Oh! Let me know how you like Footnotes in Gaza! It’s depressing, but excellent!
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I have read other books by Mr. Sacco. I liked his style. This is a little different comic book from “Palestine”, an album that brought together several stories published between 1993 and 1995. Palestine has a more didactic character, explaining the origins of the conflicts, especially the Intifada, Zionism and the English colonial situation.
This last book is much more poignant, the interviews are quite incisive and only those who died inside and had their soul gnawed by rats are not capable of at least feeling something for those people. They are not poor things, merely exploited, they are human beings and do not deserve to go through anything here like any other person on the planet. Anyone who doesn’t understand this has died inside.
I will start “Three Shadows” soon. It picked my interest when I read a review a long time ago.
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Argh. It is true.
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The last couple of years I’ve decided to look more into the history and folklore of this holiday season in order to better appreciate this time of the year. This year was with the new release The Fright Before Christmas: Surviving Krampus Other Yuletide Monsters by Jeff Belanger. It’s a good read for anyone who likes learning about the holiday creatures, their histories, and traditions associated with them. The only shortcoming is that it’s a general overview of them, but it’s probably to be expected from many without any real recorded tales. They’re icons and traditions in most cases, not fleshed out and collected folktales.
Last year I read The Book of Christmas Folklore and The Illustrated Book of Christmas Folklore, both by Tristram Potter Coffin (and more or less the same book), as well as Christmas and Christmas Lore by Thomas George Crippen. They’re unfortunately all out of print. But they’re great for learning about old traditions going back to Saturnalia, how traditions may have evolved, and even what the feasts looked like. Crippen’s book even included some recipes!
Next year I’m going to challenge myself to find books covering winter solstice observance beyond Europe.
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In case anyone needs a book rec for holiday shopping…
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What I brought home to read for the holidays.
Booker Prize winning Handmaid’s Tale style dystopian SF, I loved Emily Carroll’s previous work so I’ve been waiting to read this, and a bit of Patricia Highsmith. That’s actually The Price of Salt which they renamed to match the movie. Talking of which we will be watching May December as well.
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Someone i know has most of the Expanse books, so that’s become my personal lending library and after the first one i’m wondering why i never made the attempt before because 'twere great! More, please.
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I might re read them soon. Good space opera is thin on the ground these days 
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Just finished The Faithful Executioner, by Joel F. Harrington. I’m mixing in some history politics and other non fiction recently. I think this book may have been suggested on the bbs? Anyway, I really enjoyed it.
Funny thing is, as procrastination edfication for my creative writing projects, I have been reading purchasing a number of books on writing. Well, I picked up and read the first pages of one new book, How to Tell a Story, by th folks at The Moth, and that got me back into Stephen King’s On Writing (which I read years ago and still have), which brought me to Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club. Somewhere in there I read about Stephen Pinker’s Sense of Style: the Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century!, which has led to another whole set of style guides that I’ll maybe list some other time. But I am interested to read more of Mr. Pinker’s work.
Anyway, lo and behold, while reading the epilogue to The Faithful Executioner, the author mentions (and references elsewhere in Notes), Stephen Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature. And so on.
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Do you find any particular help guide more helpful than others?
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So far I don’t have a favorite but also I don’t know that I’m far enough along reading and thinking to know. I’ll list the books below.
It’s funny how Stephen Pinker and a lot of other folks talk about how Strunk and White went wrong in The Elements of Style, but also acknowledge it is very hard to give instruction.
It is hard for me to follow along sometimes because I only dimly know the rules they are debunking, etc. I have read A LOT, and that is what seems to have helped me the most. I do write professionally (information memorandums) and have aspired to creative writing in the past 
Here are some of my impressions so far. Again, I’d say I have just begun, but I have had some of these books for a while.
Not a style guide but for me, Stephen’ King’s On Writing was a formative book for me when I read it. This time through I got stuck on his reference to Mary Karr and started reading her books 
I like his practical advice on keeping things simple.
Clear and Simple Truth, Francis Noël Thomas and Mark Turner - Haven’t read much of this yet.
