Writing & Reading

The inspiring story of a son and his dying mother, who form a 'book club' that brings them together as her life comes to a close. For fans of Tuesdays With Morrie and The Last Lecture.
Mary Anne Schwalbe is waiting for her chemotherapy treatments when Will casually asks her what she's reading. The conversation they have... read more

In this collection of anecdotes, lessons, quotes, and prompts, author and writing teacher Barbara Abercrombie provides a delightfully varied cornucopia of inspiration -- nuts-and-bolts solutions, hand-holding commiseration, and epiphany-fueling insights from fellow writers, including Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners and Aberc... read more

Ramona Koval has been praised as a master of the interview genre, renowned for engaging writers in conversations that are incisive, provocative, and downright funny. In this collection, she shares the most fascinating interviews from her book, Tasting Life Twice, along with brand new interviews with some of the most important... read more

Fairytales are one of our earliest and most vital cultural forms, and forests one of our most ancient and primal landscapes. Both evoke a similar sensation in us - we find them beautiful and magical, but also spooky, sometimes horrifying. In this fascinating book, Maitland argues that the two forms are intimately connected: ... read more

What is it about reading that we love so much? Why do books make our lives so much richer? Ramona's Koval's By the Book is about reading and living, and about the authors that have written themselves into her life: from Oliver Sacks to Oscar Wilde, Christina Stead to Grace Paley. It is about learning to read (and asking her m... read more

Exercise Book collects over fifty creative writing exercise used by Bill Manhire and his colleagues, not only at Victoria but throughout New Zealand and around the world. The celebrated writer/teachers who have contributed include Elanor Catton, Curtis Sittenfeld, Emily Perkins, David Vann, Elizabeth and Sara Knox, Dora Malec... read more

Stories are everywhere...Exploring the great plots from Plato to The Matrix and from Tolstoy to Toy Story, this is a book for anyone who wants to unlock any narrative and learn to create their own. With startling and original insights into how we construct stories, this is a creative writing book like no other. It will show y... read more

Twenty of America's bestselling authors share tricks, tips and secrets of the successful writing life. Anyone who's ever sat down to write a novel or even a story knows how exhilarating and heart breaking writing can be. So what makes writers stick with it? In Why We Write, twenty well-known authors candidly share what keeps ... read more

Sit. Walk. Write. These are the barest bones of Natalie Goldberg's revolutionary writing and life practice, which she details in The True Secret of Writing, her first book on the silent intensives she has taught for over a decade in small groups in Taos, New Mexico. This is a whole new slant on writing since her perennial bes... read more

The secret of creativity, Natalie Goldberg makes clear, is to subtract rules for writing, not add them. Proof that she knows what she is talking about is abundant in the speed, grace, accuracy, and simplicity of her own sentences. Natalie Goldberg will catch readers interested in writing with her opening confession that she... read more

Here, for the first time, is a local edition of the bible of writing guides - a wry, honest, down-to-earth book that has never stopped selling since it was published in the United States in the 1990s. Beautifully written, wise and immensely helpful, this is the book for serious writers.

A commonplace book is the repository for a personal collection of quotations and scraps, pensees and poems. In vogue from the late sixteenth-century, their fans include John Milton, W H Auden and now Elizabeth Smither. Here she shares three of her commonplace books and reflects on the quotations she's gathered that act as foi... read more

In his essay on Tennessee Williams, Colm Toibin reveals an artist profoundly tormented by his sister's mental illness. Through the relationship between W.B. Yeats and his father, Toibin examines a world of family relations, and in Roddy Doyle's writing on his parents illuminates an Ireland reinvented. From John Cheever's jour... read more

With so many fantastic books available to the book club member, it can often be difficult to pick out just one for the whole group to read and enjoy. And how to know what books are even available - where do you start?
Thankfully, The Book Lovers' Companion is here to help, bringing together a huge range of the bes... read more

A writer chronicles the surrender of her body to MS; a woman running a substance-abuse clinic faces challenges from clients, donors and her own past; two brothers fix up a house - but can't quite fix the aging parents who will live in it. From the chalky horse-pills of faceless pharmaceutical conglomerates to the hot toddy th... read more

A star-studded line-up of writers, artists, designers, musicians, and chefs discuss their favorite books, with irresistible paintings by artist Jane Mount.
The books that we choose to keep--let alone read - can say a lot about who we are and how we see ourselves. In My Ideal Bookshelf, dozens of leading cultural figures... read more

Bestselling author Jennifer Worick loves books. And she loves lists. If you love books and love lists, you will "adore "this purse-sized collection of top 10 lists in various genres and offbeat categories that you will want to have handy whenever you visit a bookstore or library. This little boon of books is packed with quote... read more

What is the actual connection between disgruntled and gruntled? What links church organs to organised crime, California to the Caliphate, or brackets to codpieces? The Etymologicon springs from Mark Forsyth's Inky Fool blog on the strange connections between words.
It's an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and uner... read more

Have you ever wondered where ideas come from and how stories are made? Would you like to know the true stories behind some of Andy and Terry's books and characters? Are you looking for simple, practical and inspiring writing activities? Would you like to discover 45 great ways to have fun with words and pictures?
If yo... read more

Welcome to the Weird and Wonderful World of Words! Tyrannosaurus Lex is your guide to the intriguing world of logology--the pursuit of word puzzles or puzzling words--featuring: - A wealth of witty anagrams, palindromes, and puns - Clever paraprosdokians: sentences with surprising endings ("I've had a perfectly wonderful ev... read more