Language Arts Books

if you are already in filmmaking you might know all that this book covers. if you are not, i don't see how this book could help you to get in. maybe if you have no idea of what you want to do in the business... but even than...

The book is great. If you want to get in the to industry (that's what people call the film industry in Southern California), buy the book. It gives a complete break down of all the people that are required to make any movie. So next time when you watch the ending credits, you'll know what a key grip, best boy, art director, first assistance director does and be able to tell your friends as they walk out of the theater asking, "What's a best boy?"

It was informative and not at all boring. A must-read for those who are new to the Industy. Explains the steps of advancement for nearly every job in the entertainment industry. Excellent resource for goal-setting/ career management.

I purchased a number of "get into film/hollywood" books and this one was by far the most helpful. While it doesn't have much of the typical career advice (how to write your resume, cover letters etc.), which are better covered in more general job hunting books, it is the perfect book to read to get a sense for the jobs that do exist in Hollywood. If you're interested in the industry, but find it something of a "black box" or are unsure exactly what type of position to try and look for, this book is the ideal starting point. Levy walks through the entire industry, from agencies to studios, to actors, directors, costume designers etc. Given the wide canvas, none of the positions are covered in too much detail, but I think the book ideally serves as an excellent starting point from which to know where to pursue more information.

Finally, the tone of the book is excellent - one of excitement and encouragement. While it's a small point, dry and depressing hollywood career books abound - it's refreshing to find one that's has an enthusiasm and optimism to match your own.

I am an entertainment buff and I thought this book was great for people who want a survey of jobs they can pursue. It gave an in depth look at a lot of the positions in the film business. If you want a general look at the possible jobs, get this book. If you are more interested in television, this book is a great start, but it doesn't say anything about that since its primarly about film so look for another book for further reading. I would recommend this book for anyone who wants to break into the business, it was really helpful for me.

Wilbers is nationally recognized columnist on writing. His book combines the best ideas and examples on how to write simply, and on how to write well. He captures the heart and flavor of numerous other books on writing and rhetoric, and presents them in a simple, readable, understandable style. I cannot recommend this book enough. It is not only an easy read, but an enjoyable one. The examples of good and bad writing clearly illustrate a running theme in the book: It is not just what you say, but how you say it that matters in effective writing. My law partners liked this book so much that we distributed copies to partners and associates alike, and I personally gave copies to everyone in my family attending high school or college. At the present price, buying this book is a "no-brainer." This book is also well indexed, which makes it useful as a reference. I keep a copy on my desk.

Stephen Wilbers' "Keys to Great Writing" is a wonderful book. I've read most of the classic books on writing and this is by far my favorite. Even when presenting well-known advice ("Omit needless words"), the examples are fresh and usually better than wherever I first read such advice ("Elements of Style" in that case). Wilbers has a very sly sense of humor that pops through in many sections.

The book is split into three sections. The first covers the "keys to great writing" (economy, precision, action, music, and personality). The second covers "Elements of Composition." The last section is by far the smallest but was perhaps the most useful to me. It is on the writing process itself.

I enjoyed the book so much that I tracked down the author via email and paid him to review two chapters of the next book I'm writing. I wanted to see how well I'd done at taking his advice from the book.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

I bought this book for a guide to improve my writing skills for work as well as my module assignments.

Intelligent, well organized and fun to read, this book is a "must have" if you want to improve your own writing or help others to improve theirs.

I'm using this text for an on-line writing course. The author has put everything in easy-to-understand language and includes a bit of humor along the way. Excellent advice, hints, and ideas.

I remember these books from when I was a kid, and when I read them now I still conjure up the same not-quite-right images. The fun illustrations and simple text remind us all what it's like to be a kid in a grown-up world. My toddler loves these books because they're silly, and I love them because they give me a chance to be silly, too.

This is a very fun book for children of all ages. It is fun for teens! Enjoy reading it together, over and over and enjoy the laughs.

I knew about Fred Gwynnes'writing and artwork in children's books. This was the first one I bought, what a delight!.. I'll be back for more!

Yet another fine book of play-on-words from Fred Gwynne. Kids love the pictures that literally illustrate the text, and these books usually have us a giggling hysterically. I'm on the lookout for "A Little Pigeon-Toad" and "The Sixteen Hand Horse".

