Reading Makes You a Better Writer (VI): "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", by Scott Fitzgerald

Hey guys, have you watched the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? It was directed by David Fincher, starring Brad Pitt. This is the story of a man who ages in reverse and it was originally written by the celebrated American author Scott Fitzgerald. This week, I would like to encourage you to read such story and listen to the audio available here. If you choose the "slower listening speed" option, it will take you only one hour to listen to the two parts of the story. Come on, there is no excuse this time!
I hope you enjoy!

Reading Makes You a Better Writer (V): "Ask the Dust" by John Fante.

                 

To me, this is one of the best books ever written. And you can find it here! But I will remain silent this time and let somebody else talk about the novel. Did you know that Charles Bukowski was a huge fan of John Fante? He wrote an introduction to Ask The Dust that is worth reading before you swallow the book:

I was a young man, starving and drinking and trying to be a writer. I did most of my reading at the downtown L.A. Public Library, and nothing that I read related to me or to the streets or to the people about me. It seemed as if everybody was playing word-tricks, that those who said almost nothing at all were considered excellent writers. [...] I pulled book after book from the shelves. Why didn't anybody say something? Why didn't anybody scream out? [...]

Then one day I pulled a book down and opened it, and there it was. I stood for a moment, reading. Then like a man who had found gold in the city dump, I carried the book to a table. The lines rolled easily across the page, there was a flow. Each line had its own energy and was followed by another like it. The very substance of each line gave the page a form, a feeling of something carved into it. And here, at last, was a man who was not afraid of emotion. The humour and the pain were intermixed with a superb simplicity. The beginning of that book was a wild and enormous miracle to me.
I had a library card. I checked the book out, took it to my room, climbed into my bed and read it, and I knew long before I had finished that here was a man who had evolved a distinct way of writing. The book was Ask the Dust and the author was John Fante. He was to be a lifetime influence on my writing. [...] 
There is much more to the story of John Fante. It is a story of terrible luck and a terrible fate and of a rare and natural courage. Some day it will be told but I feel that he doesn't want me to tell it here. But let me say that the way of his words and the way of his way are the same: strong and good and warm.
That's enough. Now this book is yours.

Click and read!!!!!!!

Reading Makes You a Better Writer (IV): Stylish Book Covers

Dear students,

many of my writer friends on Facebook have shared this link today: "The 30 Most Stylish Book Covers". Looking at these beautiful covers reminded me of you. I think that  this selection is a good chance to recommend some classics. I know you are kind of overwhelmed by work now, but you might find some time to breathe and read at some point.

Anyway, my favourite covers appearing on the list are these ones:

 

          

I love these books, so this can be the reason why I like the covers too. In fact, I am re-reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar these days and I feel like devoting an entry to her soon. She was an extremely talented (and tormented) writer and deserves her own space here. As for the other titles: The Hound of the Baskervilles is probably the most thrilling Sherlock Holme tale. Have you seen the television series Sherlock? I really ejoyed this BBC adaptation, but I must admit I like the book much more. To me, reading is always more intense than watching -everyone to his/her own taste! Anyway, another book I would like to recommend today is 1984, a novel by George Orwell that describes a nightmarish society in the future which, unfortunately, is  somehow similar to the present day world. Finally, Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon is an unfinished novel, published posthumously, that I have not read yet. Nevertheless, this is on my wish list.

                              

What about you? Did you find any cover you like? As a Fine Arts ex-student, I would like you to recommend some covers or pictures to me too.

That's all for now, folks!

See you soon,

r

Reading Makes You a Better Writer (III) - Miscellanous Collection -

Dear students,


I have been asked to recommend some books this week. Lucky us! I am always glad to carry out such a task because I love talking about books. The only "inconvenience" is that there are thousands of titles we can share, and I do not want to bore you with my stuff. It all depends on your taste.  So, please, if you are looking for a specific theme or genre, just leave a comment below and I will try to find something. Besides, I know that some of you are very demanding readers and can help as well. Everybody is welcome to recommend a book - which uses proper English - below. Anyway, before starting, let me remind you of my previous posts on reading, because you might have missed them:

