When You Catch An Adjective Kill It

Author : Ben Yagoda
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0767929314
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It written by Ben Yagoda and published by Crown. This book was released on 2008-02-12 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do you get when you mix nine parts of speech, one great writer, and generous dashes of insight, humor, and irreverence? One phenomenally entertaining language book. In his waggish yet authoritative book, Ben Yagoda has managed to undo the dark work of legions of English teachers and libraries of dusty grammar texts. Not since School House Rock have adjectives, adverbs, articles, conjunctions, interjections, nouns, prepositions, pronouns, and verbs been explored with such infectious exuberance. Read If You Catch an Adjective, Kill It and: Learn how to write better with classic advice from writers such as Mark Twain (“If you catch an adjective, kill it”), Stephen King (“I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs”), and Gertrude Stein (“Nouns . . . are completely not interesting”). Marvel at how a single word can shift from adverb (“I did okay”), to adjective (“It was an okay movie”), to interjection (“Okay!”), to noun (“I gave my okay”), to verb (“Who okayed this?”), depending on its use. Avoid the pretentious preposition at, a favorite of real estate developers (e.g., “The Shoppes at White Plains”). Laugh when Yagoda says he “shall call anyone a dork to the end of his days” who insists on maintaining the distinction between shall and will. Read, and discover a book whose pop culture references, humorous asides, and bracing doses of discernment and common sense convey Yagoda’s unique sense of the “beauty, the joy, the artistry, and the fun of language.”

Author : Ben Yagoda
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101151471
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Memoir written by Ben Yagoda and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-11-12 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a critically acclaimed cultural and literary critic, a definitive history and analysis of the memoir. From Saint Augustine?s Confessions to Augusten Burroughs?s Running with Scissors, from Julius Caesar to Ulysses Grant, from Mark Twain to David Sedaris, the art of memoir has had a fascinating life, and deserves its own biography. Cultural and literary critic Ben Yagoda traces the memoir from its birth in early Christian writings and Roman generals? journals all the way up to the banner year of 2007, which saw memoirs from and about dogs, rock stars, bad dads, good dads, alternadads, waitresses, George Foreman, Iranian women, and a slew of other illustrious persons (and animals). In a time when memoir seems ubiquitous and is still highly controversial, Yagoda tackles the autobiography and memoir in all its forms and iterations. He discusses the fraudulent memoir and provides many examples from the past?and addresses the ramifications and consequences of these books. Spanning decades and nations, styles and subjects, he analyzes the hallmark memoirs of the Western tradition?Rousseau, Ben Franklin, Henry Adams, Gertrude Stein, Edward Gibbon, among others. Yagoda also describes historical trends, such as Native American captive memoirs, slave narratives, courtier dramas (where one had to pay to NOT be included in a courtesan?s memoir). Throughout, the idea of memory and truth, how we remember and how well we remember lives, is intimately explored. Yagoda's elegant examination of memoir is at once a history of literature and taste, and an absorbing glimpse into what humans find interesting--one another.

Author : Eva Vanrell
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780997704709
Total Pages : 436 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Butterfly Crest written by Eva Vanrell and published by . This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ancient war. A long-told prophecy. A cursed inheritance. If you were destined to die, how would you choose to live? Join Elena as she finds herself in the middle of a Greek myth and an ancient war between gods, in a world where the old myths are real and human belief has the power to alter the divine! *Finalist - Readers' Favorite Book Awards

Author : Roy Peter Clark
Publisher : Little, Brown Spark
ISBN 13 : 031620434X
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book How to Write Short written by Roy Peter Clark and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2013-08-27 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's most influential writing teacher offers an engaging and practical guide to effective short-form writing. In How to Write Short, Roy Peter Clark turns his attention to the art of painting a thousand pictures with just a few words. Short forms of writing have always existed-from ship logs and telegrams to prayers and haikus. But in this ever-changing Internet age, short-form writing has become an essential skill. Clark covers how to write effective and powerful titles, headlines, essays, sales pitches, Tweets, letters, and even self-descriptions for online dating services. With examples from the long tradition of short-form writing in Western culture, How to Write Short guides writers to crafting brilliant prose, even in 140 characters.

