The last book book I read was “A Sunday by the Pool in Kigali“. After this horrifying account of Rwanda, I was ready for some good old-fashioned hippy lit about a bunch of people who just want to kill themselves. Earle does a great job of setting up his main characters, establishing place and giving us enough reason to stick around for the finish.

I liked “I’ll never get out of here alive” for a lot of the same reasons why I liked “Jim Giraffe“. These are slightly surreal, quirky, easy-to-read novels about unbelievable things happening to very believable characters. It’s fun.

Here’s what the Guardian had to say: Steve Earle‘s debut novel borrows the title of Williams’s final, posthumous release; though some would say it’s a minor miracle that Earle is still around to participate in this world at all. In the early 1990s, Earle’s songwriting career derailed in spectacular fashion when he received a jail term for drugs and firearms offences. But at the age of 56 he has settled into his seventh marriage (two of which were to the same woman), while joining Kinky Friedman and Rosanne Cash among the small but distinguished corpus of country musicians with parallel literary careers.

Read the rest here.

Christmas books for the Real Men on your list

The Wheatsheaf Literary Society hard at work on recommendations for your Christmas book list. It's a tough job but someone has to do it.

Still wondering what to buy the real man for Christmas?

Here is a list of manly books, read, discussed and recommended by members of the Wheatsheaf Literary Society. Of course, most real men are hoping for a bottle of peaty, stinky Lagavulin. But if you’re going to cheap out and go with a novel, these are fine.

 

A Fan’s Notes Frederick Exley

A Fraction of the Whole Steve Toltz

A Man in Full Tom Wolfe

A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali Gil Courtemanche

Barney’s Version Mordecai Richler

Billy Bathgate E.L. Doctorow

Blood Meridien Cormack McCarthy

Chump Change David Eddie

Dirty Sweet John McFetridge

Disgrace J.M. Coetzee

East of Eden John Steinbeck

Faceless Killers Henning Menkell

Factotum Charles Bukowski

Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk

Flaubert’s Parrot Julian Barnes

For Whom The Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway

Getting Away With Murder Howard Engel

Gould’s Book of Fish Richard Flanagan

High Fidelity Nicolas Hornby

Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain

I Know This Much is True Wally Lamb

LAMB. The Gospel According to Biff Christopher Moore

Legends of the Fall Jim Harrison

Master and Commander Patrick O’Brian

Ninety-two in the Shade Thomas McGuane

Skinny Dip Carl Hiaasen

Still Waters Barry Callaghan

The Bishop’s Man Linden MacIntyre

The Englishman’s Boy Guy Vanderhaeghe

The Great Santini Patrick Conroy

The Long Goodbye Raymond Chandler

The Mambo Kings Sings Songs of Love Oscar Hijuelos

The Man Who Was Late Louis Begley

The Night Manager John le Carré

The Road Cormack McCarthy

The Rotters Club Jonathan Coe

The Sirens of Baghdad Yasmina Khadra

The Sportswriter Richard Ford

The Stowaway Robert Hough

The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien

The Van Roddy Doyle

Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller

Trout Fishing in America Richard Brautigan

Good read: The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a perfect eBook. At only 200 pages, it doesn’t take a lot of subway rides to finish this concisely written, simple, tragic story.

Like so many great writers, Fitzgerald is economical and clear. The story unfolds in few locations and takes it time to explore just a few characters. Having never seen the movie, or read the book, I was surprised by how uncomplicated this novel is. It reminds me a lot of The Road, The General in His Labyrinth and The Razor’s Edge, to name a few.

This is a must for the iPad.

Remember, you can always check out the finest in men’s literature by visiting the online home of the WheatSheaf Literary Society, a drinking club with a reading problem.

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Grammar Sucks

I recently downloaded Grammar Sucks: What to Do to Make Your Writing Much More Better by Joanne Kimes and Gary Roberts.  Should you?

This is a book for relative beginners. The authors make that clear.

