Tuesday 7 February 2012
Tuesday 24 January 2012
Non Fiction (Mostly)
Non fiction usually means to the best of our knowledge, that these are the facts, that we have, to the best of our ability, investigated all aspects of the situation, and unless new uncontroversial data is discovered, and put before us, without delay, we accept the authors premise that he has produced an expert and authoritative work in his particular field,
The fiction writer, because it is his main, or only source of income, will try to write new books at regular intervals and will use, within reason, whatever publicity is available to bring his name, and the name of his latest work of art, to the attention of the book buying public. The non fiction writer may produce one book, a summary of a lifetimes endeavour, the results of thousands of hours of research, experiments and tests. Finally he has achived his objective and his success, may, in some way, alter the world we live in. So how does the non fiction writer bring this significant contribution to the attention of an audience?
The publishers of books are businessmen not philanthropists, they are aware of the positive requirements needed to sell the work of an unknown author. The size of the book, the quality of the paper, the colour of the cover and even the typeface is important.
If the publishers, or a Learned Society of which the author is a member, believe the publication is significant they may organize an International Conference on the subject and launch the book on the opening day of the Conference. If the publishers believe that profits from the venture may be small in view of production expenditure against the potential sales, they may decide to have a 'Forward' or 'Introduction' by a famous person i
n the said field, printed in the book, The 'Famous Person' will introduce the writer to the reader, will give a brief summary of the book, and give a number of quotes that the critics and the publisher can use in future publicity,
Care should be taken with both the 'Forward' and 'Introduction' otherwise the contributor may be accused of being so overcome by the exuberance of his own verbosity that some of the quotes are close to being terminological inexactitudes.
This blog is concerned with reading books, not writing them. I think you need to start with a subject that interests you, some subject you have read before, but would like to know more about. Whatever subject you choose, Building to Brain Surgery, Sun Flowers to Sailing Ships, someone out there has written a book about it, you need to find the book.
Lets take one subject as a starter, History; If it happened before midnight last night its history. That however is not quite what we want, what about History of the World, at this stage too big a subject, or the histories of the Romans, Greeks, Aztec's or Egyptians, there are many books about them
Moving a little nearer to home, how about English History? The one subject that used to drive me up the wall when I was at school was the names of English Monarchs, when they reigned and their successors, but if thats your interest their is a shelf of books for everyone of them.
How about reading up on the British Empire. The largest empire the world has ever known, this is not just history but geography too. You will need to consider explorers to set out to map new countries as they were discovered. People like David Livingstone, the first white man to cross Africa, coast to coast, East to West.You will need to consider the sailors and the ships they sailed to reach these new shores. You will need to be aware of the merchants and traders who followed up these discoveries and established a British foothold.
The usual procedure when having found a new country or landfall was to claim it on behalf of the reigning British Monarch and Great Britain. In the event of a dispute the army would be sent in to settle the dispute and establish British law and order.
It is hoped that this short article will spur you on to more intersting reading.
The fiction writer, because it is his main, or only source of income, will try to write new books at regular intervals and will use, within reason, whatever publicity is available to bring his name, and the name of his latest work of art, to the attention of the book buying public. The non fiction writer may produce one book, a summary of a lifetimes endeavour, the results of thousands of hours of research, experiments and tests. Finally he has achived his objective and his success, may, in some way, alter the world we live in. So how does the non fiction writer bring this significant contribution to the attention of an audience?
The publishers of books are businessmen not philanthropists, they are aware of the positive requirements needed to sell the work of an unknown author. The size of the book, the quality of the paper, the colour of the cover and even the typeface is important.
If the publishers, or a Learned Society of which the author is a member, believe the publication is significant they may organize an International Conference on the subject and launch the book on the opening day of the Conference. If the publishers believe that profits from the venture may be small in view of production expenditure against the potential sales, they may decide to have a 'Forward' or 'Introduction' by a famous person i
n the said field, printed in the book, The 'Famous Person' will introduce the writer to the reader, will give a brief summary of the book, and give a number of quotes that the critics and the publisher can use in future publicity,
Care should be taken with both the 'Forward' and 'Introduction' otherwise the contributor may be accused of being so overcome by the exuberance of his own verbosity that some of the quotes are close to being terminological inexactitudes.
This blog is concerned with reading books, not writing them. I think you need to start with a subject that interests you, some subject you have read before, but would like to know more about. Whatever subject you choose, Building to Brain Surgery, Sun Flowers to Sailing Ships, someone out there has written a book about it, you need to find the book.
Lets take one subject as a starter, History; If it happened before midnight last night its history. That however is not quite what we want, what about History of the World, at this stage too big a subject, or the histories of the Romans, Greeks, Aztec's or Egyptians, there are many books about them
Moving a little nearer to home, how about English History? The one subject that used to drive me up the wall when I was at school was the names of English Monarchs, when they reigned and their successors, but if thats your interest their is a shelf of books for everyone of them.
