9th and 10th books of 2010

Bertie, May and Mrs Fish: Country Memories of Wartime by Xandra Bingley.

A memoir book I picked up in one of the charity shops on North End Rd. I got this one because most of it is set during WW2 / post WW2, about a girl growing up in the English countryside, and I'm trying to absorb details about this time period for the story I'm writing. This book has quite a different writing style to it - full of ellipses, no quotation marks, people's dialogue running into the text. I didn't like this book, to be honest, but I finished it. Mostly because I'm doing these blogposts about what I've read so I don't feel like I can drop a half-read book now!

The Art & Craft of Storytelling by Nancy Lamb

One of the books about writing that I selected for inspiration. Sadly, this book didn't quite kick it off for me. It feels super weird to say this, but it was too basic. I knew all the stuff she was writing about. I found myself skimming pages, skipping ahead. Still, it covers a good range of information and I may use chapters for reference when I go back to edit my current story. And I found a couple of quotes I liked. First from Nancy, the writer herself. She said "honour your art" (well, actually she said "honor your art"...) in a piece about making sure you write, if you want to be a writer. And I like that. If you have the call to write, then you need to honour that. It's the perfect concept.

The other was this quote from Eddy Peters about the English language: "Not only does the English Language borrow words from other languages, it sometimes chases them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and goes through their pockets." It made me laugh.