Kimes is a comedy writer and she knows when to give the audience a break. There’s a lot of prodding and encouragement throughout the chapters, as though grammar really does suck. So, if you need a primer and you do think grammar sucks, this is probably worth the price of a download.

If you’re writing professionally or your job depends on good written communication, you probably know that grammar doesn’t suck, and you’ll have this basic knowledge, so you’ll find the first half of the book unnecessary. It’s just a basic review of the parts of speech.

Stacking it up to other books.

Grammar Sucks: What to Do to Make Your Writing Much More Better” is the most basic on a list of books that try to make grammar accessible.  But that’s OK if that’s what you’re after. For $12 bucks, you can stop writing like a spaz. That’s a pretty good deal.  

For a more advanced look at the parts of speech, I recommend When You Catch an Adjective Kill It by Ben Yagoda. This is an entire book devoted to parts of speech and just as entertaining. If you’re serious about improving your grammar, this is a good study and Ben’s a funny guy.

For a deeper look at sentence making, you can download How to Write a Sentence by Stanly Fish. This is targeted to fiction writers but there are style tips throughout that are universally applicable. 

One of the best style guides is still On Writing Well by William Zinsser. This is a classic because it sings the praises of simplicity and clarity. It’s a calming resource that gets you on track. (On my desk right now.)

And I’ve always liked the charming style of Eats Shoots & Leaves. This is well written and funny. My copy is full of highlights and dog-eared pages.  I think this is the one that most marketing people should own. A lot of the examples come from our trade.

Online, Grammar Girl has become my trusty go-to site for clear, quick and reliable answers to questions of grammar. 

Note that I receive no compensation and have no interest in promoting or not promoting any book. 

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Drawing inspiration.

92 in the Shade, by Thomas McGuane.

Drawing inspiration from great writers, such as McGuane, can often be more useful than flipping through the design annual that you stole from the agency. The Wheatsheaf Literary Society recently reviewed ’92 in the Shade’, a 1973 novel by Thomas McGuane. It was agreed that McGuane was somewhat difficult in places but overall and an exceptional storyteller.

92 in the Shade‘ is an excellent example of literature that captures time & place. In this sense, it feels a lot like the work of Cormack McCarthy and Tom Wolfe. In our day jobs, as writers, content creators and creators of customer experiences, it’s sometimes our job to create a sense of time & place.

So expense a copy of whichever McGuane novel you choose and have a read. Bill it to ‘reference material’ and enjoy. My own fascination with McGuane began when I learned of his connection to the late Richard Brautigan, a favourite of mine when I want to get my ‘hippy’ on.

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How to Write a Sentence by Stanley Fish.

I liked reading ‘How to write a sentence‘. It’s on my iPad and made for good subway reading. This is definitely for the word nerds out there. If you aren’t directly responsible for writing, approving or editing copy, it might not be the most useful desktop resource.

But if you appreciate the craft or writing, there are some good tips for writers and readers. We sometimes forget that all the great lines in advertising, film and literature were written by someone just like us – someone who woke up to a blank sheet paper and tried to do something better, more original, more thoughtful.

The publisher’s blurb is below and you can always click on The Writer’s Bookshelf for more suggestions on great reads and influential books on the craft of writing.

Book description from Harper Collins: Some appreciate fine art; others appreciate fine wines. Stanley Fish appreciates fine sentences. The New York Times columnist and world-class professor has long been an aficionado of language: “I am always on the lookout for sentences that take your breath away, for sentences that make you say, ‘Isn’t that something?’ or ‘What a sentence!’” Like a seasoned sportscaster, Fish marvels at the adeptness of finely crafted sentences and breaks them down into digestible morsels, giving readers an instant play-by-play.

In this entertaining and erudite gem, Fish offers both sentence craft and sentence pleasure, skills invaluable to any writer (or reader). His vibrant analysis takes us on a literary tour of great writers throughout history—from William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Henry James to Martin Luther King Jr., Antonin Scalia, and Elmore Leonard. Indeed, How to Write a Sentence is both a spirited love letter to the written word and a key to understanding how great writing works; it is a book that will stand the test of time.

For anyone struggling with basics or aspiring to write with greater clarity, I recommend ‘When You Find an Adjective, Kill It‘.

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A wonderful first novel by Joshua Ferris.

‘Then We Came to an End’ has been out for a few years but its bullseye wit has not gone out of fashion. Anyone who has spent time in an advertising agency will laugh, cry or both. You’ll love it or hate it.

Here’s a little bit from the New York Times review when the book launched. You can read the entire content here.

It is a brave author who embeds the rationale for writing his novel into the novel itself. But 70 pages into Joshua Ferris’s first novel, set in a white-collar office, we meet Hank Neary, an advertising copywriter writing his first novel, set in a white-collar office. Ferris has the good sense to make Neary’s earnest project seem slightly ridiculous. Neary describes his book as “small and angry.” His co-workers tactfully suggest more appealing topics. He rejects them. “The fact that we spend most of our lives at work, that interests me,” he says. “A small, angry book about work,” his colleagues think. “There was a fun read on the beach.”

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Book design updates the gumshoe

Nice modern design for classic gumshoe.

The reissue of Ross MacDonald’s crime fiction comes with updated cover art that drags the gumshoe into the modern age without giving up the grit or soul of vintage detective fiction covers.

Nicely done.

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Amazingly stupid copy.

Who takes a dead dog, cat or parrot to a sub shop? Regular readers know that I oppose unnecessary and ambiguous adjectives. I’m not alone. There’s a fabulous little book called, ‘When You Find an Adjective, Kill It‘. A while back I called them “Zit Words“, ugly little blemishes.

So, when I saw this sign, paid for a approved by the intellectuals who run my city and presumably look out for my health, I had to make an example of this bad copywriting.

This sign is on the entrance to a Subway sandwich shop in Toronto. They sell dead animals on your choice of bun! If I stop here, the irony is enough to make us shake our heads.

Does the City of Toronto have to distinguish between “Live” and “Dead” animals in this case? Why did the writer add 25% more words to the headline? Who insisted on adding the unnecessary adjective “Live“? Is it a legal thing? How does this affect the dead alpaca I lug around for good luck?

It gets worse. Way worse. Why mention “service animals” and and include an image of a parrot?

This is why we avoid adjectives most of the time. They’re trouble.

Bloody hell… don’t bring your live parrot to the sandwich shop (dead ones: no problem).

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The writer’s bookshelf. Stuff Hipsters Hate

Stuff Hipsters Hate, Ulysses Press.

My brother-in-law (a far superior intellect) Mike McNeil gave me a copy of ‘Stuff Hipsters Hate‘ for Christmas. I’m loving this book but seriously wondering how he really feels about ME (and my super-cool John Varvatos casual wear).

Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz have created a great reading experience. It’s full of notes, illustrations, random thoughts and photos.

They are talented, funny and good writers. Love their style.

Here’s a backgrounder from the publishers site.

Based on the author’s popular tumbler blog stuffhipstershate, which has been called Depressingly astute by theThe New Yorker and Wickedly funny by The Frisky, comes the ultimate book on hipsterdom. From the dive bars of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg to the dirty alleys of San Francisco’s Mission, the urban hipster has redefined American cool with a sighing disdain for everything mainstream. Hipsters are easily identified by their worn-out shoes, fixies and PBR tallboys, but until now no one had investigated beyond the hipster look to the even more hilarious hipster psyche. With personally researched articles, revealing illustrations and helpful charts and graphs, Stuff Hipsters Hate exposes the bottomless well of impassioned scorn that motivates the ever-apathetic hipster, including: MATING AND SOCIAL HATES (buying you a drink | monogamy | texting back in a timely fashion), APPAREL AND GROOMING HATES (high heels | muscles | being asked about their tattoos) and WORK AND LIFE HATES (full-time jobs | knowing their bank balance | enthusiasm).

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