Language Arts Books

This book is great. It has the alphabet and has pictures with words under them like a picture of a cat and C-a-t. Also this book can be used for Spanish too. For instance, uno, dos, and other three letter words.

This book is great! Before this book, my daughter was able to recognize letter sounds but did not understand the concept of linking the sounds together to make a word. By flipping three different piles of the alphabet, she was able to see, and therefore understand, this concept. I recommend this book to any pre-readers.

I Can Spell Words With Three Letters is a wonderful book! My son (who is 4, but doesn't talk yet) loves to spell his favorite words with this flip book. I really like how it contains three alphabets for kids to flip through to spell with so that even if they can't write yet, they can still practice spelling. I also like how the word is on the back of each picture so the kids can check their work. My only concern is that the flip cards seem flimsier than they were in my original copy, but I like that the book now has a velcro closure so that the cards won't get bent as easily. But it is well worth the money. In fact we got our second copy to give as a gift.

My 3-yr-old is learning to spell using this book! The spelling possibilities are endless and she enjoys playing with it alone. She is instantly gratified when she flips the page to see that she has spelled a word correctly.

My Kindergardener is just learning to read and write. This book has been great for him to "play with" when I can not sit with him or can not look at the pages with him. He has learn several words and had fun at the same time.

My 5 yr old loves to "read" this book with me and my 2 yr old loves to listen. The colored stars make my children laugh! It has wonderful repitition so it is easy for a beginning reader to excel.

My students in Japan, ages 1 and 2 years old, LOVE this book. I was really surprised. I thought the paper-cut-out artwork wouldn't grab them, but it did. The vocabulary was basic, but things they knew and could point to in the pictures. I turned this into a dialogue book because I found the sentences weren't enough. But even a month after we finished our work on this book, 2 of my students were still carying this in their book bags every day because they loved this book so much!

From the author of Goodnight Moon. Provides emerging readers with immediate success.

My 4 year old son LOVES this book! It's great for bedtime. He laughs when we see the animals with their sunglasses on watching the stars. Definitely recommend this book!

This is a wonderful book for children just learning how to read. The illustrations glow and pop off the page! A wonderful book for all!

This book is a combination of several differen writings, each one poignant and emotional or thought provoking. It's easy to relate to these writings, and they will make you think and feel things you might not have felt in a long time. I loved reading it.

it grabs you from the start and makes you feel what the author is feeling. makes you stop and think about the things that happen in your past and makes you wonder what your future will be.

This was a fabulous book. I cried all through the first half of it, as I could definitely relate to the emotions in the poetry. I sat and read the whole thing in one sitting!!

Beautifully written. This book touches the spirit of anyone who's ever loved and lost. I often found myself wondering if the author knew me personally and felt as if she was writing directly from my own experiences.

I can't wait to share this book with my friends and loved ones!

Michelle Devon's thoughtful and well-written words pull the reader into this emotional journey and won't let go. You'll love this truly excellent book!

Nice to read. More of a feel-good book than a how-to in my opinion, but I suppose it depends upon what you are looking for. There is definitely useful information in this book and it encourages you to write.

I like the data in this book and will definitely use it when I'm ready to write. It is useful.

Dan Poynter gives you so much terrific information and guidance about how to uncover the book inside you. There is no better place to get the guidance you need to write YOUR book!

Eli Davidson
From Funky to Fabulous:
Surefire Success Strategies for the Savvy, Sassy and Swamped
(due in bookstores January 2007)

If you are a writer or think you are a writer, this is a book you should have in your library. It helps jump start the creative processes and lets you know all that you need to know about getting started and what channels to follow.
If you dream of writing... buy this book and follow that dream, after all what do you have to lose?

If you don't already have a good reason to want to write a book - and let's face it most book lovers at one time or another fancy themselves as budding authors - this book will help you find one!

It is concise and well-thought out. An enjoyable as well as instructional read.

If you are an intending author, Amazon's powerful search functions will lead you to other similar and complementary books to help build your skills as a writer and improve your knowledge of the publishing industry.

These aspects are both "must knows" if you are truly serious of reaching your goal as a published author.

