Reading Kidlit: Kids’ Books on the iPad
April 3rd heralded a good weekend for books–or a bad weekend, depending on your perspective. According to this article in PW, over the April 3rd weekend, in excess of 250,000 books were “sold” (current numbers include a lot of freebies and public domain downloads)–on the iPad. But the e-lit frenzy doesn’t stop there: of the more than one million apps downloaded over the launch weekend, many of which were book-apps. Given the furor raised by the reading and publishing potential...
Read MoreReading YA: Reading Fast, Writing Poorly, & Getting Old
Young adult literature is popular for a reason. It’s full of tight storytelling, engaging characters, and authentic, relatable voices. Why? Because it has to be. Teen readers are discerning and intelligent, and will toss aside books with unrealistic/unrelatable characters or a condescending tone. And yet, teens read a lot of poorly written crap (read more about poor writing in my earlier post, here). I read a lot of YA, partially because I like it, and partially because I think it’s...
Read MoreThe Case For Writing Poorly, Or Using Straightforward Prose
Writing is a numbers game–the more books you sell, the more money you make. If you write fast, it’s even better. Getting a book out every year for ten years (Jasper Fforde’s goal), if you sell enough, could be quite lucrative (and your hourly rate might actually approach positive numbers). Yet writing, good writing, takes time to craft. Story, characters, and prose itself do not happen overnight, particularly if you’re fond of tight dialogue and polished writing. But here’s the...
Read MoreReading: What Makes a Book Satisfying?
Last week, I posted about what makes a book unsatisfying (it’s all about a poor resolution–sorry, Eve). But pinning down what makes a book satisfying isn’t as simple as writing out a list of opposites. Sure, a book with a great wrap up might be a good read, but there’s more to a satisfying book than that. Reading–moreover, enjoying–a book is a very subjective thing. So far this month, I’ve read just one completely satisfying book – Megan Whalen Turner’s The...
Read MoreWriting YA: Reading Deeply to Write Deeply
We all do it, right? Glance at a group of letters, pull out a word. Reading is so ingrained in our minds that it’s almost impossible to not read signs, titles, anything with words on. But there’s reading, and then there’s reading. Today, reading mostly falls into two categories: reading for pleasure, and reading for information. Reading as an art–really reading, reading deeper, to get within a story, to pick it to pieces and learn how it works–is fast becoming forgotten. But...
Read MoreDownload a PDF of William Hazlitt’s “On Familiar Style”
My recent post about familiar style was quite popular, so I started looking around for somewhere I could direct people who wanted to read Hazlitt’s essay, On Familiar Style. Unfortunately, I could only find small excerpts online–until I remembered Project Gutenberg. Thanks to the marvelous folk over there, I was able to find a ready-to-go copy of Hazlitt’s book of essays, Table Talk: On Men and Manners. So here’s Hazlitt’s original in all its glory. Funny thing:...
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