WWW Wednesday, 31-January-2018

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived here on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Note: For users of Blogspot blogs, I’m unable to comment on your posts as a WordPress blogger unless you’ve enabled Name/URL comments. This is a known WordPress/Blogspot issue. Please consider enabling this to participate more fully in the community.

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Currently reading: I was able to make some good progress on A Widow for One Year by John Irving. I had a lot of meetings to drive to last week so I got through three disks! I’m still just over halfway through this book but I’m feeling good about finishing it before the library makes me bring it in to prove I didn’t lose it.
I made steady progress in Harry Potter y las Reliquias de la Muerte by J.K. Rowling. I’ve been training hard and some nights I go to bed without reading so I know I could have read more, but I’m still happy with what I’ve gotten through.
Sad news that the audiobook I have access to for The Poe Shadow was abridged! I decided to pass it up in favor of the full novel sometime in the future. Instead, I started listening to My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. A very good friend of mine said a literature professor she had during her MFA said this was her favorite novel of all time and I’ve had it on my shelf for years. I’m glad I’m finally getting to it.
I needed a new ebook and the next on my list is one I’m very excited about: The Circle by Dave Eggers! I really wanted to read this one a while ago and never got around to it. I’ve just started but I’m very excited.

Recently finished: No surprise that I finished The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. It was a quick audiobook though I wish I’d had a different narrator for my experience. I posted my review yesterday if you want to read all my thoughts. I gave it 4 out of 5 Stars.
I also finished The Color Purple by Alice Walker which was a pleasant surprise. I was also glad to have a happy(er) ending. I should have my review of that up tomorrow and a movie review up next week. I love when there’s a movie!

I posted my review on How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie on Monday if you want to check that one out. I gave it 3 out of 5 Stars.

Reading Next: I’ll be out-of-town for my next book club meeting so I don’t have any pressure there to put aside Harry for another book. If I had to guess, I’d say I’ll need a CD Audiobook next and I’ll turn to Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire. I read Wicked when I was in high school and I’ll have to find a refresher on what happened so I can continue with the next book in the series!

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Leave a comment with your link and a comment (if you’re so inclined). Take a look at the other participant links in the comments and look at what others are reading.

Have any opinions on these choices?

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

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Book Review: The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White (4/5)

This is one of those books that I feel I would have read if I majored in English. If I’d taken a writing course, I’d have read this. But, alas, it isn’t taught in Spanish literature courses or alongside Accounting. So I missed this ageless instruction manual of writing and picked up a copy at a used book sale. I ended up listening to a reading of it but I’m glad to have a paper copy that I can reference later when I need to.

Cover image via Goodreads

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Summary from Goodreads:

This style manual offers practical advice on improving writing skills. Throughout, the emphasis is on promoting a plain English style. This little book can help you communicate more effectively by showing you how to enliven your sentences.

I was surprised how much of this I already knew from school. I guess that means I did get a good writing education after all! Or maybe these elements are more commonly taught now and I’m nothing special. They were all good reminders and I think this is a solid reference book. It’s worth reading through every once in a while just to remember how to structure an argument or sentences in general.

I was glad there was a section on parallel phrasing. I try describing this to people all the time and it doesn’t make sense to them. Strunk had a good way to describe it so maybe I’ll just hand people a copy of this book when I tell them to use parallel phrasing in sentence structure. I also really liked Strunk’s advice about how to arrange a sentence to put emphasis on the element that’s most important. That one was new to me and I think I’ll use it.

I found the section on spelling and the one on commas a bit hard to absorb while listening. I think if I’d been reading it, I would have gotten more from those sections. The narrator I had didn’t help, he was monotone and didn’t stress the parts that were different in the example sentences.

William Strunk Jr.
Image via Goodreads

The edition I listened to was narrated by William Bridgewater. I thought he was really terrible. He pronounced some words strangely (semicolon as sem-EE-ko-LON for example) and it distracted me from the narrative. He was also very monotone and had odd inflections that were, again, distracting.

Writer’s Takeaway: This book is worth revisiting from time to time. The advice in it is really solid and at such a short length, it doesn’t take a long time to look through it for a refresher.

A great little reference book that’s probably better read than listened to. Four out of Five Stars.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Related Posts:
#10: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White | 1 Year, 100 Books
21 Tips from Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style” | worddreams…
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White Review 3/5 | Blogs of a Bookaholic

WWW Wednesday, 24-January-2018

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived here on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Note: For users of Blogspot blogs, I’m unable to comment on your posts as a WordPress blogger unless you’ve enabled Name/URL comments. This is a known WordPress/Blogspot issue. Please consider enabling this to participate more fully in the community.

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Currently reading: Still making steady progress with The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Things have finally started to turn around for Celie and I can see a possible happy ending for her! I hope it lasts.
I have a few drives this week that will give me some time to enjoy. A Widow for One Year by John Irving. I made some decent progress this week but nothing to be too proud of. I hope to keep pecking away at this one for a while. Maybe the news will be less depressing when I finish and I can go back to that while I drive.
I slowed down a bit with Harry Potter y las Reliquias de la Muerte by J.K. Rowling this week because I’ve been so tired! I’m training hard now for my first swim meet in ten years and I’m not getting as much sleep as I’d like. It’s what I get for deciding to swim again.
I started  The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White and I’ll probably finish it really soon. It’s only a 90-minute audiobook! The narrator is really terrible and I have to concentrate a lot as he reads out the sentences and words to hear where the commas fall. This one might have been easier to read.

Recently finished: I got through How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie like I suspected. There was so solid advice in here and I hope I can retain some of it. I’m trying it out on a co-worker of mine that I find frustrating to deal with. We’ll see if I get anywhere!

I posted my review of Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin on Monday. Please check it out! My book club meets next week to discuss it.

Reading Next: It’s hard to guess. The next book I’ll finish will be The Elements of Style so I’ll need an audiobook for my phone. Next up will probably be The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl. I’ve wanted to read this since I found out about it after enjoying Pearl’s other book, The Dante Club. I’ll see if this one stands up to his first.

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Leave a comment with your link and a comment (if you’re so inclined). Take a look at the other participant links in the comments and look at what others are reading.

Have any opinions on these choices?

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

WWW Wednesday, 17-January-2018

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived here on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Note: For users of Blogspot blogs, I’m unable to comment on your posts as a WordPress blogger unless you’ve enabled Name/URL comments. This is a known WordPress/Blogspot issue. Please consider enabling this to participate more fully in the community.

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Currently reading: I’m still moving forward slowly with The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I think I can finish this in the next month but that’s going to depend on having no lunch meetings for a while. We’ll see if that ends up happening!
I realized I’m going to have to renew A Widow for One Year by John Irving a couple of times! I’ve already renewed it once and I’m only on the fourth disk! This is a long one and I don’t drive a lot so I plan to be listening to it for a while.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie on audio will be the next book I finish. I’m making decent progress on it and I got about an hour in with it at the gym yesterday. Winning!
I know Harry Potter y las Reliquias de la Muerte by J.K. Rowling is going to be a slow go. I made it about five chapters in reading during my vacation and it felt like a big dent but nothing’s that great when a book is 638 pages! I’m about 1/10 done.

Recently finished: Nothing! I hope to have at least one here next week. My review of The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides went up on Monday so please check that out.

Reading Next: I’ll need a new phone audiobook next and the next on the list is the short wonder of The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. I’ve never read this one and there’s a quick audiobook available of it so I’ll give that a listen and hopefully absorb something useful.

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Leave a comment with your link and a comment (if you’re so inclined). Take a look at the other participant links in the comments and look at what others are reading.

Have any opinions on these choices?

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!