Well, I'm not ready to throw away my 1972 printing of Strunk & White's Elements of Style, but I've got the Craft of Clarity right next to it on my desk. So often style and grammar gurus are pedantic and painfully dull. Not Knight. Easy to read; clear and precise. The best primer available that I know of -- after Strunk and White.

As an editor/publisher of books for journalists, I read a lot of books about writing. Bob Knight's excellent book focuses directly on the key issue most writers need to work on - clarity. Knight emphasizes that journalistic writing means writing clearly and concisely, and he shows the reader how to do that. If more writers -- journalists, business writers and even amateurs -- read this book, life would be a lot easier for readers everywhere!

More than anything else, Robert Knight's "The Craft of
Clarity" jogs the writer's memory: "Oh, yes. That's
what I set out to do - communicate, tell a story, get
another human being to read, understand and be
affected by something I've written."
It's an easy goal to lose sight of, especially when pitted
against the goal of getting the facts out there. Author Bob Knight argues that the two need not be in competition
and reminds writers that getting the facts "out there"
is futile if the "out there" fails to tempt the
reader. With humor, examples and exercises, Knight gives writers ways to avoid those murky writing swamps that are so easy to get bogged down in and so effective in keeping readers away.
Written for all writers, "The Craft of Clarity" shows how using the tools of good journalism can help in all communication. It covers everything - from how to shape a story and write
a lede, to how to avoid the passive voice,
jargon and cliché. It also addresses some often overlooked but essential aspects of writing powerfully, including how to not only write honestly but appear to be writing honestly.
Knight's enthusiasm for clear writing and love of the English language come through each page of the book, and cannot help but infect and inspire.
A University of Colorado, Boulder, J-School graduate, Knight currently teaches journalism and English composition at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. He is a veteran reporter who worked in Denver and Albuquerque, and served as senior editor and broadcast editor of the City News Bureau of Chicago.
- Review by Yasmin Hahn, reporter, Sangre de Cristo Chronicle, Angel Fire, NM USA
- NOTE: Marcia and Guy Wood are co-publishers of the Sangre de Cristo Chronicle in Angel Fire, NM and are so impressed with Knight's book that we've purchased 3 copies to give to our reporters, including Hahn. A great tool for working journlaists, whether greenhorns or grouchy with green eyesahdes.

Knight sets forth not just principles for clearly expressing what you say, he offers proven guidelines for first determining what you want to say. It's all about writing, yes; but more importantly, it's about getting read. The author gets all the proven basics right, plus he offers fresh insights into what this discipline called communications is all about. It's also a great read, full of illuminating stories and expamples. Even battle-hardened journalists will get a little something from this book. The rest of us will get much more.

Knight can write. He also can teach his readers how to write clearly, effectively and convincingly. The first two chapters are the most interesting. In the first, he explains the difference between good and bad writing. The second chapter shows how to get started, which often is the hardest part. His main advice is to make it interesting and to get to the point early. He shows how with explanations and examples. The third chapter might be the most useful. It shows how to avoid all those traps that make writing dull. Knight specifically takes aim at misplaced modifiers, dangling participles, redundancies, wordiness and weasel words. They make readers feel as if they were walking through mashed potatoes. Read this chapter and you'll never make those mistakes again. His antidote is to write with precision -- to say what you mean. He shows how to right the wrongs of bad writing. My favorite chapter is the one on originality and how to achieve it without falling into traps like cliches and jargon. I would position this book somewhere between a textbook and a self-help book. It's more fun to read than a textbook and more professional than a self-help book. It's really an updated version of Strunk and White's classic "The Elements of Style" and in some ways better because of all its examples and exercises. Don't be put off by the reference to "journalistic" in the Knight book's title. It's about good writing -- by which he means clear, supple and precise writing. If you'd like the sharpen your prose, this book is for you.

This is a very informative book! Tons of practical information and a detailed and interesting history of jazz dance.

It's easy to read and the structure is logical. Both picture and text describes the movement and how it should be executed. It's good for both the student and the teacher, and contains beside the descriptions of movements the basic of jazzhistory, music theory, stretch and a lot more. It's a good book.

