Language

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Lots of books can strengthen your writing. Few also leave you smiling. You're looking at one. "Word Up!" serves up tips and insights for anyone who wants to know how to write with umph. This book does what too few writing books do: it practices while preaching, shows while telling, uses powerful writing to talk about powerful writing.

You may write blog posts, e-books, e-mails, executive summaries, e-zine articles, hospital-hallway signs, presentations, proposals, lab reports, letters to the editor, love letters, lunch-bag notes, movie reviews, news stories, novels, online help, plays, poems, proposals, recipes, reference manuals, scholarly critiques, speeches, term papers, tweets, user-interface text, video scripts, web pages, or white papers.

You may write for a million readers or for one. You may use a pen, a typewriter, a wiki, or an XML authoring tool. You may be a grammar snob, or you may think that “grammar snobs are great big meanies.” You may write because something within you says you can’t not write—or because your boss says you can’t not write. No matter what you write, or how or why, you and I and every other writer have two things in common: we use words, and we want someone to want to read them.

How do you get people to want to read your words? Know your subject. Know your audience. And write powerfully.

"Word Up!" helps you write powerfully. [close]

[close] 5 AUTOGRAPHED COPIES

Psychiatrist Philip Adler is divorced, alone, and gutted of passion. When a funeral draws him back to his ex-wife's homeland of France, the trip reunites him with a trauma he has struggled to forget: the brutal death of his teenage daughter fifteen years earlier. Prodded by his former brother-in-law and stirred by the unspent embers of his marriage, he embarks on a mission to resolve lingering questions about this past, hoping to heal himself along the way.

A suspenseful literary novel set in the lush backgrounds of Normandy, Theory of Remainders explores the secret ties between love, trauma, and language.

Book Trailer at: http://youtu.be/FtzLKPu25rA

Selected as a Midwest Connections Pick by the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association

“Fully realized characters, a remarkable fluency of language, wit, and an extensive comprehension of French culture and history make this literary novel a stellar achievement.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A rare and wondrous novel.” — Readers’ Favorite, five-star review

“There are no easy solutions when trauma is at the heart of the story… Theory of Remainders provides the reader with an emotionally rich portrayal of the experience of loss that looks past easy solutions and instead digs deep into human connections.” — Alison Feigh, Jacob Wetterling Resource Center

“Carpenter creates an incredible sense of place as he evokes Normandy and its people. The writing, elegant and subtle, draws the reader into this thoroughly gripping tale.” — Tripp Ryder, President, Midwest Independent Booksellers Association

“This beautifully written psychological thriller does more than keep us on the edge of our seat. Theory of Remainders explores the nature of familial relationships—how essential they are to our humanity, and how difficult it is to survive their loss.” — Alice LaPlante, author of Turn of Mind.

Copies in the giveaway are prerelease versions; cover may vary slightly. [close]

[close] The Sunday Times Number One bestseller - and Radio 4 Book of the Week - in paperback for the first time.

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. [close]