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Michael Merschel: Michael Merschel is The Dallas Morning News books editor. May 2009
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September 3, 2008
OK, I have to share -- I've had this book sitting on my desk for a couple of months and finally got around to reading it, and if you're at all concerned about the state of the language now that the "Internets" are with us, you'll want to read it. Mignon Fogarty stunned the newly buzzy "podcasting" world in 2006 when she started her weekly Grammar Girl podcasts and they eventually rose to No. 2 on iTunes. Suddenly, knowing where the apostrophe goes, or whether to use a colon or semicolon, became hip (and word geeks everywhere wept with glee). Now she's come out with a book, Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tips For Better Writing (Holt, $14); reading it was WAY more fun (and more informative, in some cases) than those college English classes ever were. Ms. Fogarty's not starchy, but she's a stickler for correctness in every form of written communication -- e-mails, text messaging, blogging, etc. She'll have none of that lazy "Well, it's only for a blog, so who cares if it's grammatically correct?" attitude. The playful title of the first chapter -- "Dirty Words" -- gives a hint at her sense of humor. She doesn't scold; she tries to gently help, although she does note that, despite what certain bloggers or e-mailers might suspect, "writing badly is like dressing in lime skorts and an orange plaid sweater -- people notice." She also gets into issues you've probably never thought about, such as the difference (a big one, it turns out) between a "Dear John" letter and a "Hi, John" letter. The book is sparely, but delightfully illustrated by the grammatical adventures of Aardvark (species obvious) and Squiggly (a snail.)  Comments (0) Leave comment
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Last week, the publisher of her "brief, upbeat biography" won the small-press lottery. Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down, had already sold out a first printing of around 7,000 books. Then came her surprise selection by John McCain. Publisher Kent Sturgis quickly ended up with a one- to three-week backlog of orders, wriote Hillel Italie of The Associated Press. A paperback is in the works, with an expected printing of 50,000. Sturgis told Shelf Awareness: "The incoming phone traffic at our little office, mostly from media looking for the author, kept our two lines tied up for six hours, unable to make outgoing calls because of volume. Thank goodness for cell phones!" Beliefnet today added an interview with author Kaylene Johnson. (Thanks to colleague Jeffrey Weiss for that tip.) But the big issue for book lovers would be the accusation that, as mayor, Palin asked the local librarian how she could go about banning books. GalleyCat has several links on the topic, including this Time article, in which former Wasilla, Alaska mayor, John Stein says:
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Yahoo! News reports: Author Stephenie Meyer drops new book after Web leak. A manuscript of the new book, 'Midnight Sun,' was leaked online, which caused Ms. Meyer's to stop work on the project and make the leaked pages available to everyone. Read them here. Comments (0) Leave comment
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| E-mail entryThe entry "New 'Twilight' book on hold indefinitely" is tagged: Twilight |
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