Adventure ahoy!

Camping out on a strange island with no adult supervision around… lunching on sardines and baked potatoes with some butter and tinned orange juice, making friends with a kid from the circus who has a pet monkey, visiting a strange land on top of a tree every week… As a kid these ideas from the [...]

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The reader is in the details

I just realised that reading a graphic novel is actually very hard work. We live in a very visual society. Long gone are those 18th-19th century books, which had pages and pages of descriptions about entire houses, dresses, emotions, mountains, rivers etc. Most books these days, do not dwadle around the scenery. It is the reader [...]

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Monsters in a strange land

Whether they appear at the start or towards the end, monsters instantly drive the plot forward. Some authors use them as an effective plot device — to get rid of the bad guy, or as many of the bad guy’s flunkies as possible, or they use the monster to show how brave, strong, kind, beautiful, [...]

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More than just an author

Sometimes authors do more than just write books. Isaac Asimov was a professor of biochemistry, Graham Greene was a spy, Daniel Defoe ran a brick factory… And Yann Martel sends one exceptionally good book every second Monday to the Prime Minister Stephen Harper ‘to make suggestions to his stillness’ . I found this endeavour so [...]

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It comes around again

I feel like Santa Claus! It’s the Joy of Giving Week, and this year, apart from my own giveaway, I have Campfire‘s graphic novels to give away as well! So, I am giving away two books each day, through this week. All you have to do, is read this post, there are two questions in [...]

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Book review: The Art of Choosing

As it appeared in Business World online Choice Analytics Understanding how neurological elements and cultural conditioning influence our ability to choose and the dilemmas thus faced Ahalya Naidu We have no choice but to make several choices through the course of our life, from the routine to the crucial. And we have to bear the [...]

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I feel awful

For those of you who have been with me over a year, my love for Terry Pratchett’s books will come as no surprise. Remember I wrote about his continuing effort to write despite the battle he wages with Alzheimer’s? Well, I feel so awful now. I subscribe to this mailing list that sends out news [...]

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Book review: Scent of the Missing by Susannah Charleson

Note: I chose this book, because I love dogs and I live with one, so I am always tempted by books that are about dogs. If you do not like dogs at all (!) I still think that you will like this book, because it is an interesting, inspiring, non-fictional narrative about life in a [...]

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Book Review: Open by Andre Agassi (and a few thoughts about writing and editing)

A few pages into Open, I decided that Agassi is a really good storyteller, but he needed more editing. I was wrong. In retrospect (I just finished the book three minutes ago), I think he had a fantastic editor (and a fantastic collaborator). Writing a book, is not easy. You can’t do it with a [...]

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Graphic Novels: Giveaway and review

…”and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?’ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll I don’t think I am using Alice’s words out of context in a post on graphic novels. Because it is true, pictures make a book a whole lot interesting. And if the book is full [...]

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