Tag: nonfiction

A review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

This book will make the pedant, or “stickler” feel good about themselves. The rest of us will probably agree with most of what Truss writes, enjoy this book for its good natured, light hearted banter, and often hysterical examples, and…

A review of Mouse or Rat by Umberto Eco

Serious enough to engage its target audience of translation students, but entertaining and broadly focused enough to also interest the serious reader, this is a book which belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in the creation of…

A review of Write to Publish by Christopher Klim

For beginning writers, or young people wanting to take their work to the next level–including publication–Write to Publish will be helpful in both a practical sense, as well as inspirational, without suggesting that writers try to run before they can…

A review of Can Poetry Matter By Dana Gioia

The reader will not need to agree with Gioia to enjoy this book. It constitutes by the nature of its subject a wandering into both the unknown and the unknowable. But Gioia seldom goes so far into speculation that he…

A review of Step Across This Line by Salman Rushdie

The essays in this collection are, without exception, witty, intelligent, acerbic, moving, thoughtful and above all, truthful. Celebrating secular freedom of thought and speech, personal responsibility and courage, together they form a thesis. The book reads quickly, and all of…

A Review of Portraits in Fiction by A S Byatt

It is likely that, as an writer who works solely with words, however visually descriptive these words may be, Byatt is naturally biased. Portraits in Fiction is nevertheless, exactly what literary criticism should be, provocative, well researched, well written, enjoyable to read,…