Author: Cathy Speight

Reviewer Cathy Speight is British and lives in England. The Kindle revived her passion for reading and after stumbling on a Facebook group of independent authors, she now does her best to encourage and assist indies as much as possible. Books by indie author form the majority of her collection. Cathy shares her views on the books she has read on her blog.

A Helping Hand…Confound those compounds

Compound adjectives (modifiers):  another department in the punctuation shop with which (unedited) books seem to be inundated…uncompounded.  Writers (and their editors) seem to struggle with them. Compound adjectives are when two words are linked with a hyphen to form one descriptive word. So, let’s try and make it simple…

The room was furnished with a four-poster bed

The room was furnished with a four poster bed would be incorrect. If you were to take out one of those words describing the bed, you would be left with a four bed or a poster bed; and that makes no sense, does it? Hyphenating four poster makes the idea a single one. Continue reading “A Helping Hand…Confound those compounds”

Spotlight on…Non-fiction

Class is dismissed for this month. I won’t be telling you what you can do with your commas and semi-colons…

Instead, I’ll just round up some non-fiction books you might like to tuck into your ereader. Some people never read non-fiction, some never read anything but. Both groups are missing out. I can’t imagine not escaping into a good thriller/romance/fantasy/sci-fi, etc. At the same time—I will be honest here: non-fiction didn’t feature very highly on my reading list until the Kindle plopped into my life—I have found it’s a genre that has enriched my bookshelf.

I have three books to recommend to you, one of them by our own very lovely Carolyn Steele. The three are very different: one is sad, one is fun, and one is absolutely hilarious.

 

White Lilies in Autumn is about a young couple who tragically lose their very prematurely born baby. You’re probably thinking, well, yes, that’s really sad, but not exactly uncommon. True. However, this was not the only unhappy event in this young couple’s life. To say they had more than a lifetime’s tragedy in just a few short years is a little bit of an understatement. What astounds you, though, is the tenacity, loving bond between this two young people, and extraordinary unwavering faith. It’s a very humbling read. Continue reading “Spotlight on…Non-fiction”

A Helping Hand…cApitaLisaTioN

I tend to find when I’ve read a book which has been a tad economic, let’s say, with the time spent on editing/proofreading (ahem!), that it’s not one particular aspect of punctuation or grammar. No…it’s the full Monty. I am going to need a shatterproof, iron-clad Kindle soon—it can’t take me hurling it at the wall in exasperation for very much longer.

So, having tackled apostrophes, semi-colons, ellipses, dashes and the that/which debate, let’s have a go at capitalisation, which seems to fox people. Like so many other cast members in the screenplay of punctuation characters, we could go on forever, so I’ll try and cover the basics in this limited space.

The best thing to try and remember is: don’t use a capital letter for a common noun unless it is absolutely essential.

Professions are not capitalised and, therefore, professor, doctor, senator, detective, president, etc., are in lowercase, unless they are followed by a proper name, or you are addressing a person in that profession: Continue reading “A Helping Hand…cApitaLisaTioN”

A good cover

There are discussions, conversations and debates, ad nauseam, about the importance of good editing. It’s a topic expounded by many a cynical member in the world of the traditionally published. Not without reason, sad to say. Many of the books I review are tarnished by that ultimate and vitally necessary quality of good editing.

It’s generally known that lack of attention to editing of books is one of my pet peeves. But equally annoying is the lackadaisical attitude to the standard of, for instance, synopses, review requests, literary contest submissions, etc. It’s not just an affliction of the literary world: it can be found in poorly written job application letters, business emails, CVs, (oh, and the greengrocer’s apostrophe)…the list goes on. Most of the time, a written exchange is the first connection between you and your employer/interviewer/reader/reviewer/publisher, etc. It’s the initial ‘meeting’ and first impressions matter…a lot. It simply has to be as near perfect as possible. Continue reading “A good cover”