Reading Newspapers and Magazines 

Reading Raymond Carver

Reading Poetry

Reading "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac

Reading "The Flowers Look Like People at Last" by Charles Bukowski


Let's just proceed now:

Your generation is supposed to have enjoyed the magic of the Harry Potter book series, by J. K. Rowling. As you probably know, after gaining worldwide attention, J.K. Rowling was awarded many times and sold more than 400 millions copies. I am sure that you contributed to her success when you were kids, and that many of you have one or more Spanish translations at home. Therefore, I do not think it will be a big deal to click the link below and get a pdf of the first Harry Potter book. It is easy to read and contains many words and expressions that can enrich your vocabulary:

Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone -Book 1

 

Apart from Harry Potter, I have been thinking about other fascinating (short) stories that you might like - something brief and light but sophisticated too - and a title has come to my mind: The Happy Prince, by Oscar Wilde. I have read this story many times in my life and its beauty has always touched my heart. Even though, in a sense, The Happy Prince is a sad story, I believe there is something blissful and marvellous about it. You might have read this story when you where kids, as I did. Now we have the chance to read it in English and "hear" Oscar Wilde's real voice. In order to do so, you just need to click:

"The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde

 

 

Do you also want to listen to the story? Just play the video below:

As I know there are many fantasy and sci-fi lovers among us, I would also like to recommend a short story by the great writer Ray Bradbury. You can listen to the famous actor Burgess Meredith while reading the Pdf file available HERE. If you feel curious, you can also have a look at this webpage full of resources and continue researching a bit on this short story and others. 

Together with novels and short stories, poems are excellent learning companions. They are short, musical and, sometimes, unforgettable. I am especially fond of British and American poetry so today I would like to introduce you to Mark Strand. He is a Canadian-born poet, essayist and translator. You can watch the video below and listen to Mark Strand reciting one of his poems, The Couple. If you feel like reading the poem at the same time or more slowly, click here.

I hope you enjoy this crazy list as much as I do. I will be back soon with new titles. Finally, as I said before, you are welcome to suggest books, graphic novels, comics, poems, academic essays (yeah!) or any written text you consider worth reading below.


Read you later, my dearest students!

Compare & Contrast: "Zadie Smith On The Psychology of The Two Types of Writers"

 On March 24, 2008, two years before she penned her oft-cited ten rules of writing, the immeasurably brilliant Zadie Smith delivered a lecture at Columbia University’s Writing Program under the brief “to speak about some aspect of your craft.” Appropriately titled “That Crafty Feeling” and included in Smith’s altogether enchanting collection Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays (public library), the lecture outlines the ten psychological stages of writing a novel. Here you are a couple of excerpts from her lecture:

I want to offer you a pair of ugly terms for two breeds of novelist: the Macro Planner and the Micro Manager. You will recognize a Macro Planner from his Post-its, from those Moleskines he insists on buying. A Macro Planner makes notes, organizes material, configures a plot and creates a structure — all before he writes the title page. This structural security gives him a great deal of freedom of movement. It’s not uncommon for Macro Planners to start writing their novels in the middle. As they progress, forward or backward, their difficulties multiply with their choices. I know Macro Planners who obsessively exchange possible endings for one another, who take characters out and put them back in, reverse the order of chapters and perform frequent — for me, unthinkable — radical surgery on their novels: moving the setting of a book from London to Berlin, for example, or changing the title [...]

I start at the first sentence of a novel and I finish at the last. It would never occur to me to choose among three different endings because I haven’t the slightest idea of the ending until I get to it, a fact that will surprise no one who has read my novels. Macro Planners have their houses largely built from day one, and so their obsession is internal — they’re forever moving the furniture. They’ll put a chair in the bedroom, the lounge, the kitchen and then back in the bedroom again. Micro Managers build a house floor by floor, discretely and in its entirety. Each floor needs to be sturdy and fully decorated with all the furniture in place before the next is built on top of it. There’s wallpaper in the hall even if the stairs lead nowhere at all.

Do you want to read the complete text? Just click here.

And this is Zadie Smith reading her paper at the New York Public Library. Please, pay attention to the way she compares and contrast these two types of writers she is talking about: