reading

The to-read pile is more than just a physical stack of books: it's a tower of ambitions failed, hopes unrealised, good intentions unfulfilled. Worse still, it's a cold hard reminder of mortality. Already, I have intentions to read more books than I can hope to manage in a normal lifetime. How...

When is it worth it to title chapters? Currently, my SFF thriller project does not have chapter titles. I'm not opposed to adding them, but am unsure if it will make any difference in the hunt for publishing or the reading experience.

New blog post by AgentPete The Joys of a Book Table About a year ago I was visiting at a friend’s house and noticed they had a book table. It’s literally what it says – a table of any size you happen to have, on which you throw a random assortment of ancient dog-eared friends, shiny new...

“It seems incredible, the ease with which we sink through books quite out of sight, pass clamorous pages into soundless dreams.” William H. Gass

New blog post by AgentPete Welcome to Publishing Year Zero “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” wrote authors’ rights activist Charles Dickens as A Tale of Two Cities began its epic unfolding. He could easily have been...

New blog post by Rachel McCarron My Resolution (Or a List of Books) As the old year comes to a close, I think about things I am grateful for and about fostering good habits for the new year ahead. Which is ridiculous, I know. Why should the day after the thirty-first of December have any...

New blog post by Laura Rikono – discussions in this thread, please --- Ten minutes before I left the house, my boss called. “The science class is cancelled today. Take Jisoo and Jennie instead. They need adjective practice.” (By the way, this happens a lot. I once opened the classroom door to...

Join us after Huddle ends. We'll be coming on at 20GMT for i. That's: 21.00 Berlin 15.00 New York 09:00 Auckland https://kirtland.zoom.us/j/83854391680

We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind. Anna Quindlen

When is it ??? Just starting Chapter 3. I may need one of Jeeves' tissue restoratives to get through this.

Reading aloud with children is known to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge and skills they will eventually require for learning to read. Marilyn Jager Adams

“Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.” Aaron Swartz Aaron Swartz - Wikipedia

All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal. ... But with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not. Nick Hornby

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.” Voltaire

Electronic books are a bad thing because they cannot be accumulated on shelves to remind you of your past, to impress your neighbours and colleagues, and to help prevent divorces thanks to the sheer bother of arguing over who owns what. J. P. Donleavy

I am now working through the process of facilitating beta reading for my second novel. Like my first novel, collating everyone's feedback, comments, highlights etc is then a manual effort on my part, since I have issued the novel as a printed book. A 'tracked changes' Word document would make...

Reading is an act of civilization; it's one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities. Ben Okri

“Reading a good book in silence is like eating chocolate for the rest of your life and never getting fat.” Becca Fitzpatrick

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another skin, another voice, another soul.” Joyce Carol Oates

'Reading groups, readings, breakdowns of book sales all tell the same story: when women stop reading, the novel will be dead.' Ian McEwan