The link below is to an article that takes a look at both reading and writing thrillers.
For more visit:
http://www.themillions.com/2013/11/staring-into-the-darkness-on-reading-thrillers-and-writing-one.html
The link below is to an article that offers advice on writing historical fiction.
For more visit:
http://www.glimmertrain.com/b81spargo.html
Like many I have watched the hugely popular television series ‘A Game of Thrones,’ except that I have viewed the the first two seasons on DVD and not on Pay TV as it is currently in Australia. With that said, I am an entire season behind most who have watched via Pay TV/Cable. Of course there are aspects of the series that I could do without, but overall I have enjoyed watching the show, which brought me to the point of wanting to read the books behind it. This is the first novel in the ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series and the only one I have read so far. I was expeting it to be quite different to the television series, yet the reality was that it wasn’t too different at all, which I was pleased to see – unlike The Hunger Games, the Jason Bourne novels, etc.
This is a fantasy novel, with inspiration taken from Middle Ages England. Yet there is much about Westeros that is different to England in the Middle Ages. You have a fantastical plethora of difference with the presence of White Walkers, magical intrusions, fire-breathing dragons and more. Yet the intrigue, the weaponry, the buildings and more reminds one of Middle Ages England. It is a setting one can picture from our past, yet it is also a setting that cannot be imagined in our past, except that past be some alternative universe featuring powers and beings beyond our own reality.
There is much in this novel not to like, particularly in the natures of many of the characters about whom the novel is about. Yet it is a novel that is so very easy to read and carries you along and into this world of incredible adventure and herosim, yet so full of moral corruption and violence. There is always some surprise in the plot of the novel (unless you have seen the television series of course) and usually just when you think you know what the result of a certain action or actions will be.
It is difficult to write too much here without giving the game away, though I suspect that most people who would want to view the television series have done so by now. This novel captures the attention and runs with it. It is difficult to put the book (or ebook reader) down and very easy to get caught up in the world that is ‘A Game of Thrones.’ When the novel ends, it leaves you wanting to go straight on to the next in the series and that is perhaps one of its strengths – especially for marketing purposes. It is not a stand alone work, but the first in a series of fantasy novels in which the plot is constantly developing. It’s a great read.
I think I would give it 4 out of 5 as a rating.
Buy this book at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004GJXQ20
The link below is to an article that looks at the battle to save bookstores. It includes the idea that ebook sales are diminishing and have reached their peak, which I think is little more than fiction (pun intended).
For more visit:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri/bookstores_b_2975644.html
The Book Stand is a Tumblr Blog I operate, focussing on ebooks. I post concerning free ebooks, with the occasional post offering what I consider to be a good deal on an ebook. Most posts are for the Kindle platform, though there is the occasional post concerning ebooks in other formats that I sometimes come across. There are also various infographics, pictures and quotes that have to do with ebooks, reading, libraries, etc.
My most recent series of posts (today) include a great quantity of free ebooks available in the Kindle format and will be of especial interest to those interested in nonfiction works concerning the US Civil War, various other historical and biographical works and theological works, as well as some collections of classic works.
I have linked to The Book Stand below:
http://bookstand.tumblr.com/.
Australians like to tell it as it is and in that spirit a library in Sydney has moved its Lance Armstrong books to the fiction section.
For more visit:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/01/21/07/01/sydney-library-moves-armstrong-to-fiction
The article below takes a look at fiction and non-fiction, as well as fake.
For more visit:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-elsner/the-art-of-the-fake-in-fi_b_1940810.html
Treasure Island was the first major novel of Robert Louis Stevenson. It was first published in 1883 and has remained a much-loved book. First penned as a story for boys, it was as a young boy that I first came across Treasure Island. It was the first real book that I ever read – certainly of my own choice. If I remember correctly, the copy I had was a small book, not much bigger than my hand and illustrated throughout. The illustrations weren’t coloured as such, but I think I may have started to ‘colour them in’ as I read the story several times. The name of the ship, ‘Hispaniola,’ came back to me in one of my first compositions at school. In that early attempt at writing I wrote a story about piracy and a ship called the Hispaniola. I believe I was written into the story, along with several of my classmates, though the original composition has long since been lost and the
plot a thing of the past.
Not until the last couple of days however, did I take up the novel once again and begin to read the story of Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins, and the journey to Treasure Island. It has been a long time now, since that first book I read and my taking it up again. It must be at the very least thirty years and then some by my reckoning. Remembering this book as the first I had really read, was the reasoning behind my picking it up again for another read.It is an easy read. It is not a long read. But it is an enjoyable read. If it is that then the author has achieved his goal in fiction I believe. To be sure there are many things that can be learned in reading a novel and many lessons that can be taught through a novel, but without enjoyment all else is lost. This is a short novel that can be enjoyed greatly.
I read this book by way of a Kindle, which shows that the future of Treasure Island lies assured into the digital future and beyond. I also own Treasure Island in traditional form and as part of a set of works, being the entire works of Robert Louis Stevenson. One day I hope to read more, if not all of this man’s printed contrinution to English literature and I look forward to doing so.
Treasure Island is the classic pirate story, coming fully equiped with the pirate talk which is so popular even to this day and the vivid description of a pirate adventure. The story is a great one that may well bring younger generations to read and pull them away from the Xbox and other gaming devices. It is a short read, with short chapters, which may be a useful tool in getting a young one to start reading – but it is the adventure of a life time for Jim Hawkins that will really draw them in and the promise of buried treasure.
If you have not read Treasure Island, pick up a copy and have a read. It is free in the Kindle Shop at the time of posting this review and well worth spending a couple of hours a day reading this classic – by the end of the week the story of Treasure Island will be completed and you will be the richer for having read it.
Buy this book at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Treasure-Island-ebook/dp/B0084AZXKK/
At the BookShelf 
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