Excellent book for young students who are exploring language and homonyms. Colorful illustrations grab attention and nearly every page gets a reaction.

Penny's books is terrific given that it not only lays out the info one needs to understand how the Net can affect book promotion but that it also outlines a comprehensive strategy to utilize the Net's power. This approach is invaluable for helping us "old world" authors move into the brave but unfamiliar new environment of Internet book promotion opportunities.

If you are interested in promoting on line...there are some great tools and ideas explained in this book. Definitely recommend it.

My agent recommended this book to me. I'm finding the information contained inside to be very useful and I'm anxious to see it work for me!

This book is so full of information of which I had no idea that I flagged almost every page. The only problem with the book is that I now have to follow up on all the wonderful ideas and recommendations.

Penny Sansevieri does a very good job of making the information understandable to people who are not nearly as internet savvy as she. She also provides lists of sites in various categories as well as very specific instructions on how to maximize her recommendations.

After reading this book I immediately offered to buy another copy for my older daughter to help with her web businesses. I can't loan my copy because I'm using it to go page by page to market my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT on the internet.
-- Phyllis Zimbler Miller, author of MRS. LIEUTENANT and co-author of SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION

This is a concise, information-packed guide through the maze of the on-line world as it relates to book promotion. I found the author's ideas and tips extremely helpful and current. Recommended for any new author!

This is the best Spanish verbs book for beginning or intermediate students because it has about 300 of the most frequently used verbs with all the tenses, and it is of a size and weight to easily fit in a crowded backpack, briefcase, etc. 99 out of 100 verbs that you need to check the tense on will be in this book.

This is a quck reference card intended as a companion to the Barron's book -- 501 Verbs. It is not sufficient on its own. However it is a very dense compilation of essentials, much more easily accessed than having to dig through the 501 or similar grammar books when one is first learning the ropes and framework of Spanish.

I used this card very, very frequently for my first month of independent spanish study. I greatly appreciated having a compact source of key things I needed to read over and over while trying to form a landscape view of this language. I am still pulling it out often to review key points. I am now at the start of month #3.

On one side of the card (3 pages worth when unfolded), it describes the purpose of each of the 7 simple tenses, the 7 compound tenses, the imperativo, the progressive forms, participles (Present and Past) as well as active versus passive voices. Key examples are given. On the other side is a very detailed conjugation plus English translation of a model verb (comer). Then the same table used in 501 is given for several strategically chosen regular and irregular verbs: dar, decir, estar, haber, hablar, hacer, ir and lavar.

The overall presentation of the card utilizes good graphics and color coded variations to assist in quickly finding the highlights. Without this feature, the very dense amount of information would be overwhelming -- but given the authors/publishers attention to detail -- I find it to be very user friendly.

The card is laminated and should be durable if kept reasonably protected in a notebook. Using it during my novice stage of exploring Spanish clearly saved a lot of wear and tear on my copy of 501 Verbs -- a resource needed indefinitely.

I have been learning Spanish at home by trying to combine several resources which I have learned work best with my learning style. I have had no prior Spanish training. Instead, I was inspired by a recent trip to South America. However, I did have 2 years of high school Latin and 2 years of college German -- none of which I even vaguely remember 30 years later.

The primary wisdom I gleaned from this lost Latin and German exposure is that I wanted to balance the current "fad" toward total language "immersion" with some solid sense of its grammatical structure. The audio programs (such as Learning Spanish Like Crazy and Earworm) as well as the travel phrase books work much better for me when I have a skeletal structure on which to hand all those neatly compiled, oft repeated phrases.

Therefore, this review card, the larger 501 book from which it is derived, and Dorothy Richmond's Spanish Verb Tenses (part of the Practice Makes Perfect Series) were my among my most used companions. I still pull out my review card, maybe even with a bit of fondness now, when I am returning to working on a new verb tense or when work has been so busy that I had to skip a few days of my home study plan.

I bought this item for my daughter, who was having a problem learning verb conjugation in her Spanish 101 course in college. She started using it from the moment it arrived, and her instructor saw a marked improvement in her performance in class. It made sense of verbal conjugation for her, and will undoubtedly result in her doing much better in this class.

