical boy girl-boy love story that is so pervasive in YA lit. There’s a hole in popular young adult fiction, specifically romance. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() You might flash back to an earlier moment from their boyhood days, when young Pietro (Lupo Barbiero), unaccustomed to high altitudes, collapsed in exhaustion while mountain climbing, embarrassing himself in front of his nature-loving father, Giovanni (Filippo Timi), and the tougher, hardier Bruno (Cristiano Sassella). The scene is especially moving because even by this point, fairly early in a picture that runs almost 2 ½ hours and spans a few decades, you already have a good understanding of who Pietro and Bruno are, how they live, what they long for. Here are two pals sharing a moment of exquisite communion, but who are nonetheless forebodingly separated by a chasm, one that will keep widening despite their every attempt to bridge it. It’s a blissful, tender image of friendship that, like so many images in this movie, contains bittersweet multitudes. In time, he makes it to the top and, barely pausing to take in the staggering view, crows in triumph to his friend Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), who’s doing some construction work down in the valley below. In the most exhilarating moment in “The Eight Mountains,” a movie of soaring visual majesty and churning emotional force, a dark-haired young man named Pietro (Luca Marinelli) clambers excitedly up a rocky slope somewhere in the Italian Alps, the camera keeping pace with his slow but steady ascent. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This part of the plot was also great to read. On top of this Rachel is also hiding the reason why she quit medicine. I was kept hooked by my inability to pin down what was going on. I felt for a while that Rachel was reading too much into things, and was being a little paranoid but then I started thinking that Jack was acting a bit strangely so switched to thinking that he must be hiding something major. From then on she tries to find out what the email meant and skirts around the issue with Jack, as she doesn’t want to outright admit to reading his emails. Rachel sees Jack’s iPad light up with an email notification late at night and she feels compelled to glance over and read it. ![]() I loved that it is set in such a normal, every day situation so that this story initially felt like it’s something that could happen to any one. This is such a well-written, accomplished debut domestic noir and I very much enjoyed it. Why has Jack been lying about his past? Just what exactly is he hiding? And doesn’t Rachel have a right to know the truth at any cost? My Thoughts: Or the chain of events it has set in motion. She trusts him.īut now she’s seen it, she can’t undo that moment. She loves Jack and she’s pregnant with their child. ![]() Just how much can you trust the person you love?Įverything but the Truth is Gillian McAllister’s stunning breakthrough thriller about deceit, betrayal and one woman’s compulsive need to uncover the truth ![]() ![]() It’s my favourite book in the Tiffany Aching series because the plot is just amazing and the writing is wonderful. I have previously reviewed The Wee Free Menand A Hat Full of Sky. ![]() It is also the third book in the Tiffany Aching series. Wintersmith is the 35th book in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. And draws the attention of the wintersmith himself.Īs Tiffany-shaped snowflakes hammer down on the land, can Tiffany deal with the consequences of her actions? Even with the help of Granny Weatherwax and the Nac Mac Feegle - the fightin’, thievin’ pictsies who are prepared to lay down their lives for their “big wee hag.” But when Tiffany witnesses the Dark Dance - the crossover from summer to winter - she does what no one has ever done before and leaps into the dance. Summary: Tiffany Aching is a trainee witch - now working for the seriously scary Miss Treason. ![]() ![]() ![]() Joni Mitchell performs on both recordings. "You've Got a Friend" was written by Carole King and included on her album "Tapestry." She says the song was, "as close to pure inspiration as I've ever experienced." However, it is James Taylor's version from the same year that went to #1 on the pop singles chart. The 7-inch single of "It's Too Late" was released as a double A-side with "I Feel the Earth Move." Although, musically, most pop songs resolve at the end on the tonic, "It's Too Late" seems to underlie the somber tone of the melody by ending on the mediant - which sounds inconclusive. It is included on "Rolling Stone's" list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. "It's Too Late" also topped the adult contemporary chart and was a top 10 pop hit in the UK. Carole King co-wrote "It's Too Late" with lyricist Toni Stern, who said the song was written after the end of her love affair with James Taylor. It also received a Grammy Award for Record of the Year, while the album won for Album of the Year. "Tapestry" has gone on to be one of the best selling albums of all time, spending 15 weeks at #1 and over 300 weeks total on the album chart. ![]() "It's Too Late" was the first single from the album and went to #1. It also marked a move into hit songs that discussed very adult aspects of relationships in the early 1970s. Carole King's second solo album "Tapestry" is a landmark singer-songwriter album. ![]() ![]() ![]() As they move into the summer months, Ma gardens and Pa hunts and does fieldwork. Another day, wolves stand outside the house and howl.Īs winter slowly thaws into spring, the family’s everyday life turns toward making maple sugar and going to a dance at their grandparents’ house. ![]() ![]() Laura is with Ma and has to run to the house for safety. She tries to get it into the barn, until she realizes that it is a bear standing on all fours. One night during the winter when Pa is away, Ma thinks a cow is out of the barn. ![]() The family has a healthy fear of them, but when Pa is able to kill a bear, they have fresh meat for a while. The woods they live in are home to many bears and wolves. Sometimes they make paper dolls together. Ma cooks, cleans and takes care of the girls. Pa’s chores include hunting for fresh meat, trapping for furs, taking care of their livestock and cleaning his gun. During the cold months, Pa and Ma do their chores during the day, and Pa plays his fiddle, plays with his girls or tells stories in the evenings. Once the family has made, hunted for or stored enough food, their busy lives relax a little, and autumn turns into winter. In the autumn, Pa and Ma put up food for the winter. The book details one full year of a family’s experiences as homesteaders through the eyes of a 5-year-old Laura. In 1871, Laura Ingalls, older sister, Mary, and Baby Carries live with Ma and Pa in a log cabin in a large Wisconsin woods not too far from Pa’s parents. ![]() ![]() It will challenge you, it will have you by the heartstrings. In this collection of award-winning stories, Melbourne writer Maxine Beneba Clarke has given a voice to the disenfranchised, the lost, the downtrodden and the mistreated. The young mother keeps writing, the rejection letters keep arriving. Inside its covers, a desperate asylum seeker is pacing the hallways of Sydney's notorious Villawood detention centre, a seven-year-old Sudanese boy has found solace in a patchwork bike, an enraged black militant is on the warpath through the rebel squats of 1960s Brixton, a Mississippi housewife decides to make the ultimate sacrifice to save her son from small-town ignorance, a young woman leaves rural Jamaica in search of her destiny, and a Sydney schoolgirl loses her way. In Melbourne's western suburbs, in a dilapidated block of flats overhanging the rattling Footscray train lines, a young black mother is working on a collection of stories. Winner of the Victorian Premier's Unpublished Manuscript Award 2013 Winner of the Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction 2015 Winner of ABIA Literary Fiction of the Year Award 2015 ![]() This is contemporary fiction at its finest. ![]() ![]() |