Reviews

Here is a selection of books and other products recommended by Writing Magazine.

• The Creative Writing Student's Handbook

  

  Aimed at student-level writers, and therefore ideal for beginners, this kindle book focuses on fiction writing and does so with an emphasis on creativity. There is sensible advice about writing style, and how to develop your own, and helpful discussion on the approach to short stories and to novels (and novellas).

  18 July 2014

• The Writer's Group Handbook

  

  Thinking of setting, or perhaps joining, a writers’ group? This book has a good deal of practical advice on setting things up: how to find a location, how to launch your first meeting, how to generate publicity, and how to recruit potential members.

  18 July 2014

• Masterclasses in Creative Writing

  

  A how-to book that you can refer to, dip into, when you have a writing problem. Under each heading you will find advice, instruction, examples (with analysis of their strengths), and exercises that will give you practice in putting what you have learned into effect.

  18 July 2014

• Oxford Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms

  

  Searching for Synonmys (words similar in meaning) and Antonyms (words that mean the opposite) in this dictionary will help you express your ideas more clearly and creatively.

  18 July 2014

• Writing The Self

  

  If you are thinking of writing anything that falls into a biographical expression of self, this is a book that will give you plenty to think about and could influence the approach you take to your writing.

  06 May 2014

• The Fiction of Autobiography

  

  A study of the autobiographical genre including memoir writing. Anyone working in this genre cannot rely only on writing about the self because life experience mostly involves interaction with other people, and those other people therefore become an important part of the story of any life.

  24 March 2014

• Improve Your Written English

  

  A book that explains how grammar works with an emphasis on how you should use it in writing. Early chapters are concerned with the practical basics of grammar and punctuation and followed by advice on how best to construct sentences and paragraphs.

  24 March 2014

• Haggard Hawks and Paltry Poltroons

  

  This book features fifty English words (most of them very common) each with brief details of its history, plus details on ten words derived from the headword. For anyone interested in words and in the English language, this book is a joy.
  
  

  24 March 2014

• Horror Upon Horror

  

  Horror is not a self-contained genre. It can, for example, include ghost stories, classic Gothic Horror, vampire novels, others based on supernatural elements of folklore, novels of the mind and many others. Suzanne Ruthven argues that there are common principles that run through each of the sub-genres, and these are explored and explained in her book which focuses on the art and craft of writing horror.

  24 March 2014

• Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

  

  First published in 1995, the Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations is now in its fifth edition and with a new editor in Gyles Brandreth. There is a huge influx of new quotations, many of them from very recent years, as well as new themes.

  06 January 2014

• Swearing Like A Trooper

  

  MJ Trow’s book sets the bad language of the war in its historical context (it is subtitled Rude Slang of the Second World War). Useful if you are interested in words and the way they were used in the front line.

  06 January 2014

• Oxford A-Z of English Usage

  

  Here we have the complete alphabetised guide to tricky questions of English usage, starting with the indefinite articles a and an (should you write ‘a unique feature’ or ‘an unique feature’?) and working through to the use of yourself (would it be correct to ask ‘is this book for yourself?’ or ‘is this book for you?’).

  06 January 2014