These days I'm re-reading Raymond Chandler's masterpiece, The Long Good-bye. I do this as I'm nearing the completion of my own book; I don't avoid fiction as some writer's do to avoid being overly influenced but knowingly read books I want to be influenced by. In this case it's mostly four books I read and … Continue reading Now That’s a Simile
Sometimes you come across passages that remind you again of what good writing is. I just started the classic Wuthering Heights last night (yes, you need to read the classics) and was taken aback by a passage not just because of the quality of the prose but also by the tone. It was like the … Continue reading The Best Writing of the Week – Wuthering Heights
Elephants shouldn't glow. Humans shouldn't be careless with radioactive waste. But good writers should tell good stories, and that brings us to Brooke Bolander's The Only Harmless Great Thing. This tells the story of a woman and an elephant. The way the book is written may make the book slightly less appealing to readers, and … Continue reading Elephants Aglow – A Few Words About THE ONLY HARMLESS GREAT THING
The following is a short excerpt from Seanan McGuire's Every Heart a Doorway that should be enough to either convince to buy the book right away because wow! The book tells the story of a group of teenagers that are trying to adapt to life after living in portal worlds (like the Narnia kids or Dorothy … Continue reading Just a Bit of Great Writing
Do you ever read books simply for the prose? In an attempt to improve my writing I do this a fair bit and am now reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. It was there I came across the following description that, as it happens, is also the best written thing I've read all … Continue reading The Best Writing of the Week – Tender is the Night
I'm reading Undertow Publication's excellent anthology Year's Best Weird Fiction Volume Two. It was there I encountered the following sentence, the first in the story Loving Armageddon by Amanda C. Davis: She presses her cheek to the center of his chest, listening to the beat of his hand-grenade heart. Now. Here's why I think this is awesome. There's … Continue reading The Best First Sentence of the Year?
The best writing this week comes, yet again, from Charles Dickens. He is a master, pure and simple. From great character names to the most vivid descriptions and heartbreaking plot, he is one to envy. Here is a great passage I came across this week while reading Hard Times She gave him an affectionate good-night, … Continue reading The Best Writing of the Week | Dickens Again
I'm about to finish Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus. It is a fantastic book that I put off reading for far too long. While reading it on the bus this afternoon I came across a passage that described the room I want to spend all my days in. Fix yourself a cup of tea, or … Continue reading I Want To Live Here | Best Writing of the Week
Neil Gaiman told me to read Harlan Ellison, and if Mr. Gaiman says something, I obey. (This is also why I read Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) I come relatively late to Harlan Ellison but am not sorry for it; I'm glad there's something this good out there still left for me to … Continue reading The Best Writing of The Week | Harlan Ellison
I'm reading one of those books that I kept hearing about, again and again, but never really wanted to read. Then I bought and read the very excellent Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor. He puts the book in question in his "Literature Masterclass", with three other works of staggering genius: … Continue reading The Best Writing of the Week | Toni Morrison