I teach jazz dance in a college setting and recommend this book for my students. Jump into Jazz breaks the art of Jazz dance down beautifully. I have found this book to be extremely helpful and concise. The illustrations are easy to understand, and the worksheets at the back of the book are a wonderful way for my students to test their understanding of the ideas presented.

I bought Jump Into Jazz for my daughter who is a High School Dance Teacher, and she has found this book, recommended to her by another dance teacher, to be a thoroughly useful tool that she refers to daily...excellent.

I bought this for my neice and I have been the favorite Uncle ever since!

I agree with the other reviewers that this book is completely engrossing. Rarely cam that be said of a reference type work like this! The author did an excellent job of making things understandable for someone like me who does not know any Chinese. He gives a very clear overview of the different dialects, including discussion of what exactly characterizes these dialects. It is also a great into to the other language families of China (Mongolian, Tungusic, Tai, etc.), information which is not easy to come by. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested Chinese, China, minority languages, and language classification in general.

I picked up the book out of curiosity and could not put it down. It gives an engrossing history of the Chinese people by way of a study of the languages of the area. It is not just a linguistic text however; it is about all aspects of life in China: politics, economics, poetry,history, everything. Language is just what ties it all together, much like the language ties the country together.

This book is completely engrossing. I knew next to nothing about the history of my native language and it's place among the "dialects" of Chinese. Nor was I really aware of the roles played by geography, politics, and cultural influences in shaping a language or even in a language's classification. The writing is concise and lucid; and much of it is accessible to laymen. I think for the information contained within and for the price, it deserves a 10. (FYI, the colors on one of the maps seem to be offset in my book. Maybe it's intentional?)

S. Robert Ramsey's THE LANGUAGES OF CHINA is a survey originally published by Princeton University Press in 1987. China is an immense country with a rich linguistic heritage, and it is a challenge to cover even the basics adequately in a mere 340 pages. Ramsey does an admirable job, and this student of historical linguistics was thrilled to see such attention paid to the diachrony of many languages mentioned within.

The "Chinese language", the set of mutually unintelligible dialects belonging to Han people and descended from a relatively recent common ancestor, is by far the most widely-spoken in China, and Ramsey dedicates the first half of the book to it. He begins with a presentation of the historical debate over Han linguistic unification, with the northern dialects winning out over southern dialects like those of Shanghai and Guangdong. Since Mandarin has, for better or worse, been taken as the standard, it is the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Mandarin that Ramsey describes as representative of the entire language. Ramsey clearly wrote for a non-specialist audience, as he tries to debunk older Western myths that Chinese is somehow a "primitive" language due to its lack of inflection. The grammar of Mandarin here is splendidly full for just a few pages, though the debate over the use of the particle "le" isn't mentioned.

Ramsey's coverage of Chinese isn't, however, purely synchronic, for he also devotes space to the earlier stages of the language. He begins with an explanation of the Qieyun rhyming dictionary, the document compiled by Lu Fayan that, in spite of its faults, is our only useful source for the pronunciation of Middle Chinese. Ramsey then gives a colourful presentation of the life and work of Berhard Karlgren, the Swedish scholar who, by applying the comparative method to modern Chinese dialects, worked towards a phonetic reality for the mere algebraic relationships of the Qieyun dictionary. But this is not mere blind adulation, Ramsey does acknowledge Karlgren's faults and lists the younger scholars who followed him and improved on his theories. Ramsey also briefly mentions Old Chinese, the reconstruction of which is quite uncertain, and talks about some of the important changes from Middle Chinese to modern Mandarin.

The second half of the book deals with the many non-Han languages of China. First is the "Altaic family" spoken in the north of China, the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages that may or may not be a valid genetic grouping, but which have significant typological similarities. Here again Ramsey gives abundant space to diachronic issues, showing how various modern languages each differ from their common ancestor. Writing systems, too, are covered. The languages of the south come next, including the Tai, Tibeto-Burman, Miao-Yao, and Mon-Khmer families, as well as unclassified or isolated languages. The story of how these languages have fared under Han domination is a major theme of the book.

