Writing & Reading

Exercise Book collects over fifty creative writing exercise used by Bill Manhire and his colleagues, not only at Victoria but throughout New Zealand and around the world. The celebrated writer/teachers who have contributed include Elanor Catton, Curtis Sittenfeld, Emily Perkins, David Vann, Elizabeth and Sara Knox, Dora Malech and Kirsty Gunn. This book will be an indispensible resource for teachers and students, and excellent stimulation and entertainment for anyone wanting to give writing a go.
Exercises give your body a wo... read more

In any 24 hours there might be sleeping, eating, kids, parents, friends, lovers, work, school, travel, deadlines, emails, phone calls, Facebook, Twitter, the news, the TV, Playstation, music, movies, sport, responsibilities, passions, desires, and dreams. Why should you stop what you're doing and read a book? But people have always needed stories. We need literature - novels, poetry - because we need to make sense of our lives, test our depths, understand our joys, and discover what humans are capable of. Great books can provid... read more

Here, for the first time, is a local edition of the bible of writing guides - a wry, honest, down-to-earth book that has never stopped selling since it was published in the United States in the 1990s. Beautifully written, wise and immensely helpful, this is the book for serious writers.

What is the actual connection between disgruntled and gruntled? What links church organs to organised crime, California to the Caliphate, or brackets to codpieces? The Etymologicon springs from Mark Forsyth's Inky Fool blog on the strange connections between words. It's an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language, taking in monks and monkeys, film buffs and buffaloes, and explaining precisely what the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.

A treasure trove of Schama's writing with subjects ranging from cookery to Barack Obama.

Joy Cowley distils her four decades at the top of the children's writing pyramid for the benefit of anyone engaging in writing for young people. In short chapters she covers developing a plot, dialogue, writers' discipline, humour, early reading, novels, picture books, plays, poetry, editing, and presentation.

The Writing Book doesn't just talk about how to write fiction; it takes you, step by step, through the process of doing it. By working your way through this book, you'll gradually craft a piece of fiction, and develop confidence in your own fictional voice.

A commonplace book is the repository for a personal collection of quotations and scraps, pensees and poems. In vogue from the late sixteenth-century, their fans include John Milton, W H Auden and now Elizabeth Smither. Here she shares three of her commonplace books and reflects on the quotations she's gathered that act as foil and ballast to her life and writing. There are no platitudes or sententious maxims here; instead the quotations range from the pensive to the screamingly funny; by the great and famous to the little known; fr... read more

As words and stories are increasingly disseminated through digital means, the significance of the book as object - whether pristine collectible or battered relic - is growing as well. Unpacking My Library spotlights the personal libraries of thirteen favourite novelists who share their collections with readers. Stunning photographs provide full views of the libraries and close-ups of individual volumes: first editions, worn textbooks, pristine hardcovers, and childhood companions. In her introduction, Leah Price muses on... read more

IN OTHER WORLDS: SF AND THE HUMAN IMAGINATION is Margaret Atwood's account of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as 'science fiction'. This relationship has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestors of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer. This book brings together her three Ellman Lectures on 2010 - 'Flying Rabbits', which begins with Atwood's early rabbit superhero cre... read more

Magic is not simply a matter of the occult arts, but a whole way of thinking, of dreaming the impossible. As such it has tremendous force in opening the mind to new realms of achievement: imagination precedes the fact. It used to be associated with wisdom, understanding the powers of nature, and with technical ingenuity that could let men do things they had never dreamed of before. The supreme fiction of this magical thinking is the Arabian Nights, with its flying carpets, hidden treasure and sudden revelations. Translated into Fre... read more

As a child, Andrew had a reading disability; now he is a psychoanalyst, and professionally adept in the art of conversation. Not Drowning, Reading is a work of literary non-fiction a memoir about the art and the gift of reading.

Relph's essays show how one might map a life through reading. From Amis to Bellow, Blake to Herzog, and Shakespeare to Woolf, these essays ask why it is that books are so important to us, and why our relationships with authors and characters can be as vital as any we form in 'real life'.

From Alan Bennett's Baffled at a Bookcase, to Lucy Mangan's Ten Library Rules, famous writers tell us all about how libraries are used and why they're important. Tom Holland writes about libraries in the ancient world, while Seth Godin describes what a library will look like in 2020. Lionel Shriver thinks books are the best investment, Hardeep Singh Kohli makes a confession and Julie Myerson remembers how her career began beside the shelves. Using memoir, history, polemic and some short stories too, The Library Book celebrates 'tha... read more

From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the advert of the Web, everywhere you turn you are told that we live in age of unparalleled freedom. This is dangerously naive. From the revolution in Iran that wasn't to the imposition of super-injunctions from the filthy rich, we still live in a world where you can write a book and end up dead.

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"Other Colours" is a collection of immediate relevance and timeless value, ranging from lyrical autobiography to criticism of literature and culture, from humour to political analysis, from delicate evocations of his friendship with his daughter Ruya to provocative discussions of Eastern and Western art. It also covers Pamuk's recent, high profile, court case. "My Father's Suitcase", Pamuk's 2006 Nobel Lecture, a brilliant illumination of what it means to be a writer, completes the selection from a man who is now without doubt one ... read more

What is the difference between cant and jargon, or assume and presume? What is a fandango? What's the new name for Calcutta? How do you spell supersede? Boutros Boutros-Ghali? Is it hippy or hippie? These questions really matter to Bill Bryson, ever since his days as a rookie subeditor on "The Times" back in the 1970s: as they do to anyone who cares about the English language.Originally published as "The Penguin Dictionary for Writers and Editors", Bryson's "Dictionary for Writers and Editors" has now been completely revised and up... read more

Helping writers consolidate their skills in traditional narrative and grasp the other mechanics, this work serves as a desktop reference and do-it-yourself guide. Traditional and contemporary narrative structures are explained and cross-referenced with a range of aids, including development strategies.

A fascinating collection of six essays, written for the William Empson Lectures in Oxford, each exploring an aspect of writerly contemplation.What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art? Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and the development of her writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse! - their activities, looking at what costumes they have seen fit to assume, what roles they have chosen t... read more

Ramona Koval has been praised as a master of the interview genre, renowned for engaging writers in conversations that are incisive, provocative, and downright funny. In this collection, she shares the most fascinating interviews from her book, Tasting Life Twice, along with brand new interviews with some of the most important writers of our times.