How about reading up on the British Empire. The largest empire the world has ever known, this is not just history but geography too. You will need to consider explorers to set out to map new countries as they were discovered. People like David Livingstone, the first white man to cross Africa, coast to coast, East to West.You will need to consider the sailors and the ships they sailed to reach these new shores. You will need to be aware of the merchants and traders who followed up these discoveries and established a British foothold.
The usual procedure when having found a new country or landfall was to claim it on behalf of the reigning British Monarch and Great Britain. In the event of a dispute the army would be sent in to settle the dispute and establish British law and order.
It is hoped that this short article will spur you on to more intersting reading.
Monday 16 January 2012
Who is your favorite author?
Charles Dickens. That was easy, but many of the subjects I am interested in are not covered by Charles Dickens and perhaps even more important, had not been thought of or invented in his time. We therefore need to qualify the question. Who is your favourite fiction writer? Answer; Charles Dickens. Lets try again, who is your favourite 'Modern' fiction writer?
We now have a problem of what is 'Modern'.My dictionary states that it means, 1. of the present or a recent time; contemporary. 2. of contemporary styles or schools of art, literature and music, esp. those of an experimental kind. 3. a contemporary person. In the dictionary 'Modern' is followed by 'Modern English', defined as 'the English language since about 1450'. Dickens was born in 1812 and died in 1870. I have looked up the word 'contemporary' which I suggest means Yes, or No. So my answer to your question 'who is your favourite 'Modern' fiction writer' is Charles Dickens.
If you are at the point of literary development of saying Charles...who? or yes I have heard of Charles Dickens, wasn't he the chap that used to write those articles in the 'News of the World', then we need to press on. In his fifty-eight years and four months of life Charles Dickens wrote:-
Fourteen novels, five 'Christmas Books', fifty short stories, six plays, A Child's History of England' the 'Life of Our Lord ' two travel books, two hundred and fifty essays and articles on virtually every subject under the sun with countless editorial contributions to articles published in 'Household Words' and 'All the Year Round'.
I like the work of Neville Shute, he writes good fiction which is nice to read, but in all his books there is a true, historical or geographical fact on which truth or fiction is established. He has written some twenty books but the two I like best are 'A Town Like Alice' and 'On The Beach'. Both became successful films and from time to time reappear on television.
It is not my intention to tell you the whole story of 'On The Beach' just the fact on which the story hinges. Two or three years before the book begins there has been a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere and the populations of even the countries not involved in the war have been wiped by radio-active fall-out. The radio-active contamination has circled the globe and is steadily moving south, killing as it goes.The story is based in Australia and there is evidence to show that towns in the Northern Territories are being wiped out, this cannot be correct!
We can all remember that when we were at school, doing history and geography, when exploration communications and trade was done using sailing ships. Ships sailing from South America would often be caught in the 'doldrums' A place between the northern and southern hemispheres that was almost a dead calm and sometimes several weeks would pass before the ship could make headway. Therefore the winds between the north and south never met.
In his book Neville Shute established that although the north and southern winds did not intermingle the north wind could push the 'doldrums'six hundred miles south, and in its turn the southern wind would push the 'doldrums' six hundred miles north. On their return journeys the north wind would carry radio-active fallout south and the southern wind would collect the fallout and transport it south. Hence, the whole world was slowly becoming radio-active, beyond a level at which people could survive.
We now have a problem of what is 'Modern'.My dictionary states that it means, 1. of the present or a recent time; contemporary. 2. of contemporary styles or schools of art, literature and music, esp. those of an experimental kind. 3. a contemporary person. In the dictionary 'Modern' is followed by 'Modern English', defined as 'the English language since about 1450'. Dickens was born in 1812 and died in 1870. I have looked up the word 'contemporary' which I suggest means Yes, or No. So my answer to your question 'who is your favourite 'Modern' fiction writer' is Charles Dickens.
If you are at the point of literary development of saying Charles...who? or yes I have heard of Charles Dickens, wasn't he the chap that used to write those articles in the 'News of the World', then we need to press on. In his fifty-eight years and four months of life Charles Dickens wrote:-
Fourteen novels, five 'Christmas Books', fifty short stories, six plays, A Child's History of England' the 'Life of Our Lord ' two travel books, two hundred and fifty essays and articles on virtually every subject under the sun with countless editorial contributions to articles published in 'Household Words' and 'All the Year Round'.
I like the work of Neville Shute, he writes good fiction which is nice to read, but in all his books there is a true, historical or geographical fact on which truth or fiction is established. He has written some twenty books but the two I like best are 'A Town Like Alice' and 'On The Beach'. Both became successful films and from time to time reappear on television.
