It's the 23rd January, and I'm freezing. I don't usually feel the cold, but I've spent all day in a conference about educational innovation. I think a useful innovation would have been to turn the heating on. It was a good conference, but the temperature in the hall (Senate House, University of London), was lower than it was outside.
So, a brisk walk brings me to St Pancras station, and the branch of Hatchards there. (As an aside, if you ever want a signed book, Hatchards is the place to go. Foyles has a few, and other bookshops have them occasionally, but Hatchards has the most, and all the time.)
I'm now going to switch to the past tense.
I started looking in the non-fiction section, and an assistant came along, sat on a stool, and asked me if I was looking for anything in particular. I wondered if she thought I looked like a shoplifter! Anyway, I told her I was interested in Why we sleep, by Matthew Walker. She took me straight to it, and told me why she liked it. I asked her if it was fairly scientific, rather than anecdotal, and she assured me it was.
So, I bought it, and the young lady at the till was charm personified.
It was a nice experience. It left me feeling a lot warmer inside than when I entered, and not merely because of the temperature.
I like Amazon, but I don't think any algorithm can replace well-informed and pleasant bookshop staff.
As indicated by the title, the first thing to know about this anthology is that it comprises both poetry and prose, rather than one or the other. Many of the pieces are quite unusual...
It's rather disconcerting when one considers that buildings like The Shard are essentially held together by nuts, bolts and washers.
Like, I suspect, many people, I have never knowingly come across an isosceles triangle in my life, and wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did. However...
This book may be thirty years old, but its advice is still pertinent. If you want to have a blitz or crackdown against, or shake-up of, bad writing (all examples of 'tabloidese'), then this is the book for you.
Introducing and applying Conway's Law, Gresham's Law and the sunken cost fallacy to the practice of writing.
A fascinating glimpse into the mind and development of a true virtuoso.
We visited the William Morris Gallery at the weekend, and Chaucer’s Complete Works was one of the books Wm Morris published.
The art of making paper was kept secret for hundreds of years.
I’ve been sent the following books by publishers, and will review them in due course. Here is some information about them.
The typical school writing assignment involves working in a way that no real writer does.