Previous | Next Modifiers! They're a lark! The more, the better, right? I'm well and truly known to be overwhelmingly, overpoweringly for every and all types of sentence modifiers, be they adverbs, clauses, or phrases--nothing's as crunchy, as meaningful as a bad guy in a book described as "evilly chewing his lip", say, or a... Continue Reading →
You've likely come across Nicole Perlorth's work over the last decade or so, even if you don't know her by name. Perlorth works the cybersecurity track for the New York Times and has broken some of the most significant news in the sphere. Early last year, she debuted a rivetting new book, This Is How... Continue Reading →
My fondness of Kurt Vonnegut knows no bounds. I've spoken about his best-known piece of fiction, and one of the finest anti-war books (along with Catch-22), Slaughterhouse-Five previously. I've read a few other of his novels, too: the Sirens of Titan immediately comes to mind as a wonky, entertaining--and somewhat unsettling--tale of a businessman and... Continue Reading →
Mark Forsyth's non-fiction books are a treat. Erudite jaunts through the origins of the English language, every one of Forsyth's works has been accompanied with hours of laughter, and The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language is no different. It doesn't quite measure up to my memory of The... Continue Reading →
Before I picked this up, I knew nothing about who James Wood is; having now finished it, I can tell with absolute certainty, he is one of contemporary criticism's most gifted and steadfast voices, a lover of literature through and through. How Fiction Works is among the finest examples of that particular branch of non-fiction... Continue Reading →
It's rare that you find a book on sentence construction that has so warm a tone. June Casagrande's It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Longest of Titles is an excellent guide on writing, chock-full of common and uncommon issues that plague the amateur and the intermediate writer alike. "A writer's guide to... Continue Reading →
I love listening to the autobiographies of my favourite actors and comedians. Kevin Hart, John Cleese, Felicia Day, Amanda Palmer, all have put out such engrossing, fascinating reads. I couldn't get enough of them! When I joined Twitter I described myself as “Scottish elf trapped inside a middle aged man’s body” and I still think... Continue Reading →
This novel constitutes my first experience with the non-fiction work of the great Haruki Murakami. It was a hell of a lot of fun - and now that I've read it, I feel I have a touch greater understanding of the man behind some of my favourite magical realism fiction. This book will motivate you... Continue Reading →
Has another event in European history affected the age we live in as much as the French Revolution? Hasn't every political debate, every crisis of our time been directly shaped by blood spilled and lines drawn in the sand throughout the events that unfolded in those first months, years and decades following 1789? Left and... Continue Reading →
Autobiographies haven't always agreed with me. Granted, I have attempted to read a very limited number of books in this particular genre, and have finished considerably less than I've started. So, why...So, Anyway...? I'll share a secret with you -- I really am quite fond of John Cleese. He's a brilliant comedian, a part of... Continue Reading →
The Grimoire Reliquary 