Christina Bell, of Mitcham’s Central Book Services, browses her e-reader over coffee.
Photo: Pat Scala

For more than 10 years, the e-book has been hyped as the “next big thing” in world publishing — a prediction usually underpinned by dire prophecies about the imminent death of the conventional “hard” book.

Now, more than a decade since the launch of the first clunky, chunky, expensive e-readers (one of which lost its stored information when the batteries were changed), the e-book era seems finally to have dawned, at least in the US.  >>>

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Petite model Isobella Jade has already written a memoir, Almost 5’4”, and now she’s written a fictional graphic novel based on her experiences in modeling. Model Life, illustrated by Jazmin Ruotolo, will be published by Soft Skull Press in October.
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In 1986, French photographer Didier Lefevre traveled illegally into Soviet-controlled Afghanistan with a medical team from Doctors Without Borders who were on a mission to set up a field hospital. Lefevre’s assignment was to document the difficulties of providing humanitarian aid — along the way, he captured 4,000 images.

At the time, only six of Lefevre’s photographs were published in newspapers. For two decades, his contact sheets languished in boxes. And they might have remained there had it not been for graphic novelist Emmanuel Guibert.

Guibert collaborated with Lefevre to produce The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan With Doctors Without Borders, an unusual graphic novel that combines Lefevre’s photos and Guibert’s illustrations with a comic-book style narrative.  >>>

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I know what you’re thinking. Poetry terms? But I’m a fiction writer! A blogger! An essayist. I don’t write poetry!

But before you click away, consider the vocabulary of a writer – not just a poet or a fiction writer – but any writer.

Have you ever noticed that some writers string words together seamlessly and beautifully? Have you ever read a sentence or paragraph and wondered how the author thought to put those words together in that order? >>>

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Olive Kitteridge

by Elizabeth Strout.

Strout won The Pulitzer Prize for her collection of 13 short stories set in small-town Maine. The Pulitzer judges commended her for work that “packs a cumulative emotional wallop” held together by the “blunt, flawed and fascinating” character of title character Olive.

Strout’s book was a finalist for this year’s National Book Critics Circle award for fiction.

“Hell. We’re always alone. Born alone. Die alone,” says Olive Kitteridge, redoubtable seventh-grade math teacher in Crosby, Maine. Anyone who gets in Olive’s way had better watch out, for she crashes unapologetically through life like an emotional storm trooper. She forces her husband, Henry, the town pharmacist, into tactical retreat; and she drives her beloved son, Christopher, across the country and into therapy. But appalling though Olive can be, Strout  manages to make her deeply human and even sympathetic, as are all of the characters in this “novel in stories.” Covering a period of 30-odd years, most of the stories (several of which were previously published in the New Yorker and other magazines) feature Olive as  their focus, but in some she is bit player or even a footnote while other characters take center stage to sort through their own fears and insecurities. Though loneliness and loss haunt these pages, Strout also supplies gentle humor and a nourishing dose of hope. People are sustained by the rhythms of ordinary life and the natural wonders of coastal Maine, and even Olive is sometimes caught off guard by life’s baffling beauty. Strout is also the author of the well-received Amy and Isabelle (1999) and Abide with Me (2006). –Mary Ellen Quinn

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Available in:

hardback, paperback, audio,ebook

from

–Amazon–Australian (Fishpond.com.au)–Random House–eBooks.com

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Better Communication - Focus your Communication

Focus your communication on the needs of the audience

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Zodiac

by Neal Stephenson

Sangamon Taylor’s a New Age Sam Spade who sports a wet suit instead of a trench coat and prefers Jolt from the can to Scotch on the rocks. He knows about chemical sludge the way he knows about evil — all too intimately. And the toxic trail he follows leads to some high and foul places. Before long Taylor’s house is bombed, his every move followed, he’s adopted by reservation Indians, moves onto the FBI’s most wanted list, makes up with his girlfriend, and plays a starring role in the near-assassination of a presidential candidate. Closing the case with the aid of his burnout roomate, his tofu-eating comrades, three major networks, and a range of unconventional weaponry, Sangamon Taylor pulls off the most startling caper in Boston Harbor since the Tea Party. As he navigates this ecological thriller with hardboiled wit and the biggest outboard motor he can get his hands on, Taylor reveals himself as one of the last of the white-hatted good guys in a very toxic world.

You can buy Zodiac online…

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Print is dead, nobody reads anymore, the web rules, blah, blah, blah…. The throngs packing the aisles at the recent BookExpo America prove that the book is not an endangered species and that, in fact, online tools and digital formats bring readers and writers together as never before. » » »

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Jeffy Kinney’s Wimpy Kid: Last Straw rules the roost but Stephen King’s Dark Tower: Treachery; IDW’s Star Trek: Countdown and Marvel Zombies 3 all make the Top Ten.
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[From Judy Vorfield]

Me, Myself, or I?
Have you ever wondered if you should say, “Jason and myself…” or “Jason and I…”? Wonder no more! I have the answer.
“Myself” is a reflexive pronoun, a personal pronoun that relates (think “reflect”) the action of the verb back to the subject. Examples: I drove the car myself. (I-myself.) He drove by himself (he-himself). They went by themselves (they-themselves).
CLUE: When using “myself,” make sure there is an “I” earlier in the sentence.Example 1.INCORRECT: Nancy will travel with Todd and myself.EXPLANATION: Let’s remove “Todd and” from the sentence. Nancy will not travel with myself. “Myself” must be a reflection of “I,” and there’s no “I” in the sentence.CORRECT: Nancy will travel with Todd and me.
Example 2.INCORRECT: Mother and myself will go to the store.EXPLANATION: Let’s remove “Mother and.” Would you say, “Myself will go to the store”?CORRECT: Mother and I will go to the store.
Reflexive pronouns like “myself” can’t be the subject of a sentence. They’re generally used to emphasize something. “I’ll do it” isn’t as strong as “I’ll do it myself.” Sometimes reflexive pronouns are called “self”ish pronouns.
Additional Resources:
* Reflexive Pronouns* Professor Paul Brians: I/Me/Myself* The Tongue Untied

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