If you have little bit of Mandarin under your belt (and you don't need a lot) and are interested in the linguistic diversity of this part of the world, THE LANGUAGES OF CHINESE is worth seeking out. This is especially true for historical linguistics curious about China. I can only wonder why it hasn't been reissued.

The book is divided into two parts. Part I examines the Chinese language and the Chinese dialects while Part II surveys the other languages spoken and written in China.

The book offers fascinating historical, grammatical, and political, insights; for example about possible reasons why the north is more unified than the south (easily traversed northern plains vs. isolating southern valleys and mountains).

Westerners often say that Chinese is a language without grammar simply because it's uninflected. This is grossly wrong and Ramsey describes the rudiments of Chinese's positional grammar and how the grammatical rules change somewhat from dialect to dialect. He also gives many examples of morphemes and words and how different dialects put them together.

As for political insight, I am no fan of China's repressive government and its policies. But when it comes to the cultural and linguistic minorities, its policies are surprisingly tolerant and have been for centuries. When we think that as recently as the 1950s, the French government was still trying to suppress the Gaelic language of Bretagne (Breton) we must wonder if there isn't something we can learn from Chinese policies. After all China has for centuries been making room for its minorities, and when Mandarin (putonghua) was created and adopted as the national common speech, much was made that it was no one's native tongue.

I personally wasn't very interested in the other languages of China, but they get the same, though shorter, descriptive treatment of their history and grammar. On the other hand, one real failure of the book is that all the examples are romanized (pinyin) but almost always without the corresponding Chinese characters. This is a pity since with them the book would have certainly been more useful as a study aid. I suppose in 1987 it was much harder (and expensive) to typeset Chinese passages in English books.

All in all, a fascinating survey of the linguistic landscape of China.

Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

"Letters from Lexington : Reflections on Propaganda" is a compelling collection of letters which reveal the role of the US major media in justifying and championing US government and corporate actions throughout the world. One chapter which illuminates Chomsky's dissident analysis is the chapter entitled, "The PC Thought Police". In this chapter, Chomsky compares the US propaganda system to that of Brezhnev's USSR:

"In the study of any system, it is often useful to look at something radically different, to highlight crucial features. Let's begin, then, by looking at a society that is close to the opposite pole from ours: Brezhnev's USSR.

Consider policy formation. In Brezhnev's USSR, economic policy was determined in secret, by centralized power; popular involvement was nil, except marginally, through the Communist Party. Political policy was in the same hands. The political system was meaningless, with virtually no flow from bottom to top.

Consider next the information system, inevitably constrained by the distribution of economic-political power. In Brezhnev's USSR there was a spectrum, bounded by disagreements within centralized power. True, the media were never obedient enough for the commissars. Thus they were bitterly condemned for undermining public morale during the war in Afghanistan, playing into the hands of the imperial aggressors and their local agents from whom the USSR was courageously defending the people of Afghanistan. For the totalitarian mind, no degree of servility is ever enough.

There were dissidents and alternative media: underground samizdat and foreign radio. According to a 1979 US government-funded study, 77% of blue-collar workers and 96% of the middle elite listened to foreign broadcasts, while the alternative press reached 45% of high-level professionals, 41% of political leaders, 27% of managers, and 14% of blue-collar workers. The study also found most people satisfied with living conditions, favoring state-provided medical care, and largely supportive of state control of heavy industry; emigration was more for personal than political reasons.

Dissidents were bitterly condemned as "anti-Soviet" and "supporters of capitalist imperialism," as demonstrated by the fact that they condemned the evils of the Soviet system instead of marching in parades denouncing the crimes of official enemies. They were also punished, not in the style of US dependencies such as El Salvador, but harshly enough.

The concept "anti-Soviet" is particularly striking. We find similar concepts in Nazi Germany, Brazil under the generals, and totalitarian cultures generally. In a relatively free society, the concept would simply evoke ridicule. Imagine, say, that Italian critics of state power were condemned for "anti-Italianism." Such concepts as "anti-Soviet" are the very hallmark of a totalitarian culture; only the most dedicated and humorless commissar could use such terms.

