Showing posts with label Non Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Non Fiction. Show all posts

Thursday, 7 September 2017

Hack into your creativity by author Michael Burns


Book: Hack into your Creativity
Author: Michael Burns
Publisher: Penguin Books, Penguin Randomhouse, Penguin group.
ISBN : 978 0670090105


American Michael Burns is a university teacher, writing coach, actor, editor and storyteller. He has a BA from Georgetown University, an MS from UMass Amherst, and holds a PhD in documentary film history from the University of Birmingham in the UK. He has directed five films for international television and his work has been seen in over twenty countries. He moved to India in 2011, and founded Tall Tales, the country's longest-running, live storytelling event series. He also conducts popular writing workshops around India

Everyone of us has a tale, a story that only we know best and can tell it with emotions, humor, insights. And yet when we pick up the pen , our words are stymied. We are unable to put it into a coherent narrative, into a style, that tells the tale to a reader sitting far away, in a different country, in the same passion and style that we narrate it. You know this feeling well. I certainly do !!!

This book holds your hand and takes you through the initial jitters to how to get the narrative going, how to get the creative juices to flow through your pencil. How to get a story and its subplots to stick together.

This book is divided into various segments : Character building, Genre, Integration, What next , Everyday magic, and on and on. It literally teaches you how to build a story. That same story, that you know the best, all your life, and yet it is stifled inside you.

If you’re a veteran of writing prompts from the Internet or newspapers, you will find comfort in familiar formats right next to brand new ones. So challenge yourself with types of prompts that you’ve never seen before and discover writing interests and abilities that you didn’t even know you had! Whether you are a casual flash-fiction author, scriptwriter, non-fictioneer or branding executive, this book will set your creativity on fire. Be a story alchemist. Transform your writing. And above all, have fun doing it!

The biggest laurel for this book is, a young reader of 11 years of age, who helps me write the kiddy books on my blog, picked it up and read it for some minutes and said “Wow, just the way you are teaching me to blog, this book is teaching me how to write”. And that young budding author, has since then picked this book up thrice and sat down to read it !!!


Wednesday, 9 August 2017

White Mughals by author William Dalrymple

Book: White Mughals.
Author: William Dalrymple
Publisher: Penguin Books.
ISBN : 978 0143030461

The books of William Dalrymple which I have read are the ones based in the Asian subcontinent and India.

His book “Return of a King” opened my eyes to the machinations, intrigue and intricacies of international politics. How a nation like Afghanistan became the lynch pin in the affairs of mid Europe and hence an unwilling stage of an enacted world drama. One of my favorite books.

His book “The Last Mughal” was important to my understanding of Indian history transition from Mughals to the East India Companyy to British Dominion status. A nice slice of my own history.

This book also traces the same time period, but in a different sphere and different context.

This book traces a complex family tree. And is centred around a career British soldier. The soldier falls in love with a muslim Indian girl. To get her love he eventually converts to islam.

Woven around this love story are the intricacies of the Hyderabad court, its royalty, which was supposedly the most devious of all Indian royalty. The Englishman reportedly even became a double agent, working for the Nizam of Hyderabad against the East India Company.

I have liked Williams books till now. This is one more from his well researched genre.