Books: This is How - MJ Hyland

MJ Hyland writes as well as anyone I have read. At first glance her prose seems deceptively simple, yet each sentence is crammed with detail and insight and there's not an ounce of fat anywhere in this book. What I loved most about 'This Is How' is the ability MJ Hyland has to look unflinchingly at something disturbing without judgement. At no point are we, as readers, instructed as to how we should view what we're seeing - Hyland has an incredible talent (I was going to say gift but that does a disrespect to the amount of work writing this good requires) for tilting the world slightly so we see things from another angle without telling us what to see or how to react.

This book is extraordinary and deserves to be widely read.

Books: 'The Other Hand' - Chris Cleave

The Other Hand

I haven't blogged much for a while. This is mostly because I've been busier doing things than writing about them so I don't feel too guilty.

I felt compelled to write something today though as I finished a book this morning that has left me stunned by its brilliance. I don't want to say a great deal about it, just this:

The Other Hand is a book that - without any hint of cheapness or sensationalism - gently turns your head a degree or two so you can see the world more clearly.

Read it.

Books: Robert McKee - Story

Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting

Over the past 18 months or so I've listened to a lot of podcasts featuring authors talking about their work. I've also read a lot of author interviews and, unsurprisingly, plenty of books about writing. Almost all of the books have contained at least one nugget of inspiration or usefulness - some far more. One has proved absolutely indispensable - so much so that I bought the audiobook as well so I can listen to sections on the go.

Robert McKee's Story is aimed at screenwriters and, as such, uses examples from the world of film to illustrate its points. Don't let that put you off if you're a novelist - this book is simply a masterclass in the art of telling a story and telling it well.

McKee manages to strip away the layers and get right to the heart of what drives great storytelling - the gap between expectation and reality. By examining the structure of story (from the overall arc of the work to the reversals of each scene) he manages lay out some simple points to consider that will tell you where to go - if you listen.

That doesn't mean that Story is a step-by-step guide to writing a great screenplay or novel - far from it. What the book does is allow you to see the patterns, devices and structures used in great storytelling and shed some light on why the best writing is so effective.

I've read the whole book at least three times and, whether through selective re-reading or via headphones, must have covered some sections half a dozen times. I'm at the planning stages of my second novel - if I can build and sustain a career doing this I can only see those numbers growing.

The best £12 I've spent since realising I wanted to write.

Buy it now.

Books: The Elements of Style

The Elements of Style

Buy this book - it's brilliant.

Slightly longer version...

I started writing as part of my day job. At first it was bits of copy for web pages and the odd page or two of text. Gradually it became a bigger part of the job and I edited a magazine for a few months, edit and write a regular newsletter and also wrote a book (The Essential Guide to Flatsharing).

The more I needed to write the more I needed to know how to write. Writing for the web requires a definite sense of brevity and knowing how and what to edit. The Elements of Style is a great guide when it comes to this. The main focus is getting people to write well and cleanly which is a real skill. Don't get me wrong, I love reading novels that use language with flair and style and some people pull that off brilliantly - some people. Otherwise I'm more impressed by writers (and Mark Haddon is a great example of this) who are good at stripping away anything unnecessary and just getting on with telling you a story.

This little book (for little it certainly is) practices what it preaches. Read it on one go, carry it round in a pocket for unexpected train delays, keep it by the loo...wherever you dip into a book have this book to dip into.

I've just finished my first novel and the amount of editing I've done as a dirct result of this book is huge. I'm not claiming I'm an a amazing writer (I have a long way to go to even get close to competent!) but I'm learning more as I write (and read) more.

Buy this book, read it then re-read your writing and see what happens. Every writer should own a copy of this book - whatever they write.

Books: Songs of Triumphant Love - Jessica Duchen

Songs of Triumphant Love

I'd already read Jessica Duchen's Hungarian Dances and very much enjoyed it. When I started the research for my 2nd novel I had stumbled upon Jessica on Twitter and thought, as an author and music writer, she may be able to point me in the direction of some good novels that featured opera singers, so fired off a quick Tweet. I soon got several replies mentioning books she thought I should read, plus "my latest, Songs of Triumphant Love, is about an opera singer." So I ordered a copy.

Having read the blurb I instantly worried that Jessica had already beaten me to it and written the book I had in mind ("feel the fear and do it anyway!" she was kind enough to encourage). Only one way to find out - I started reading.

Now, first up, there are two things wrong with this book - neither is the fault of the author. The first is the jacket design which, while beautiful, is entirely intended to make the book look as close to The Time Traveller's Wife as possible. The second is the blurb. I know its hard to sum up a novel in a few words but the summary on the back cover really doesn't do justice to the breadth and depth of this book. If I'd picked it up in a bookshop, never having heard of Jessica, I'd probably have put it back, thinking it was likely to be a bit...well...floppy!

No so. This is a wonderful book that somehow manages to do what a good book should; it takes a personal story, complicates it with inter-personal relationships then offsets the whole thing against the extra-personal to connect with the wider world. Songs of Triumphant Love pokes a hole in the fabric of the universe (like the crack in Terri's front wall or the rip in her silk dress) and lets us peer in, allowing the reader one of those rare moments that can only be achieved by art in which we see that (as Walt Whitman would have us believe in Song of Myself) we are all part of a bigger picture and nothing is in or of itself alone.

Cracks (in walls, dresses, sanity, voices) are a powerful image. As Leonard Cohen puts it "Forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

I loved this book. I've realised that, while mine will probably have some overlap in terms of theme and setting, it's going to be a totally different novel and is worth writing for its own sake. It will, undoubtedly, be a better book than it would had I not read Songs of Triumphant Love.

#12 (re-visited) Messiaen - Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (Barenboim)

Oliver Messiaen: Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (Quartet for the End of Time) (1940).

OK, I promised to listen to this again post-hangover so here we go (not that it's taken this long to get rid of the hangover).

I really enjoyed this second time round. As I often find with more tonally challenging music I found the slower movements easier at first. I guess it's down to being able to hear the harmonies unfold rather than being hit with them all in one go, as you often are in the faster sections.

My favourite track at this point is 5 - Louange a l'Eternite de Jesus - but there's clearly plenty in the work as a whole that will unfold as my ears get used to it and hear past the 'easier' bits.

Glad I came back to it. There will be a new disc later today

#12 Messiaen - Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (Barenboim)

Oliver Messiaen: Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (Quartet for the End of Time) (1940).

I bought this after reading Alex Ross's wonderful The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century


In truth I did what I always do with music books that are well written - I blast through and don't take time to listen to the music the author is talking about at the time. I did this with Humphrey Carpenter's Britten biography amongst (many) others.

I listened to it on headphones at 10 in the morning at work with a hangover so I have no idea whether I liked it or not. Judgement is reserved but I will revisit this in another post when my brain is capable of listening properly.

In the meantime I will endeavour to get back to the book from the beginning and do some extensive listening after I read each chapter. May take some time but that's fine by me.