Well-behaved party hacks were guilty of no such crimes as anti-Sovietism. Their task was to applaud the state and its leaders; or even better, criticize them for deviating from their grand principles, thus instilling the propaganda line by presupposition rather than assertion, always the most effective technique.

With these observations as background, let us turn to our own free society.

Begin again with policy formation. Economic policy is determined in secret; in law and in principle, popular involvement is nil. The Fortune 500 are more diverse than the Politburo, and market mechanisms provide far more diversity than in a command economy. But a corporation, factory, or business is the economic equivalent of fascism: decisions and control are strictly top-down. People are not compelled to purchase the products or rent themselves to survive, but those are the sole choices.

The political system is closely linked to economic power, both through personnel and broader constraints on policy. Efforts of the public to enter the political arena must be barred: liberal elites see such efforts as a dangerous "crisis of democracy," and they are intolerable to statist reactionaries ("conservatives"). The political system has virtually no flow from bottom to top, apart from the local level; the general public appears to regard it as largely meaningless.

The media present a spectrum of opinion, largely reflecting tactical divisions within the state-corporate nexus. True, they are never obedient enough for the commissars. The media were bitterly condemned for undermining public morale during the war in Vietnam, playing into the hands of the imperial aggressors and their local agents from whom the US was courageously defending the people of Vietnam; a Freedom House study provides a dramatic example. For the totalitarian mind, again, no degree of servility is enough.

There are dissidents and other information sources. Foreign radio broadcasts reach virtually no one, but alternative media exist, though without a tiny fraction of the outreach of samizdat. Dissidents are bitterly condemned as "anti-American" and "supporters of Communism" as demonstrated by the fact that they condemn the evils of the American system instead of marching in parades denouncing the crimes of official enemies. But they are not severely punished, at least if they are privileged and of the right color. Again, the concept "anti-American" is particularly striking, the very hallmark of a totalitarian mentality."

Just one example of Chomsky's brilliant analysis contained in this seminal study of how the major US media works together with the US government and its corporate interests to undermine democracy. A must read for any student of journalism.

The double entendre in the title of my review is intentional. Chomsky's letters not only sketch how the USA government manufactured domestic consent for its foreign policies during the early 1990s, it also (perhaps intentionally?) adumbrates by demonstration the salient aspects of the "propaganda model" Chomsky and Edward Herman explored in considerable depth in their work *Manufacturing Consent*.

As for the content of the work, I recommend that readers consult the excellent reviews by Chris Green (always, always read his reviews), Egalitarian, and "Reader" (10.10.99) on this page. I couldn't possibly improve on them.

One last observation: Chomsky resides in Lexington, but I can't help but wonder if the title selection plays on the historical significance Lexington has as the location for the beginning of the American Revolution. Perhaps I am poeticizing the title. Nevertheless, I am quite certain that this work will make the canon of literary political dissent as so many of Chomsky's works have already done.

Chomsky writes that the Sandinistas won an election in November 1984 widely perceived as free and fair but U.S. elites put this down the memory hole. Michael Kinsley noted the "Orwellian" rhetoric of the Reaganites in blaming the Sandinistas for Nicargua's ruined economy, after it had been the official policy of the U.S. backed contras to destroy it. But he praised Nicaragua's 1990 elections as free and fair. Anthony Lewis praised the elections too but criticized the Central American policies of the administration--which included the economic embargo on Nicaragua supported by liberals like him. Chomsky quotes the UNO economist Fransisco Mayorga as estimating that the embargo cost Nicaragua 3 billion.

The implications suggesting that the U.S. is a terrorist state in that it was telling the Nicaraguan people that Contra terror and the embargo would continue unless they voted out the Sandinistas in Feb. 1990, was not noticed in the U.S. media. Indeed Time magazine celebrated the attacks on Nicaraguan civilian infrastructure i.e. U.S./contra war crimes as causing the Sandinistas to be voted out. The killing of the poor by the U.S. backed security forces in El Salvador and Guatemala, which ran elections under extreme terror, received little sustained attention.

