Part autobiography and part writing manual, Francesca Lia Block’s The Thorn Necklace: Healing Through Writing and the Creative Process – aptly named after a Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait – discusses growing up in 1980s LA, where [...]
While this is a book reporting and exposing the effort on the part of the Mormon Church to “destroy” The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah’s largest newspaper, it is more. Being “more” is especially true for those individuals who know nothing or have read [...]
Are you a traveler, writer, or arm-chair explorer interested in other cultures and peoples beyond the bounds of your neighborhood, town, or country? This book will whet your appetite and give you new vistas and modes of expression. It is [...]
If a news station discovers there have been two local shootings, but they only have the resources to send one team at that precise moment, how do the producer, assignment editor, and reporters decide which murder to prioritize? How does the [...]
The mystical power of the Camino de Santiago is captured in a provocative way by Prince in this part-travel, part-leadership lessons book. Between jobs Prince decides to do the 500-mile pilgrimage in northern Spain. Prince has tied his lessons [...]
“Ted Conover has ridden the rails with Hoboes, crossed the border with Mexican immigrants, guarded prisoners in Sing Sing, and inspected meat for the USDA” reads the book’s cover blurb. It’s all about going deep and spending time getting the [...]
Effective communication is a skill that everyone wants but can be hard to develop. In a collection of short, humorous essays, Rebecca M. Lyles carefully articulates the do’s and don’ts of effective communication in her work From the Errors of [...]
What a perfect book to have read during the close of the 2016 Presidential election! Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology, by Edwin L Battistella, is a review and discussion about the nature of apology. In this work Battistella uses [...]
Everyone knows about liberal media bias. But is media biased? Larry Atkins says yes, but in ways that are not always partisan or intentional. There are many types of journalism; some of which are obviously biased and some that strive to avoid [...]
Winston Churchill Reporting: Adventures of a Young War Correspondent by Simon Read, is a biography focusing on the portion of Churchill’s life as he was trying to establish himself as a potential force in the politics of Great Britain and [...]
“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” Henry Charles Bukowski, Jr (‘Hank’ to friends and family) was a noted German-born American poet, novelist, and short story writer of the mid- to late 20th century. Bukowski (b.1926) was [...]
Oliver Sacks is an eminent physician, a neurologist of uncanny intuition. He has also become an eminent writer whose craft has grown and matured across the decades and the dozen books he has produced. In addition to being a New York Times [...]
In his seventh book, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, linguist Steven Pinker tackles language in classic Pinker-style, debunking the naysayers who suggest that the English language is going down the [...]
Writing Wild: Forming a Creative Partnership with Nature by Tina Welling is dedicated to moving out of the head and into the body as a prerequisite for writing. The anecdote that begins the book, in which Welling describes a complete circle of [...]
Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer is full of fruitful prompts and challenges, one of which led this writer and reader to forty minutes of uninterrupted writing – a major goal of any writing guide, [...]
Poet-Linc: Poetry Slam has a visually stunning bright red cover with the title laid out as if pieces from one of those magnetic word games, which gives it an eclectic appeal. With the contrasting white title against the red cover, it would be [...]
“Use your words!” Most parents utilize this phrase to encourage toddlers when they transition from baby talk to using words and sentences. Kate Hopper, author, professor and editor, uses the phrase to challenge mothers in her book Use Your [...]
Gentle Return to Writing By Kathrin Lake Buddha Press, 83 pages, $14.99 Sometimes writers do not believe in themselves as writers. Sometimes they believe ‘real’ writing happens in one particular form. Sometimes they believe they [...]
