Posts about “Reading”
This year has been busy and exciting and just plain exhausting. But I’ve finally found some time to upload a bunch of the articles that I’ve had published this year for alive and blush magazines. The majority focus on green issues. I’ve been somewhat typecast as the devil’s green advocate, being asked to find flaws in all manner of righteous green concepts. To read one, click on the image.
I wish I had more time to blog this month, but alas, you can look forward to a paucity of blog posts. Even my tweets are running dry. So, in the meantime, what better way to get your reading fix than to indulge in some licentious drivel. To celebrate 60 years of “pure reading pleasure”, Harlequin is offering 16 free eBooks for download in various formats including PDF, ePub, eReader, and MS Reader.
That’s probably the cheesiest line I’ve ever written. But for some reason, the editors over at alive actually seem to revel in cheese (One example is the title I’ll eternally shake my head at: G…I can’t believe it’s a Glycemic index). God bless ‘em though - they’re a wonderful bunch.
Anyway, here’s an article I really enjoyed writing because, well, I love surfing! And so does Scott over in the art department.
Here are some recent article shorts. As usual, you can click on the thumbnails to read them. The one on the left is a feel-good piece on laughter yoga. The right piece touches on the depressing psychological and cultural effects of global warming. There’s also a teeny one in there on the dodgy air we have to breathe in airplanes (even Purell won’t save you this time).
Seeing these two articles juxtaposed like this evokes a stark contrast between Western frivolity and Aboriginal reality.
As you may or may not recall, last August my article on the evils of recycling was published. Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that thousands of people read the stuff I put out there. Some probably think it’s a load of tosh. Other slightly more creepy individuals google my name and usually ask some sort of favour. But others actually have something interesting to say. So Ben, even though you’ll never read this, thanks for your letter.
I’ve just finished reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, a wonderfully humourous book full of advice on how to write and how to overcome those challenges all writers face. Here’s an excerpt I particularly like:
“But how?” my students ask. “How do you actually do it?”
You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively.
I’ve been looking around for a book review website that aggregates all the critic reviews, sort of like Rotten tomatoes does with movies. The best I could find was the website for Bookmarks Magazine. They add up reviews from most major US newspapers to give a book a rating out of five stars. It’s a handy way to see if a book will make it past your discerning taste radar and sneak its way onto your bedside table.