Chomsky observes that Laurence Pezullo, while the last U.S. ambassador to Somoza, had advised the National Guard to continue its final mass murder operations which were killing tens of thousands. After Carter couldn't prevent the Sandinistas from taking power, the National Guard, the future Contras, were flown out in U.S. military planes with Red Cross markings (a war crime). The media had nothing to say about the U.S. successfully pressuring the new UNO government in Nicaragua after 1990 to drop its demand that the U.S. comply with the World Court ruling of 1986 that the U.S. stop terrorizing Nicaragua and pay 17 billion dollars in reparations. After the U.S. withheld desperately needed aid, the Chamarro government dropped its demand for U.S. compliance

The media suppressed that evidence of Libyan involvement in the murder of one American that led to the "retaliation" against Libya in 1986 which killed many dozens of civilians, was non-existent according to the West Germans. . Chomsky writes that likewise evidence for Libyan involvement in the Lockerbie bombing is negligible (and years later this is still the truth, see--William .Blum's new book "Freeing the World to Death). In any case, Lockerbie may have been "retaliation" for the U.S. shooting down an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988, killing 290. The commander of a nearby vessel, David Carlson later wrote that the Iranian plane was clearly civilian.and not acting otherwise.. The shoot down, by the U.S.S. Vincennes, Carlson suggested,was designed to test the ship's Aegis missile system. This atrocity was the culmination of U.S. support for Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war; for a few days later Iran capitulated to a cease fire on Iraq's terms. When the commander of the Vincenes came home, he was awarded medals by George Bush Sr. In another case of the U.S. and blowing up planes, Chomsky writes that George Schultz later admitted "in a backhand way" that the terrorists who blew up the Air India Flight over Ireland in 1985 killing 329, originated in a mercenary training camp for Central America in Alabama. It was a sting operation that went haywire.

The U.S. funded Noriega's candidate in 1984 elections in Panama that Noriega stole with great violence, a period when he was knee-deep in the drug trade.. George Schultz went down to the inauguration of the candidate, Barletta. The U.S. later soured on Noriega of course, for reasons having nothing to with his bad qualities. As the U.S. invaded Panama to install more reliable drug tycoons in the name of freedom, the Bush senior administration was resuming high tech sales to China and lifted a ban on loans to Saddam's Iraq. After the U.S. suppressed peaceful settlements of the first Gulf war and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, Thomas Friedman and Alan Cowell explained that after the first Gulf War the U.S. undermined the anti-Saddam rebellion.. They hoped Saddam would remain in place until a more pliable clone of the dictator could overthrow him and restore Iraq to the "iron-fisted" rule that the U.S. had so admired before August 1990.. Ahmad Chalabi complained in the British press about the U.S. supporting Saddam's butchery of the rebels. Chomsky notes that the late Senator Moynihan was heard a great deal during this period about his devotion to the UN charter/international law. Of course, Moynihan had bragged in his 1978 memoir about blocking UN efforts to stop Indonesia's aggression against East Timor in 1975 while U.S. ambassador to the UN. He admitted that the invasion, supported by the U.S. until 1999, had killed 60,000 people by early 1976... The media did not juxtapose proclamations of U.S. opposition to aggressive dictators with U.S. support for aggression in East Timor, Morocco in Western Sahara(also helped along by Moynihan at the UN), Turkey in Cyprus, Turkey's ethnic cleansing of its Kurds, South Africa in Namibia and Angola, etc.

Chomsky analyzes a review by Caleb Carr about a book about America's mid 19th century Indian wars and notes its similarity to a hypothetical apologetic for Nazi expansionism. He exposes some embarrassing contradictions and fallacies in the venerable A. Schlesinger's claim that JFK intended to withdraw from Vietnam without victory.

This short book is lucidly written and full of Chomsky's subtle humor. It is Chomsky at his best and most accessible.

Chomsky is the American Empire's worst enemy. Like anyone who challenges powerful interests and their claims to authority, he has been the target of an unrelenting, but increasingly ineffectual (sometimes comical), smear campaign. Noam Chomsky is a national treasure and a credit to the human species. Read Chomsky's "Letters", or anything else by one of the world's leading advocates for democracy and freedom.

