Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Favorite Nonfiction
Time for another book list. This time I'm covering nonfiction. I read waaaaay more nonfiction than fiction, and no matter what I read, a little of each book rubs off on me. These happened to rub off a lot. They are in no particular order.
Conversations with God, Book I - by Neale Donald Walsch - This book changed my worldview, especially the point God, speaking through Neale, makes about Hitler going to heaven.
Brand Hijack by Alex Wipperfurth - Consumers take over!
Spunk & Bite by Arthur Plotnick - Snappy little book about breaking writing rules.
On Writing Well by William Zinsser - Good, solid writing advice.
On Writing by Stephen King - Enjoyable, with excellent advice on how to deal with criticism.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell - I so want to prove the tipping point in some way.
Baby & Childcare by Dr. Benjamin Spock - Saved us from a screaming infant.
Yoga for Wimps by Miriam Austin - Easy yoga with a low time commitment. Made me limber.
The Long Tail by Chris Anderson - Liked the premise of this book, but now the term is used so much that I'm starting to get sick of it.
Beyond the Writers Workshop by Carol Bly - Made me not put as much stock in other people's opinions of my writing.
Anything by Brenda Ueland - She was a Minnesota writer who was full of moxie. One of the first women in her community to wear pants in public. She coined the term "moodling."
Anything by Seth Godin - Energetic, good ideas, tries to get businesses to be remarkable, instead of half-assed.
Prescription for Nutritional Healing by Phyllis A. Balch & James F. Balch - The Bible of healthcare options in our house.
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen - Along with being straight-out fascinating, this helped me see how history is told through the voice of the victors.
The Dictionary and the Thesaurus - any will do - they are indispensible.
Okay, your turn. What are your favorite nonfiction books?
Conversations with God, Book I - by Neale Donald Walsch - This book changed my worldview, especially the point God, speaking through Neale, makes about Hitler going to heaven.
Brand Hijack by Alex Wipperfurth - Consumers take over!
Spunk & Bite by Arthur Plotnick - Snappy little book about breaking writing rules.
On Writing Well by William Zinsser - Good, solid writing advice.
On Writing by Stephen King - Enjoyable, with excellent advice on how to deal with criticism.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell - I so want to prove the tipping point in some way.
Baby & Childcare by Dr. Benjamin Spock - Saved us from a screaming infant.
Yoga for Wimps by Miriam Austin - Easy yoga with a low time commitment. Made me limber.
The Long Tail by Chris Anderson - Liked the premise of this book, but now the term is used so much that I'm starting to get sick of it.
Beyond the Writers Workshop by Carol Bly - Made me not put as much stock in other people's opinions of my writing.
Anything by Brenda Ueland - She was a Minnesota writer who was full of moxie. One of the first women in her community to wear pants in public. She coined the term "moodling."
Anything by Seth Godin - Energetic, good ideas, tries to get businesses to be remarkable, instead of half-assed.
Prescription for Nutritional Healing by Phyllis A. Balch & James F. Balch - The Bible of healthcare options in our house.
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen - Along with being straight-out fascinating, this helped me see how history is told through the voice of the victors.
The Dictionary and the Thesaurus - any will do - they are indispensible.
Okay, your turn. What are your favorite nonfiction books?
Labels: books, chris anderson, dictionary, moodle, nonfiction, reading, seth godin, the long tail, the tipping point, writing
Saturday, February 24, 2007
10 words, 20 minutes
Hey, hey! It's snowing! We haven't gotten much, so far, just a coating over the grass, but it's picking up speed. I vaguely remember hearing thunder last night - how weird is that?
Anyway, I promised a writing exercise for this weekend in one of my comments. I call it 10 words, 20 minutes. I'll give you 10 random words. You have 20 minutes to do something with them. Use them to write a poem or essay or song, heck, draw a picture using them if you like. The only rules are that you have to use all 10 words and you have only 20 minutes to do it. (You can fudge the time a weensy bit if you're finishing a thought when time's up, but don't keep writing on and on forever.) Feel free to alter the words using generally accepted English language principles, i.e. snow can become snowing, or snows, or snowed.
Ready? Here are your words:
cream
irony
notch
beg
scarab
taste
harmony
juvenile
leather
scribble
If you need to look up any of the words, your dictionary time doesn't count towards the 20 minutes.
Gather yourself together and Go!
Anyway, I promised a writing exercise for this weekend in one of my comments. I call it 10 words, 20 minutes. I'll give you 10 random words. You have 20 minutes to do something with them. Use them to write a poem or essay or song, heck, draw a picture using them if you like. The only rules are that you have to use all 10 words and you have only 20 minutes to do it. (You can fudge the time a weensy bit if you're finishing a thought when time's up, but don't keep writing on and on forever.) Feel free to alter the words using generally accepted English language principles, i.e. snow can become snowing, or snows, or snowed.
Ready? Here are your words:
cream
irony
notch
beg
scarab
taste
harmony
juvenile
leather
scribble
If you need to look up any of the words, your dictionary time doesn't count towards the 20 minutes.
Gather yourself together and Go!
Labels: create, dictionary, exercise, snow, thunder, weather, winter, words, writing
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Morganatic
I was flipping through my dictionary, making sure mythologize was truly a word, when I came across this gem:
which means "of, relating to, or being a marriage between a member of a royal or noble family and a person of inferior rank in which the rank of the inferior partner remains unchanged, and the children of the marriage do not succeed to the titles, fiefs, or entailed property of higher rank." (Merriam-Webster's Colliegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition)
I did not know such a thing could be summed up in just one word - and quite an interesting word at that.
Morganatic
which means "of, relating to, or being a marriage between a member of a royal or noble family and a person of inferior rank in which the rank of the inferior partner remains unchanged, and the children of the marriage do not succeed to the titles, fiefs, or entailed property of higher rank." (Merriam-Webster's Colliegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition)
I did not know such a thing could be summed up in just one word - and quite an interesting word at that.
Labels: dictionary, myth, word
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Of Prigs & Popinjays
My brother called last night. During our conversation, he used the word "prig." What an incredibly good word. Four letters say it all. Even without knowing the meaning, you can probably picture a person who is a prig.
My brother found some related words on the internet - coxcomb, fop and popinjay. Old words, but so full of character that they're going to have to make their way into my writing sometime. For definitions, head over to Dictionary.com, but be careful. You might get lost, especially if you're a word junkie like I am.
My brother found some related words on the internet - coxcomb, fop and popinjay. Old words, but so full of character that they're going to have to make their way into my writing sometime. For definitions, head over to Dictionary.com, but be careful. You might get lost, especially if you're a word junkie like I am.
Labels: brother, dictionary, word
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Made-up Words
If the President can be The Decider and misunderestimate situations, then I can make up words too. There's Neezuls, which was my placeholder name for this blog, 'til I came up with the much more appropriate Filter & Splice. This morning, in that dusty state between dreaming and waking, the word "glio" came to me. I looked in my dictionary. It isn't a word on its own, although a couple of words - gliobastoma & glioma - start with it. They have to do with glial cells. If "glio" was a word on its own, how would you define it?
Labels: dictionary, filter, george w. bush, glio, splice, word
