Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Morning Thoughts, Writing and Reading

The famous Waterman Fountain Pen, a pen that feels good in the hand.


Hello, good morning. Things are not bad today. I requested an interesting title, Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie. I think Salman Rushdie is still under the threat of death. This book is on order at a couple of libraries. There are no copies in the system yet. I will be looking forward to when it comes in.

I could not find that many interesting books to read in the review sources today, so I went to a few blogs. After looking through, The Thin Redline, I put Untapped The Scramble for Africa's Oil by John H. Ghazvinian which looked interesting. The other book which I put on hold was The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr which I found on Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog. I have links to both of these blogs in my side bar.

Writing And Reading:

I am just thinking conceptually today. One of the reasons that I write is to improve my reading. There is a point in reading where no matter how many vocabulary books you read, speed reading books, concentration courses, and other attempts to improve your reading it does not help.

Writing and reading about how to write have improved my reading comprehension considerably. After reading On Writing Well and The Elements of Style, I have a much better sense of what good writing is. Good writing can make even the most boring subjects interesting in my experience. Also learning grammar, punctuation, and style has helped me recognize it in other peoples writing.

This blog has also given me a chance to write reviews on books; something which I had never done before. I read a tremendous amount of reviews. Today I read Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and a copy of the New York Times Book Reviews. It is a very different experience writing a review than reading one. Blog reviews are much more informal and longer than standard book reviews in magazines.

I am really enjoying the process of writing on a blog. I try and write every day. I think the more I write the easier it becomes for me to write. This is very much a truism. At this point, I am not writing for money, but to improve my skills.

It also seems that what I am reading has changed considerably. I am reading more nonfiction, especially nonfiction that has to do with the writing or creative process, as well as design books. I think that design books have a lot to do with the writing medium. Templates, column widths, fonts, borders, and other design features can make blog easier to read. The proper term is readability which combines easily with a similar term usability.

This is my short thought for today. Nothing new has come in for me to read yet. I have seven books on hold. Maybe, if I search around for a bit, I will find something else to read.

I found a book called Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier. There is a short introduction by Neil Gaiman. I am enjoying it so far. The book is oversize, quarto, or what you might consider a coffee table book. It is fully illustrated in color. The book is c2008.
I read it on the train home and during lunch. It was a really interesting book. I am going to work on writing a short review for it tomorrow. Mark Evanier, the biographer, has a blog called http://www.povonline.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very informative blog about books.