I bought this verb book when I started learning Spanish. I find that verb books in any language are very useful. This particular book contains about 300 verbs fully conjugated in all the tenses. It makes looking up a certain verb conjugation very easy.

I'd say use this one to carry around in your pocket. There are other Spanish verb books, but they're much larger and not very portable.


Brandon Simpson

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2VEGEHB5XLGR6 Watch my video review and find out how this book compares to Barron's 501 Spanish Verbs. And also watch this video review to find out exactly what you must do in order to buy Spanish Verbs (Barron's Verb Series) here at Amazon and also get lots of BONUS video lessons from your's truly, Jazmin, where I teach Spanish words and phrases.

In the case of Jane Anne Staw's Unstuck, what matters most, is that the author has written the bible for writers who are blocked. I appreciate her lack of usage of the "B" word, but at the end of the day--Blocked is blocked and sometimes we all need a bit of fiber to get things moving! Make this gem a part of your writing resource library. You simply can't go wrong.

I've had a serious three year block and have tried desperately to get out of it. I had looked at several books about writer's block and all of them were feel-good garbage or throwaway 101 Tips to...

Staw's book is the best I found dealing with the subject. As one reviewer noted, it's difficult to even take time to read a self-help book, because you tend to feel that it's one more case of avoidance or procrastination and the hour it took to read could have been spent writing. But Staw has some salient, psychotherapy-based points about those feelings--guilt and avoidance. She emphasizes kindness to oneself instead of listening to the inner hypercritic, and while this might sound like feel-good nonsense, the way she writes about it makes sense and this technique pretty common in counseling. Her examples of patients experiencing writer's block range from mild to extreme--which made me feel better. This guide by no means got rid of my block, but in some ways it gave me (or allowed me to give myself) permission to write sloppily. There's no way I can write as well as I'd like to, certainly not while experiencing a block, and I feel that Staw really nails it when she points out how counterproductive this drive for perfection can be. I've since loosened up enough to start writing small things without caring so much about the outcome (these reviews for instance)--and it's been a pleasurable step in the right direction.

I'm using this book right now and it's a healing and compassionate book for writers. I was already writing again, but the book is helping me to go back and heal the gaps from decades ago when I quit writing. I hadn't realized that I needed to be healed as a writer. The need to write never went away even though I tried not to write. This book is helping me to understand many things. I can't say enough. It's a valuable book if you have ever felt hurt or discouraged as a writer. The author is perceptive and knows of what she speaks.

I am posting this review for a long-time friend and exceptional writer: "UNSTUCK offers us a mother lode of authorial insight, inspiration, and encouragement. Dr. Staw, the ultimate writer's empathist, speaks with the authority of an unblocked writer herself, making this handbook of discovery and recovery both an indispensable road map for overcoming writer's block and a trusty guide for avoiding its recurrence."

As a near-life-long collector of books on the art/craft of writing, I treasure them not just because of their professional wisdom but also because, well: they're so well written. I've placed UNSTUCK within the top part of that latter characteristic. Thank you for writing it. -- Larry W. Bryant

Unlike most books for writers, this one assumes that you are already a writer of some kind, and treats you intelligently and sympathetically, exploring the various fears that are common among writers and are at the root of writer's block, and ways to work through them. The book assumes that all writers have their own backgrounds, their own way of working, and their own individual quirks, so it does not prescribe a set program that everybody should follow. Instead, it talks about how to use your own personality and techniques to get you past the block and put your butt back in the chair.

Some of the examples seem pretty extreme. There are successful writers out there, apparently, who develop such a strong block that they have panic attacks when they sit down to write, or even just look at their computers. I figure if Dr. Staw's approach can help them, it can help me. I don't really fear writing (or do I? the book made me think about that), I just have trouble getting to it. Several times I read what she writes and thought, that's not me, then realized hours or even days later that the writers she describes aren't as different from me as I wanted to think they were. It gave me a lot of insight into the way I approach my writing, how I think about it, how I think of myself as a writer (a not-quite-real writer--there's a whole chapter about that).