Five stars is not enough for this book. It's in a category of its own because of the quality of the information, and the fact that it is put across so painlessly, using examples from popular films.

The title suggests it's a book about films. It's not, it's about how to write a good novel, but it uses films to show examples of plot characterisation, suspense etc. ( The author has published ten novels as Val Daniels. )

I've read and studied most of the available how-to-write books, and this one is the most enjoyable to read, and provides the most useful teaching. She explains a topic, why it is important, then gives examples of HOW it has been cleverly used in films.

( It would make a great gift for a writer friend but if you don't have it yourself, buy it now. I've gleaned more useful gems from this book than from dozens of writing magazines. )

It covers: Characterisation, External Goals and Motivation, Internal Goals and Character Growth, Premise, Creating Tension, Conflict, Suspending Disbelief.

Then it has three chapters based on using the points already covered : Five Star Plotting, Putting it all Together, Parting Thoughts and Other Useful Stuff.

It includes some forms at the back to help you apply the points, and the book itself is a comfortable read, being printed on white paper with white space on the pages.

The main films used are: the Sandra Bullock film 'While You Were Sleeping', Spider-man, Speed, Clueless, Lethal Weapon, The Sixth Sense, Die Hard, Bridget Jones Diary, Jaws.

If you're thinking well those are not very good films for the sort of book I want to write, be patient. You'll be amazed at how much you will learn about character development from the examples she uses, and you'll also want to watch those films again.

As an example of the quality teaching, 'Premise' has always been a woolly concept for me. I've read about it in other books -James N Frey covers it well, but it somehow has never fully sunk in, and I keep having to go back over it.

She covers premise by coming at it from different angles, explains how other writers have decribed it, and offers examples, so I ended up with a far better understanding of what it is, why it's important, and how to apply it to my writing.

But the main benefit I got from this book is the way it lets you relate one concept to another so I now have a far better understanding of why characterisation / goal / motivation / premise / backstory are there and how they relate to one another.

I would highly recommend James Scott Bell's 'Plot and Structure' as an overall primer book for writing a novel. I would also highly recommend Les Edgerton's 'Hooked' as a second level book, but as a sheer enjoyable read, and a book to painlessly improve overall understanding of the key topics above, especially characterisation, this one is the best.

My goal as a writer is to improve with each subsequent book I write. I have purchased and studied several books on craft, and Lights! Camera! Fiction! is definitely among the best.

My first historical romance novel, "Fire at Midnight" has finaled in nearly 40 writing contests and was recently sold to Medallion Press. It will be released in 2009.

Lisa Marie Wilkinson

Alfie Thompson's guide to writing novels is a "must have" for any writer's library. The book goes beyond the dense discourse found in so many writing instruction books and provides a practical "how to" approach that that teaches the reader to watch movies with a writer's eye.

Her approach provides an exceptionally fast and effective way for a fiction writer to absorb proven techniques for developing characters, creating interesting plots, building scenes, establishing motivation, strengthening conflict and fixing problems in a story.

Well organized and easy to read, this book is now my favorite book on writing a novel!

A Novel Approach To Writing: Lights! Camera! Fiction! by movie buff and professional writing instructor Alfie Thompson is a guide to writing great novels especially for movie lovers. Chapters instruct how to watch movies with a writer's eye for what works and what doesn't, blending believable character traits into scenes and plots, using goals to reveal character motivation, judiciously applying foreshadowing and flashback, the power of the suspense of disbelief and how to encourage it, smooth plotting, and much more. A Novel Approach To Writing is a valuable supplement to aspiring and practicing fiction writers, outlining how to absorb the most advanced techniques and inspiration from multimedia experiences and transform it into improved quality within one's own work.

This is a novel approach to writing...using movies to explain character development, external goals and motivation, internal goals and character development, premise (one of the biggies, that's hard to explain at times), tension, conflict, etc., etc., etc....

If you're a visual learner, this book will explain what hours of workshops fail to do...seeing what Ms. Thompson has done on the page to explain all of the above, seems so simple.

