The author of A Guide to Everyday Cooking talks about his latest cookbook, how fewer people are learning to cook from their parents, the proliferation of lifestyle programs, how he creates recipes, on using classic recipes, the photography sessions, kitchen wisdom, obtaining…
A review of Gabriel Gate’s Guide to Everyday Cooking
Guide to Everyday Cooking is an all-inclusive primer, with over 200 dishes and lots of information on techniques, ingredients, and kitchen help. As with all of Gate’s books, the focus is on using the freshest and best quality ingredients you can…
A review of The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
In the end, we choose our point, arbitrarily: “A period, a dot of punctuation, a point of stasis.” Atwood reminds us that the story could easily end elsewhere, that endings are random, and that, for her protagonists (but not for…
A review of Reservations Recommended by Eric Kraft
In terms of intention it succeeds brilliantly and the intention is no paltry one. It explores a dark world of a man who was a difficult tortured child and never escaped that childhood. His failure to generate love among any…
A review of The Portable Writer’s Conference
Like a writer’s conference, there are lots of different self contained mini-courses or topics presented by experts in their fields – 45 in all. Also like a writer’s conference you can pick and choose what topics are relevant to you…
A review of James Joyce: A Short Introduction by Michael Seidel
One who has long been acquainted with the works that Seidel discusses will enjoy the book most. Despite the title and despite the titles of books like it, there is really no introduction to Joyce. The only introduction to the…
A review of Promote Like a Pro
There are quite a few books on the market which cover promotional skills, and how to handle the media, but Linda Radke’s Promote Like a Pro was specifically written for authors. It is a complete guide to obtaining serious and very low…
Interview with Hal Zina Bennett
Magdalena Ball: Tell me how Write From the Heart came about? Hal Zina Bennett: Over the years of writing my own books, as well as coaching other writers, I became fascinated by the creative process itself, and saw that all successful authors…
A review of Write From the Heart by Hal Zina Bennett
Bennett uses many of his own and other’s real life examples to show that anyone can write well by tapping into their own unique experiences. In a very humble way, he takes his own work and shows that he is…
A Review of Youth by J.M. Coetzee
. The story is tortuous because it reminds its readers of something that seems to go hand and hand with youth – the desire for glory, for greatness, for artistic achievement and admiration without the tedious work of application. John…