The funny thing is, I realized early in the book that I was actually using the book as an avoidance technique to help justify not writing. After all, if I was reading about writer's block, then obviously I was doing something about it, so that's almost as good as writing. Of course, the best thing I could have done was put my butt in my chair and my fingers on the keyboard, even if only for a few minutes, rather than keeping my nose in a book. But I'm glad I read it anyway.

If you want to understand your writing mind, your fears about writing, how to get past that inner critic, and so on, the book is worth the time it takes to read it, and the time it takes to digest what you've read.

What can I say? The proof is in the results! This book and Hal Zina Bennett dramatically changed my writing style. And, I had been writing for decades. I had also taken numerous writing courses at a college level. I had even self-published and helped edit other books. But, Hal taught me how to "write from the heart" and shift my writing from an informational to a conversational style! The result? I got published from Hampton Roads Publishers with my first book Beyond the Secret. Want to learn how to REALLY write? Buy this book!

I recently bought and gave this book to a dear friend who has a talent for written expression. It's an excellent, giftable book with many tips, thoughts to ponder and loads of encouragement for aspiring writers. Buy it for yourself if you'd love to put your own experiences or thoughts on paper and you need a bit of direction... or consider tucking it into a holiday gift stash if you know someone who has a way with words. There's a lot of bang for the buck in this book. It's well worth Amazon's affordable price.

As a published author The Courage To Trust: A Guide To Building Deep And Lasting Relationships I was struggling to find purpose in writing for purely personal reasons,and wondering if I had the focus to delve into another book project. Then I attended a book signing and met Hal Z. Bennett. His love of telling/writing stories that heal and encourage others put me back on the writing path, reminding me of how important it is for each of us to share our truth. This lovely book is filled with quiet inspiration and suggestions that regrounded me and made my journal--and a book proposal--both seem good and necessary efforts. Embracing True Prosperity: Guided Visualizations & Practical Tools To Realize Your Deepest Dreams

This is a good book for writers who already have some experience of the craft, including through personal journaling. Nothing about the techniques of writing or the genres here but rather about the "soul of writing". Hal Zina Bennett shares his development as a writer over the years and his suggestions to reconnect to the being that feeds the act of writing. One writing "exploration" is given after each chapter. The book reads quickly and is motivational in nature. This is a good companion to any book by Julia Cameron.

Hal Zina Bennett lives what he writes and teaches, from the heart. I was fortunate to study writing with Hal and from this met his book "Write from the Heart." The lessons I learned were essential to me in writing, shaping, and bringing to fruition my first book, "Sightlines: A Poet's Diary."

In Chapter 9, "Higher Creativity and the Essential Wound," Hal's Core Concept is: "The writer, like the shaman storyteller of ancient times, embraces his own life experience, tells stories to the community that gathers in a circle around him, a fire blazing at its center. In the telling of what most deeply touched his life, he helps other to see that they are not alone. And in the process both storyteller and listeners are healed." I didn't know how true this was until after my book came out. I thank Hal for seeing deeply into this truth and sharing it.

"Writing from the Heart" has 13 chapters. Each chapter offers a good reason for buying, reading, using, studying, and treasuring this book.

Janet Grace Riehl, author, Sightlines: A Poet's Diary

Roorbach guides you step-by-step with exercises and examples that help you write about your life. He also explains what makes good writing different from not-so-good writing. In other words, he holds you to high standards and helps you meet them. Your eventual readers should be grateful!

Brief Summary: Bill Roorbach understands that memoir writing is not as simple as putting everything you can remember about your life on paper. Memories are no different than any other source - the characters and the plot must be interesting. To that end, he combines instruction and advice with a series of exercises to produce "the bones" of a good memoir. Starting at the beginning, he covers: finding a good place to write, mapping your memories, scene making and exposition, the ethics of writing about real people, method writing and voice, metaphor and adumbration, and texture. You might not do every exercise in this book - there are 94 in all - but most seem worthwhile. Roorback encourages his students to think of the exercise work as "good, clean rocks for an eventual stone wall." Several of the exercises use a process which Roorbach calls "cracking open," which might involve finding a sentence or phrase from something you previously wrote that condenses or skims over a possible scene, and building a scene of at least two pages. (As a writer, I like thinking of myself as a cracker and polisher of stones and a builder of walls.) Other great exercises include: looking at as many books as you can to make a list of your ten favorite first sentences, making a map of the earliest neighborhood you can remember, and making a list of the subjects upon which you are an expert. The final chapter gives some good, practical advice about how to locate appropriate editors and agents, with a final cautionary suggestion: "The only helpful ambition is to write something good, something that will satisfy readers unknown to you in both predictable and unpredictable ways. If your ambition is about the work, the dream of publication won't eat at you and make a fool out of you."

