Nonfiction: November 2007 Archives

Everybody has a story to tell and if Dave Isay has his way, everybody will get a chance to tell their story. Isay is the founder of StoryCorps, the largest oral history project in the nation, and editor of Listening is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life From the Storycorps Project (Penguin, 284 pages, $24.95)...

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read (Bloomsbury, 185 pages, $19.95) is a curious little book.

The back cover asks a multiple choice question: Which of these great books have you:

A) talked about convincingly without ever cracking the spine?
B) read so long ago that you can't remember anything but the title?
C) skimmed just enough to have an opinion?
D) heard about so often that you don't have to bother reading it?
E) actually read?

I'm going to add a sixth choice:

F) never read?

As an editor, I have my personal pet peeves when reading others' work; as a writer I'm well aware that my editors may roll their eyes from time to time at some of my quirks and/or bad habits. It's all in a day's work in the business of publishing.

If I were Santa Claus' special agent in charge of picking out gifts for those who work with words, I'd stuff Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing (William Morrow, 91 pages, $14.95) in the stockings of needy writers everywhere...