Author : Mary Lawton
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1789120810
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book A Lifetime with Mark Twain written by Mary Lawton and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-12 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, which was first published in 1925, is a transcription of an informal account by Katy Leary of her thirty years’ service to the household of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), the 19th century American writer, humourist, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, who became world-famous for novels such as Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). It was Mark Twain who suggested that the faithful Katy tell the world all she knew about him. Her reminiscences were locked away in her memory until Miss Mary Lawton, who had known Mr. and Mrs. Clemens for many years, persuaded Katy to reveal them. Katy Leary began to talk and, pencil in hand, Miss Lawton recorded while the old servant poured forth the inimitable words in which she related many a chapter as yet unknown to those outside the family circle. A fascinating read.

Author : Mark Twain
Publisher : St Martins Press
ISBN 13 : 9780312143657
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Mark My Words written by Mark Twain and published by St Martins Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a personal look at the man behind the writing through an amusing collection of his expressed opinions and thoughts on such topics as such as fellow writers, authors, editors, children's books, humor, and public speakers.

Author : Terry McDonell
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 1101970510
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Accidental Life written by Terry McDonell and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Amazon Best Book of 2016 A celebration of the writing and editing life, as well as a look behind the scenes at some of the most influential magazines in America (and the writers who made them what they are). You might not know Terry McDonell, but you certainly know his work. Among the magazines he has top-edited: Outside, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated. In this revealing memoir, McDonell talks about what really happens when editors and writers work with deadlines ticking (or drinks on the bar). His stories about the people and personalities he’s known are both heartbreaking and bitingly funny—playing “acid golf” with Hunter S. Thompson, practicing brinksmanship with David Carr and Steve Jobs, working the European fashion scene with Liz Tilberis, pitching TV pilots with Richard Price. Here, too, is an expert’s practical advice on how to recruit—and keep—high-profile talent; what makes a compelling lede; how to grow online traffic that translates into dollars; and how, in whatever format, on whatever platform, a good editor really works, and what it takes to write well. Taking us from the raucous days of New Journalism to today’s digital landscape, McDonell argues that the need for clear storytelling from trustworthy news sources has never been stronger. Says Jeffrey Eugenides: “Every time I run into Terry, I think how great it would be to have dinner with him. Hear about the writers he's known and edited over the years, what the magazine business was like back then, how it's changed and where it's going, inside info about Edward Abbey, Jim Harrison, Annie Proulx, old New York, and the Swimsuit issue. That dinner is this book.”

Author : Hugh Barker
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393060780
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music written by Hugh Barker and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2007-01-30 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Musicians strive to "keep it real"; listeners condemn "fakes"; but does great music really need to be authentic? By investigating this obsession in the last century, this title rethinks what makes popular music work.

Author : Holly Jackson
Publisher : Delacorte Press
ISBN 13 : 0593379853
Total Pages : 467 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book As Good as Dead written by Holly Jackson and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE MUST-READ MULTIMILLION BESTSELLING MYSTERY SERIES • The final book in the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series that reads like your favorite true crime podcast or show. By the end, you'll never think of good girls the same way again... Pip is about to head to college, but she is still haunted by the way her last investigation ended. She’s used to online death threats in the wake of her viral true-crime podcast, but she can’t help noticing an anonymous person who keeps asking her: Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears? Soon the threats escalate and Pip realizes that someone is following her in real life. When she starts to find connections between her stalker and a local serial killer caught six years ago, she wonders if maybe the wrong man is behind bars. Police refuse to act, so Pip has only one choice: find the suspect herself—or be the next victim. As the deadly game plays out, Pip discovers that everything in her small town is coming full circle . . .and if she doesn’t find the answers, this time she will be the one who disappears. . . And don't miss Holly Jackson's next thriller, Five Surive!

Author : Doug Aldridge
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476668450
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Mark Twain and the Brazen Serpent written by Doug Aldridge and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-03-13 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the overarching theme of religious satire in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this study reveals the novel's hidden motive, moral and plot. The author considers generations of criticism spanning the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, along with new textual evidence showing how Twain's richly evocative style dissects Huck's conscience to propose humane amorality as a corrective to moral absolutes. Jim and Huck emerge as archetypal twins--biracial brothers who prefigure America's color-blind ideals.