Sample Excerpts: Roorbach doesn't just "tell" us the rules, he "shows" us the rules. In this example, he shows us how a good scene replaces many pages of explaining. "Instead of a passage about your family's socioeconomic status, you show your dad pulling up in the brown Ford wagon, muffler dragging. Or does he pull up in a shiny Mercedes? Or does he walk up the hill with his jacket over his shoulder, car traded for shares in a new invention? Let the reader write the passage about class."

Primary Strength: Writing Life Stories is to memoir what Joy of Cooking is to cooking. If you can follow directions and do what the book tells you to do, you'll have everything you need to create a fine memoir or a tasty meal.

This book is full of insights into the writing process.
It offers lots of assignments ,it helps me with writing my life story.

Good book. Instructs with small easy-to-follow "chunks". Writer has a good sense of humor--evident in his writing. Writing isn't overly academic or political (unlike some of the other "memoir-writing" books out there).

After following Roorbach's lessons, you should be able to competently put out a very nice selection of some of the turning points in your life, special occasions, and those great memories. You'll have enough vivid "word-pictures" that folks will enjoy reading about your experiences rather than fall asleep from extreme boredom.

Overall, this is a good book that will get you started with getting your own story out there. Don't let your part in history be lost--start writing now with this book as a guide.

Regards,
Dave (aka "EditorDave" -- Capture_the_Memories on Squidoo)

This book has lots of exercises for those just beginning to edge near the writing-ledge and will help you dig into your own story. However, this book is only for those wanting to write an auto-biography and those just beginning to venture forth in their writing. If you buy this expecting help on writing someone else's life story you won't find what you're looking for. If you're not a beginning writer and you purchase this, it's likely that you'll be the proud owner of a book full of exercises you've long outgrown.

Mr. Yagoda presents the results of his exhaustive research with clarity and style. It's a compelling story and makes a great companion to the Kunkel books on Ross. I particularly enjoyed learning more about Shawn and the Shawn years at the NYer, since many of my favorite writers were nurtured under his watch. The best one-book history of the NYer I know of.

Disclaimer: I love The New Yorker. I have been a dedicated subscriber for ten years (and I am only twenty-six), and I read the magazine for years before subscribing under my own name.

Given my disclaimer, perhaps my five-star rating is self-evident. But not necessarily: As a lover of the magazine, I approached this text skeptically. I was interested in an unbiased review, yes, but likely I would have been wounded by a wholeheartedly negative portrayal.

Yagoda loves TNY even more than I do, if that's possible, yet he truthfully approaches his biography of the magazine. The ugliest facts are laid bare, but in a sympathetic whole.

TNY writers, editors, and staff members are lovingly recreated; Yagoda writes so well that I felt I knew these people, I understood these people, and I physically missed them after turning the last page. Like others who have reviewed this book, I wanted more--more, more, more. I felt astonished and sad to have finished the book. Were it a novel, I'd beg for a sequel, even knowing that sequels rarely live up to the original. Even a second-best second-tome would be better than missing the people and the institution that this book brings to life.

Admittedly, TNY readers will love this book vastly more than those unacquainted with its pages. However, if you are even beginning to approach the magazine, you must read this book. You will understand the weekly journal better than you do now, and you will appreciate it far more. I certainly do.

Bravo, Yagoda!

There are at least two ways to view Ben Yagoda's book ABOUT TOWN: 1) as the history of The New Yorker Magazine, how it was conceived and developed and changed over time, and 2) as a social document reflecting its times. The subtitle of the book "and the World it Made" does not seem quite as accurate unless one considers that "world" to be the corporate culture created by the staff led by Ross and Shawn, the two longtime editors who built the magazine. The New Yorker certainly has influenced the world within which it existed along with many other magazines.

