Daily Archives: May 16, 2012

A Year in Books/Day 135: Writing Dramatic Nonfiction

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  • Title: Writing Dramatic Nonfiction
  • Author: William Noble
  • Year Published: 2000 (Paul S. Eriksson, Publisher)
  • Year Purchased: Probably circa 2000 or 2001
  • Source: Unknown
  • About: It’s nice-and occasionally necessary-to be reminded of the fundamentals. Most of us know that only by understanding the rules are we capable of breaking free of them. After awhile, it is easy to forget the basics; when the basics have been forgotten, it is all too easy to drown in your own hollow virtuosity. Beautiful but empty. It is smart to have instructional books like Writing Dramatic Nonfiction as part of your professional arsenal. Even if  rarely consulted, their very existence on your shelf is helpful. Whenever I look at the reference section in my studio, I am reminded that writing is not all style and instinct; it is a trade, a profession, a chore. It requires labor, skill, stamina. It is hard, technical work. This particular book is middle-of-the-pack. It doesn’t contain revolutionary advice; it will not change your life. You likely won’t find yourself turning to it again and again, until the pages are wrinkled and dirty, but it is solid and workmanlike; it serves the purpose of making you think, logically and clearly, about constructing your nonfiction using the pacing, demands and artistry of fiction. Noble deconstructs some of the most powerful passages from the nonfiction writings of Hemingway, Dillard and Capote, among others. That is what makes it worth the cover price.
  • Motivation: Oh, I’ve no idea. I honestly don’t remember how this book came into my life (which is extremely rare). Whether by accident or design, it doesn’t really matter. I’m a professional writer so it only makes sense that I own books about writing.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 30: “But the point is this: nonfiction or fiction, we can begin our conflict on the first page, and it will work just fine.”
  • Happiness Scale: 7

A Year in Books/Day 134: What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew

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  • Title: What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew From Fox Hunting to Whist-the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England
  • Author: Daniel Pool
  • Year Published: 1993 (Simon & Schuster)
  • Year Purchased: 1994
  • Source: A gift from an ex
  • About: This book is history-light. Don’t get your knickers in a knot, as that is rarely a bad thing! Although I love weighty, intellectually demanding tomes like a kid loves candy, lighter fare inhabits its own cozy corner of my heart. It took awhile for that to happen. Even as a pre-teen, I was (perhaps unnaturally) concerned with running out of time in which to read the world’s literary classics. Yes, I truly thought about such things as an eleven-year-old. As I thought that time was-a-wastin’, I wasn’t about to devote my precious allotment to “lesser” reading. Eventually, I discovered history books of the pop culture variety. I ate volumes whole, on a variety of history-related topics: fashion, art, film, photography. This led me down the lovely, informative and fun path that is littered with books like What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: well-researched, well-written and highly readable books devoted to popular and general history subjects. I have a preference for the Elizabethan and Victorian eras, with the Jazz Age coming in a very tight third. These are my idea of “beach reads”. Now, I’ll turn to the book at hand. Nearly every aspect of daily life that the average person could find interesting is discussed and dissected within its pages: etiquette, currency, society, marriage, kids, death, clothing, food, commerce, orphans, maids, “lesser folk”, crime, rural life, urban living, sex, balls, dinner parties, hygiene, occupations…..There is a handy glossary for those new to the era and its terms. Although not ground-breaking or revolutionary, it’s engrossing enough that it demands your attention from start to finish.
  • Motivation: It was a gift from someone who was trying to woo me. Unfortunately, it worked (for a time) because, obviously, books are a way to my heart. This gift was so perfect that it blinded me to all common sense and logic. Or, so I’d like to think.
  • Times Read: 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 134: “In England in 1800 one could be hanged for sheep stealing, sodomy, murder, impersonating an army veteran, stealing something worth more than five shillings from a shop, treason, doing damage to Westminster Bridge, and about two hundred other offenses. (Killing a man in a duel, although murder, was considered socially okay for people of quality, so juries generally didn’t convict until the 1840s. Thereafter it became advisable to duel on the Continent, as Phineas Finn does.)
  • Happiness Scale: 9 1/2
    Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens (Photo credit: Wikipedia) has some things he would like to share with you.

     

A Year in Books/Day 133: The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen

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  • Title: The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen
  • Compiled by: Dominique Enright
  • Year Published: 2002/This Edition: 2005 (Barnes & Noble Books)
  • Year Purchased: 2005
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: I own nearly two dozen Jane Austen-related books, so it comes as something of a surprise that this is the first one being featured in my P366. I’m not sure how I managed to overlook them for so long but, fear not! They will get their full, fair due in future. I think that this nifty compilation volume is a natural starting point: the great writer is presented at her wittiest and liveliest, with excerpts taken from both her novels and personal correspondence with her sister Cassandra. It’s a truthful approach, as we are not spared the waspishness or vanity of the private woman or, far worse, forced to endure the sugar-coated spinster trope prevalent in so many biographies. Set beside snippets from her fiction, we are given a double-barrel blast of the “real” Jane (so far as such a thing can be accomplished): a powerful, candid wielder of arrow-sharp words and wit, a master of language perfectly controlled and aimed.
  • Motivation: Acerbic, perceptive and highly literate, Jane Austen is one of my favourite muses and guiding lights. Shocking, I’m sure.
  • Times Read: A few
  • Random Excerpt/Page 110: “I do not like the Miss Blackstones; indeed, I was always determined not to like them, so there is the less merit in it.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10
    Jane Austen, Watercolour and pencil portrait b...

    Jane Austen, Watercolour and pencil portrait by her sister Cassandra, 1810 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)