Gary ProvostBesprekingen

Good advice delivered well.

Simple. Practical. Elegant.

I read this book for the first time and now it will make it to my bookshelf. I am sure I will thumb through it often.

**100 Ways to Improve Your Writing** by *Gary Provost* is from 1985 and has aged remarkably well. It's a set of rules, short and to the point. Some advice is dated and not relevant any longer – a couple of hints on how to acquire information and in which format to submit your work, mostly. Apart from that, the book talks about how to prepare for writing, how to structure texts, and goes down to details of grammar and punctuation. All of these things are well-structured, to the point, and come with plenty of examples and as much entertaining writing as you can fit in a paragraph or two per topic. I enjoyed the short form and the sensible advice – some of which is very common, but especially the sections on editing contained new advice for me.

An interesting collection of true-life examples of vigilante justice. It's always refreshing to read a true crime book that isn't about serial killers or fatal love interests, and the questions these stories raise about the morality and social implications of taking the law into your own hands makes it an engaging and thought-provoking read.

This book is one that I have read a couple of times before. It always stayed with me. It is about the murders of Art Valencia and his mother Bessie. It follows Dee Casteel, a waitress at the IHOP in the Florida Redlands. She was in love with the gay manager, James Allen Bryant, who was the boyfriend of the owner, Art Valencia. Bryant wanted Valencia killed so he could be with his other boyfriend, and have Art's money, too. He got Dee to arrange the both murders by plying her with alcohol (she was an alcoholic). This book was well-written and well researched. The author really humanizes Dee, and gives the face of a woman who made some very bad decisions, but does stand up and takes responsibility for her actions. I really enjoyed the book and will probably read it yet again!

on Sunday, June 13, 2004 I wrote:

This is not your normal true crime book like written by Ann Rule or Patricia Springer for instance.This book has been written I guess very fast after these murders occured so there are still a lot of question marks.It was interesting . You hear a lot about the different religions like Santeria and Palo Mayombe and vodooInteresting book cause it is an interesting case but not the best of true crime.

I'm a firm believer that the best way to improve one's writing is to read a lot and write a lot (thank you On Writing, where I first heard this). This simple act of immersion, AKA doing the work, is often undervalued and frequently ignored in favor of tricks and shortcuts. There is no secret knowledge that writers employ. Nevertheless, Gary Provost's 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing is a nice refresher for focusing one's efforts and staying on task.

The sections that spoke to me personally were "Listen to What You Write," "Write About People," and "Prefer Good Writing to Good Grammar."

Practical book filled with klots of exercises to help hone style, phrasing, pacing and make your writing sing. The book consists of thirteen chapters beginning with style, grammar and pacing, moving on to characterisation and viewpoint and ending with credibility, originality, form and rewriting. Main chapters intersperesed with "coffee breaks" short pages which are even more packed with tips!

It's difficult to lose a parent, and it must be particularly awful when you're too young to realize exactly what is happening.

Stephen Humphrey Bogart, the son of the infamous Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, had just turned eight years old when his father died of lung cancer in January of 1957. Stephen, plagued by his father's legacy and struggling with his own identity, offers a very candid look into his father's life, complete with stories about John Huston, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Frank Sinatra. The epitome of "toughness" Humphrey Bogart was fifty when Stephen was born, and just a little unsure about how a child would fit into his lifestyle.

Stephen Bogart just wanted to be a regular guy, as I suppose all children of famous people do, and his quest to understand his father is a painful, poignant, and very realistic perspective.½

When twelve-year-old David spends the summer with his grandfather Max, he helps him search for a friend who perished during the Holocaust, and learns about Max's life during World War II.

A good resource book, a bit on the basic side.

I found this book useful. I bought it from amazon.com