Harold Ross, the founder and first editor of the magazine, with the help of Katherine and E.B.White, Thurber, Dorothy Parker, and many other fine editors and writers launched the magazine in the 1920s. The sophisticated and literary focus of the magazine soon captured the fancy of New Yorkers. During the hard days of the depression the magazine actually gained subscribers as readers enjoyed the humorous repartee and cartoons that helped them laugh at their troubles. Many new readers learned of the magazine during WWII as it was handed around the barracks. The GI bill produced many educated readers who remembering their wartime contact with the magazine now subscibed to it. Following WWII, the magazine included more and more "social conscience" articles, for example, John Hershey's essay on "Hiroshima."

Ross died in the early 1950s, and during the fifties under the editorship of William Shawn, the magazine became relatively banal according to Yagoda who says it appealed to stay-at-home wives who enjoyed articles that reminded them of their college days (among other pieces, Mary McCarthy's tales of her Italian travels were featured). In the 1960s, the magazine once again became more vocal about social issues and the environment.

Yagoda says the best years of the magazine came in the 1970s when writers like Woody Allen wrote wonderful wacky pieces and investigative journalists covered the scandals in
Washington. Following a downturn in subscriptions in 1980s, the magazine was purchased by a media mogul and William Shawn departed. With Tina Brown's arrival, the magazine metamorphed into a Conde Nast publication. Garrison Keillor's comments about Brown's arrival (as he left) are amusing.

Over the years, I have read John Updike, Alice Munro, Jamaica Kincaid, Katherine White, and many of the writers who once wrote for the New Yorker. When I was a child, my mother used to quote Dorothy Parker regularly ("Rivers are damp..."), but I had no idea Parker wrote for The New Yorker until years later (we lived in a rural area and subscribed to the Progressive Farmer!!). When I read Rachel Carson's SILENT SPRING, it changed my life, but I read it in book form when it was first published as a Book of the Month Club selection. I only became aware of The New Yorker magazine when I was in my thirties and a college writing instructor suggested it. Yagoda says many people discovered the magazine when they were students.

As a social document, The New Yorker articles very much reflect the times, and to some extent, at least under Ross, the magazine seemed to be ahead of the times. In reading this book, I was reminded of National Public Radio, which seems to be the main innovator in broadcast journalism these days--though I am told there are all sorts of happenings on the Internet. The in-depth news stories, the essays by various knowledgeable citizens, the political commentaries and Garrison Keilor are all comparable to The New Yorker magazine.

If you are interested in a snapshot of the 20th Century from an educated New Yorker magazine perspective, or in writing and magazine development in general, you will find much of interest in this book. The tales concerning the origins of many innovative features of the magazine are quite good.

Yagoda suggests the magazine pretty much ended with Shawn's departure in the late 1980s. He devotes eight pages at the end of the book to the three editors who followed Shawn. He says the median age of the readership grows older every year (not replacing subscribers) and most of current readership as such is owing to the retention of loyal readers. He quotes some of these readers who no longer actually read the magazine but have not given up their subscriptions. His book goes a long way toward explaining to me why I dropped my subscription a few years ago.

There are two types of writers: those who aspire, no, dream of being published in the "New Yorker", and those who, after several rejections, bitterly deride the very institution they hoped to conquer. I am solidly of the first camp, though give it a few years and I might be a latter-day grouch.

The work of Ben Yagoda brings the magazine alive, from the heyday of such luminaries as Thurber and White to the tough war years, right up through the Shawn era and even right up to (for 1999) the present. Through it all, Yagoda examines the many lives who devoted themselves to this literary exercise in humor and good faith. The most compelling character studies, however, are the two main editors throughout the magazine's history, Harold Ross and William Shawn.