It is not my intention to tell you the whole story of 'On The Beach' just the fact on which the story hinges. Two or three years before the book begins there has been a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere and the populations of even the countries not involved in the war have been wiped by radio-active fall-out. The radio-active contamination has circled the globe and is steadily moving south, killing as it goes.The story is based in Australia and there is evidence to show that towns in the Northern Territories are being wiped out, this cannot be correct!
We can all remember that when we were at school, doing history and geography, when exploration communications and trade was done using sailing ships. Ships sailing from South America would often be caught in the 'doldrums' A place between the northern and southern hemispheres that was almost a dead calm and sometimes several weeks would pass before the ship could make headway. Therefore the winds between the north and south never met.
In his book Neville Shute established that although the north and southern winds did not intermingle the north wind could push the 'doldrums'six hundred miles south, and in its turn the southern wind would push the 'doldrums' six hundred miles north. On their return journeys the north wind would carry radio-active fallout south and the southern wind would collect the fallout and transport it south. Hence, the whole world was slowly becoming radio-active, beyond a level at which people could survive.
Friday 13 January 2012
I like Reading.
I like reading, be it books, newspapers, magazines or even the labels on the back of sauce bottles. I read those 'Official' letters that come through post, to see if I can understand the jargon they contain. And what about all those signs, erected on posts at the side of the road and all those signs screwed, painted or pasted on the walls of buildings, do they need to be read.?
The answer, generally is yes, because all are attempts to communicate. The originator of the written or printed words is attempting to bring to your notice information. The information may be a list of books on history, geography, crime etc. It may be information on recent changes in legislation or an insight into the latest trends in women's fashions or to computer technology, it may be the best route from A to B.
Having read the communication, which could include 'Instructions ', 'Warnings', 'Directions', 'Good News', 'Bad News','Praise' 'Sympathy', and so on what action is required to show that the receiver of the communication has received, read and understood the message? There is no simple answer to that question.
Each piece of information received requires to be considered, and if action is required the appropriate action is taken. For example, you are alone in your car driving along a road and a sign, erected on the side of the road, informs you that you are now leaving Stratford-upon-Avon and wishes you a Safe Journey. Action required, none.
You continue on your journey along the country lanes and are confronted with a series of official looking signs, 'Reduce Speed' 'Slow' 'DANGER'. You are approaching a road bridge that crosses a river, there is a large sign by the bridge saying 'UNSAFE for ROAD TRAFFIC' followed by another sign which reads 'DETOUR' with a large arrow pointing to the left. What action is required?
You stop, look at your road map and workout that the detour will add about 30 miles to your journey, what action is required? Remember its a quiet country lane in the middle of nowhere, its warm and sunny, you are on your own in the car, and there are no people around. What action is required?
The following week in the local Coroners Court a police spokesman informed the Coroner that a short distance down stream from the collapsed road bridge, a car, with a drowned person still in the drivers seat, and held in position by the seat belt, had been found submerged in deep water. The police spokesman said that an investigation into the cause of the event would continue.
Is it possible that the writer of the message and the reader of the message had failed to communicate?
The answer, generally is yes, because all are attempts to communicate. The originator of the written or printed words is attempting to bring to your notice information. The information may be a list of books on history, geography, crime etc. It may be information on recent changes in legislation or an insight into the latest trends in women's fashions or to computer technology, it may be the best route from A to B.
Having read the communication, which could include 'Instructions ', 'Warnings', 'Directions', 'Good News', 'Bad News','Praise' 'Sympathy', and so on what action is required to show that the receiver of the communication has received, read and understood the message? There is no simple answer to that question.
Each piece of information received requires to be considered, and if action is required the appropriate action is taken. For example, you are alone in your car driving along a road and a sign, erected on the side of the road, informs you that you are now leaving Stratford-upon-Avon and wishes you a Safe Journey. Action required, none.
You continue on your journey along the country lanes and are confronted with a series of official looking signs, 'Reduce Speed' 'Slow' 'DANGER'. You are approaching a road bridge that crosses a river, there is a large sign by the bridge saying 'UNSAFE for ROAD TRAFFIC' followed by another sign which reads 'DETOUR' with a large arrow pointing to the left. What action is required?
You stop, look at your road map and workout that the detour will add about 30 miles to your journey, what action is required? Remember its a quiet country lane in the middle of nowhere, its warm and sunny, you are on your own in the car, and there are no people around. What action is required?
The following week in the local Coroners Court a police spokesman informed the Coroner that a short distance down stream from the collapsed road bridge, a car, with a drowned person still in the drivers seat, and held in position by the seat belt, had been found submerged in deep water. The police spokesman said that an investigation into the cause of the event would continue.
Is it possible that the writer of the message and the reader of the message had failed to communicate?
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