Reading & Writing Web Finds

Will Allison's ode to his wife's editing skills.
My personal experience attests to the beauty of harmonious marital writing and editing. I have benefited from my husband's helpful editing since before we married and have enjoyed our joint efforts on copy and content for three years.

Austin Kleon's advice to writers and creatives everywhere: How to Steal Like an Artist. Encouraging and inspiring.

Robert Lane Greene's post on the flexibility of English grammar. Sometimes rules aren't always clear, but one of my favorite things about English as a language is it's adaptability.

The last typewriter factory in the world is no more!

A group of Federal employees banding together to eliminate ridiculous acronyms in Acts of Congress.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Bossypants is exactly what a reader expects from an autobiographical book by Tina Fey. You open it hoping to laugh until you pee your pants a little. You may need a spare pair of pants.

And you're dying to know, How autobiographical is 30 Rock, really? If you're a fan of the show and re-watch episodes repeatedly on Netflix Watch Instantly like I do, then you'll quickly realize that Fey borrowed from her personal experiences for material. And by borrowed, I mean like how I borrowed change from my older sister's bank as a kid and used it to buy candy cigarettes. (Do they even make these sticks of pure sugary coolness anymore?)

Fey's writing in Bossypants is deeply personal, occasionally vulgar and constantly hilarious. Amidst the revealing childhood stories and confessions are Fey's personal views on controversial and divisive subjects like parenting, feminism, gay marriage, abortion. Her practical tone and lack of rhetoric will make these ideas palatable to even those who disagree with her. She works her normalcy-mojo on unusual experiences, too, like photo shoots and hanging out with stars. This is why we love her. Fey is a celebrity, but through self-deprecating comedy, she makes it okay for us to be imperfect.

Anyone who liked Fey on SNL, Mean Girls, or 30 Rock is likely to be as crazy about this book as I am. Readers who vaguely recall who she is will have no problem enjoying themselves. Some of the book will be more appealing to women, but male fans should not hesitate to read it. It is super short and could easily be finished in one long, glorious day on the beach, but I recommend savoring it and reading a little at a time. It will be funnier that way.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (33)

Neil Gaiman is a thorough but interesting descriptor of setting and characters' thoughts. I watched the miniseries of Neverwhere that Gaiman wrote for the BBC in '96. Even ignoring the ambivalent acting, the Neverwhere TV series was flat without the constant inner monologues and strange, sometimes disgusting details.

In the novel, Gaiman created a world of life and death existing beneath our relatively safe one. He has a talent for writing repulsive gore, sympathetic and awkward heroes, and twisty adventures. I love tales of salvific journeys and renaissance revenge. There is something primal about the modern reader's yearning for medieval stories of violence and mystical experiences.

Neverwhere is not just empty enjoyment. It prompts some pondering over our cities' real underworlds. The London Below in this novel comprises the forgotten, the invisible, the outcasts, who normal people from London Above can't see. Gaiman's protagonist responds personally to an injured girl from London Below while his fiancee walks past in a hurry to dinner. Thought he fights and sojourns, and often whines and seems pathetic, Richard becomes the hero of the novel after this one small decision.

Copywriting: Successful Writing for Design, Advetising and Marketing by Mark Shaw (32)

Mark Shaw's Copywriting is pretty obviously a manual on how to write good copy for commercial purposes. The text is long, the font is tiny, and could it be any more conspicuous to read on the train (the cover is neon yellow in real life), but it was very helpful and a good start.

The best bits of this book were the examples of successful brands, including lovely photos of the products, and the interviews with copywriters and editors. I love that advertising funnels creativity in a way that can really birth something beautiful and intriguing. We all know good ads and good copy when we see them. I want to be able to know what is good before seeing it written by someone else.

Tinkers by Paul Harding (31)

Tinkers is the story of a family. The first (but also last) patriarch is George, who is dying. His family gathers around him as he fades away, hallucinates and experiences the last epileptic seizures of his life. It is a sweet and sad picture of a family as George's grandchildren read to him and shave his stubble and he recalls pieces of his life but is unable to speak and share them.

The omniscient, lyrical narrator alternates from George's death bed to his childhood home and his father, Howard. George tinkered with clocks in his retirement. Howard was a tinker by trade, fixing household items and selling wares from a mule-drawn wagon through the forests and farms. The reader also hears bits about Howard's father, a country preacher who wrote beautifully but was a bore at the pulpit. The families are different and fascinating. Epilepsy is hereditary and each generation reacts differently. Despite medical advances, the seizures are still shocking and sometimes frightening for the men who suffer from it and their loved ones.

The book is honest poetry. Sometimes Paul Harding's language is the cold meter of the cosmos, sometimes the warm and comforting rhyme of the grass and sunshine. I was lost in Harding's wandering poetic musings and detailed descriptions of clocks and tinkery items. It's been a while since I've read something written with such care.

The Big Short by Michael Lewis (30)

Aside from This American Life's numerous shows explaining the subprime mortgage crisis, Michael Lewis's The Big Short is the best. Lewis tells the story of our financial armageddon and actually makes it entertaining and mostly understandable. He identifies the main characters of a narrative, makes them heroes, and lets them explain the plot.

Writing about what I learned in The Big Short is much more aggravating than reading it. I now understand the basics of CDOs, credit default swaps, shorting a bond/stock/company, subprime mortgages, hedge funds, and the ratings agencies. And I now have a deeper understanding of the depravity, greed, stupidity and laziness of the human race. Lewis explains that the people in charge of the "too big to fail" firms investing consequential sums of money in the subprime mortgage machine, and most of their employees, had no idea what they were doing with this money. When they finally caught on, they had already failed.

I suppose ignorance is more comforting than evil.

Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy and the New Science of Desire by Martin Lindstrom (29)

The continuing deluge of books about human decisions based on emotions, stereotypes and snap judgments have been enlightening and disappointing. Martin Lindstrom compiled studies in Buyology that me doubt human capacity for reason and understanding the world and ourselves. Were the Enlightenment philosophers I idolize delusional?

Buyology is a marketing and branding master's study of the real reasons why people buy the products they buy. He examines advertisements that work, advertising methods and myths that just won't die, and why people say one thing and purchase another.

It is a fast read that looks much longer and more cerebral than it is. Lindstrom's simple style makes reading the brain chemistry explanations easy. It's better researched than a Gladwell, but not quite as entertaining. Maybe the most interesting bit of the book is the evidence that contradicts the idea that most people are capable of knowing themselves and their motivations. I believe in man's ability to resist emotional urges. I think Lindstrom does too, and wrote this book to share tools for overcoming our irrational impulses.