Style: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams - Again just beginning this book but promising start.
the New Fowler’s Modern English Usage by R.W. Burchfield - This seems to be one of the texts folks rebel against. I’m going to try looking up words and seeing what it says.
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White made a big impression on me back in the day (high school first time) but I always found it hard to remember all the rules, other than eliminating excess words and making me prefer to omit the Oxford Comma. I am re-reading now in light of the feedback from Stephen Pinker in his book, Sense of Style, that I have been slogging through. I really like the first part of the book talking about cognitive loads for the reader, etc. The last bit of the book, working through abstruse rules and his take on them, I may need to come back to.
(So funny…many editors of mine would have a fit at that last sentence. Even I can barely help re writing the end.)
Realizing I should ask folks on here for some contemporary guides / books.
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Cool!
I’m a bit surprised you’re reading those style books for help with creative writing. I think of guides like those as more for how to write “properly” and elegantly in more formal situations. Creative writers so often break such rules!
Speaking of Mary Karr, I follow her on FBook, where she often writes updates on how her current memoir effort is going. She seems to find it an agonizing, slow process! The results seem worth it to me though, since I thoroughly enjoyed both The Liars Club and Cherry.
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Great list.
I’d add William Zinser’s On Writing Well to it. It’s hands down the best book about writing I’ve read (and the only one I’ve read more than once). It’s largely aimed towards non-fiction writing, but a lot of it applies to other kinds of writing.
I think it depends on what you’re looking for and what you’re trying to do. I’ve found it more helpful to focus on a specific skill, than it is to try and tackle writing as a whole. Things like the voice you use when you write, interviewing skills, or diving into a specific kind of writing tend to help you get past any blocks that you may have around feeling good about your writing.
The last time I did this I dove into voice and came out feeling so much more confident about what I was doing (which is a great feeling).
A lot of writers do, especially if you’re writing for the internet. Any time I run into an old school person who uses phrases like “red line” I know it’s going to be rough because they don’t understand how writing has evolved over the last 10 - 15 years.
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@milliefink touche.
I would say I’m reading them because I want to get more context.
I didn’t set out to buy style books. It was the serendipitous purchase of the Moth book combined with procrastination. I thought Stephen Pinker’s book would be interesting because of the cognitive stuff. I get that it’s geared towards technical writing. Also, what I do professionally is indeed technical writing. It is interesting to see where some of the grammar rules I was held to by former bosses came from.
And then Pinker was referencing some other reference books and I bought them too.
I did this a while back in graphic design after stumbling onto Ellen Lupton’s Design is Storytelling. Cannot recommend that book enough. That led me to more books on typography and graphic design. Textbooks. Not that useful, but interesting.
So I’m doing the same thing with writing.
And what I’m writing is a memoir. Started with a request from my son to document some things, and morphed into more. So it’s not so much the creative I am seek, but guide rails.
Also, I am feeling a deep desire to read things written by folks who know what they are talking about. I’m trying to schedule it into my day, like school. Plus, I love books, plus it is good procrastination.
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Thanks for the recommendation. It’s on its way from ThriftBooks in Atlanta. I love AbeBooks…
I’ve found it more helpful to focus on a specific skill, than it is to try and tackle writing as a whole.
That rings true to me. For instance, Stephen King’s advice on using “said” in dialogue rather than mixing it up to much has stuck with me the few times I have had to write dialogue. (and I have a lot more coming).
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It’s great. So good in fact that I’ve never actually finished it. I’m always way too eager to get back to writing to read the last bit of it.
I’m looking forward to fighting with a teacher about this one some day. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before my kid comes home with an assignment like that.
One thing I’ve noticed about writing books is that so many of them are “Here’s how I write” and they end up being the same advice in a different order. It’s one of the reasons I said focus on a specific thing. It’s easier to get concrete advice that can help.
I’m gonna check out that book by Pinker. I feel like I could use another take on technical writing to help with things.
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Have you ever tried reading a George V Higgins book? Superb dialogue (well, the earlier ones at least. I can happily ignore the 80s courtroom drama potboilers). Absolutely no indication of who said what at any time. Hard work.
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