But then all great ideas do seem simple once explained. (Duh!)

I sure wish she would have written this book ten years ago, it would have saved me a lot of time in trying to write a compelling novel.

My red hat off to you...you deserve it!

Listen to Me gets at the very heart and soul of why we write. Lauber talks about writing at its purest-writing for oneself, writing to find oneself. She likens writing to bearing witness, not only to a time and event, but to our life. Her chapters offer a variety of examples, and each ends with useable suggestions and prompts to start and guide the writing process. Her suggestion to rewrite from a different person or point of view to become "unstuck" had me digging out old writing notebooks. Lauber's advice is just as useful to the seasoned writer as to the beginner. It is refreshing to read a book on writing which only briefly discusses publication-Lauber's point is that writing is an admirable enough goal. The automatic writing prompts are much more practical than in many other books on writing. Reading Lauber's work left me feeling motivated and hopeful rather than discouraged.

This is a beautiful and personal book on wriing. It's like having a mentor alongside you as you stumble and search for a voice. Terrific book. Personal, moving, and really useful. Highly recommended.

This small, but effective writing aid reaffirms the act of writing, an effort to define the true self. The art of storytelling is a form of self-expression, capturing the ebb and flow of events as they run through our lives, forming our parameters. Families have always used storytelling to inform, one generation to another, spooling out tales of youth, hardship, lessons learned, triumphant accomplishments. How many of us have sat near grandparents, listening with rapt attention as they tell of the long ago days of their youth? The author regularly conducts workshops that teach the process of storytelling, using the stories as a way to learn the skills of self-expression. Immediately accessible and readable, Lauber points out that even the most ordinary life is rich with opportunity.

The author takes storytelling a step further, emphasizing the importance of the written word in our examination of self. This is writing purely for one's own pleasure, not for publication, but for personal clarity. Lauber stresses that it is not necessary to "be" a writer to write successfully. We achieve a deeper perception of the true self as we cover blank pages with random thoughts, ideas, memories and dreams. Naturally healing, these writings address the feelings and experiences of a lifetime. "Self-writing", as such, is a sorting process, illuminating the past. Hopefully, the process will become a habit along the way. Such techniques enable our connections with others and make it possible to form relationships that nurture and expand our potential.

Lauber guides us through the necessary steps, providing anecdotes to illustrate her point, demythologizing the most common misconception: I don't have anything to say. The author posits that the opposite, in fact, is true. She suggests that we start with "my mother told me" and go on from there. In this way, fledgling writers are able to relinquish personal constraints and give themselves permission to witness the journey.

The chapters range from "writing out your life", "writing for revenge" and" writing to heal", to "finding your form" and "editing". In addition, at the end of each chapter, there are valuable writing exercises, specially formulated for honing observation and narrative skills. The final chapter is titled "Nine Good Things about Writing", practical suggestions for conquering the most common difficulties. All this information packed into one small volume is quite a feat and one that Lauber does with ease.

This book is a treasure, full of enthusiasm, a challenge to explore our inner selves and our stories. Lauber's joy as a teacher is contagious, as she encourages the reader, pen in hand, to write the words that free, comfort and acknowledge. Listen to Me is the perfect gift, but buy more than one copy and keep one for yourself. I did. Luan Gaines/2003.

As a teacher of Creative Writing here in Annapolis, I've tried many textbooks. Most recently I've tried Stephen King's book on writing--but while it's a fascinating account of his automobile accident, it's not particularly useful for day to day teaching in a classroom. Lynn Lauber's book LISTEN TO ME is a remarkable work: short enough that students don't find it overwhelming. Each chapter is also followed by specific lessons. These are immensely valuable, and my students actually look foward to doing them. I highly recommend this title.

At last here's a writing book that is real and passionate and written by someone who has actually written and published beautiful and memorable fiction. Lynn has taken the lectures from her UCLA writing class and expanded them into this wonderful book. I've read many books by and about writing, but this one rings with truth--the practical truth of real writer revealing the secrets of her craft. If you know anyone who is aspiring to write, this is the one book to buy.