Ross, who founded the magazine in 1925 and managed it through its first twenty-six years, comes across as a gruff, thoroughly Western man who nonetheless saw the need for a magazine like "The New Yorker", and brought it to being through sheer will and fortitude. He also happened to publish significant works by James Thurber, E.B. White, and J.D. Salinger among others. Shawn, taking the reins after Ross's death in 1951, saw the magazine through 30+ years of challange and triumph, only to be forced out in 1987. Throughout the book, Yagoda makes these men the central focus of his tale, but he includes brief looks at literary and other lights of the twentieth century, some who did get published (like Donald Barthleme, Veronica Geng, and John Updike) and some who didn't (Tom Wolfe, whose scandelous expose on the magazine shook it out of its fuddiness).

Overall, the book looks fondly back at the magazine's past, with a hint that it might never reach the same heights of importance it once had. That may very well be, but there's still something to be said for a magazine that is such an institution no one could imagine starting a writing career without considering the possibility of submitting to it.

"The New Yorker" is still the premier magazine in America, and this book explains why, after almost a century, it still carries the weight it does.

"About Town", by Ben Yagoda chronicles the majority of the 80+ years, "The New Yorker", has been contributing its unique journalistic culture to everyone, including, "The old lady in Debuque". Mr. Yagoda's book stands out from many books that have been offered to readers about the magazine for while he certainly is aware of the contributions the magazine has made for over 8 decades; he does not seem to be in awe of it or the people to the point it affects his writing. He clearly admires the magazine, but this does not stop his including a wealth of information that documents the eccentric personalities that shaped the magazine. Some may not find the notes flattering, but he objectively shows some of the magazines famous quirks without committing the blasphemy of a young Thomas Wolfe.

The list of writers who either became major or occasional contributors, reads like an amalgam of winners of the highest literary awards that have been offered. The list of those names repeatedly rejected expands the list even further. The book contains dozens of examples of the famous rejection letters that often are almost apologetic about turning down a piece of work while always writing in the first person plural. Having a piece selected by, "The New Yorker", was often considered the ultimate indicator that a new writer had arrived, that he or she had entered the pantheon of the magazine's literary legends. This was true even if the work accepted for publication may not have appeared for months, or even several years. The reception of the envelope stating a writer's work had been admitted was all many authors needed to have their work given unique value and cachet, publication was a bonus.

Mr. Yagoda also spends a good amount of his book on the cartoons, their artists, and the painful process that started with an idea only to have to run a gauntlet to be published. As hard as this path may have been, the scrutinizing that a written piece received is almost beyond imagining. It is understandable that first time contributors would have their worked scoured and polished, but when some of the 20th Century's finest writers nearly drew blood over commas the action within the building must have been spectacular. There is a story of one writer who sat outside the editor's office for almost 5 hours over the issue of a single comma. This World War I trench warfare standoff continued until the early hours of the next morning. The editor capitulated, but noted to the writer, "you are still wrong".

The story of this fascinating magazine could fill many volumes. If your starting place for gathering an overview of this institution, its editors, staff and writers, is this book, you will have chosen very well. Mr. Yagoda has written a great tribute to those he has chronicled.

I just bought this book and already have learned so much i cant put it down.
Lots of great advice from an expert. I already have checked out the web site she recommends and hope to get started as a freelance proofreader soon.

It sounds corny, but this book made me believe in myself as an aspiring copyeditor. The chapters on freelancing are especially helpful for someone with no experience and no idea how to break into the industry. This is the book I had been looking for!

easy to read and great info on editing and how it can work for me and my career. enjoyed learning from it...highly recommend it.

I've been doing some freelance proofreading work, but I didn't know how much I still had to learn until reading this book! Sue Gilad has a lot of information: everything from grammar rules and spelling mistakes to the differences between copyediting and proofreading (glad SOMEONE could finally pinpoint the differences!). This book is clearly written and a wonderful resouce. The only thing I think it could have improved upon was the secion for finding freelance jobs. In Gilad's online book Paid to Proofread (paidtoproofread[dot]com), she offers more in-depth suggestions about creating a resume from zilch, and also ofers more in depth info about approaching editors. On the other hand, the Dummies book contains way more information about resources and grammar. All in all, this is the most comprehensive and clearly written book on proofreading I've read.

This book is easy-to-read, straightforward, and so informative. I've been able to build my at-home business as a freelance proofreader much more quickly than I anticipated; all thanks to this invaluable resource! Learning the ins and outs of copyediting and proofreading is made simple, quick, and fun.