Allison Symes's Blog - Posts Tagged "research"
Reference Books
Reference books are dipped into rather than read through as such, but they are invaluable.
Other than my combined dictionary/thesaurus, my favourite reference book is Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. But I have to watch how long I spent with it.
Looking up an entry can so easily led me into looking up others I don’t really need at that moment. The book is a huge, fascinating world of words and their origins. What’s not to like there?!
So which reference books would you not be without and why?
I think it is easy to forget this “section” of the non-fiction world. I know many authors would be lost without these books, myself included.
It is not a case of using the nugget of information directly. Often it can be a case of looking something up and that will then affect what I get my character to do. That in turn has a direct result on the story outcome.
So let’s hear it for the reference books then!
Other than my combined dictionary/thesaurus, my favourite reference book is Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. But I have to watch how long I spent with it.
Looking up an entry can so easily led me into looking up others I don’t really need at that moment. The book is a huge, fascinating world of words and their origins. What’s not to like there?!
So which reference books would you not be without and why?
I think it is easy to forget this “section” of the non-fiction world. I know many authors would be lost without these books, myself included.
It is not a case of using the nugget of information directly. Often it can be a case of looking something up and that will then affect what I get my character to do. That in turn has a direct result on the story outcome.
So let’s hear it for the reference books then!
Stories to Remember
I write this blog during the week where we remembered the 80th anniversary of D-Day. There are stories we really should remember, whether they are in book form, or are in the form of personal testimonies, many of which were heard/seen on the media this week from surviving veterans.
I’ve recently read Double Cross by Ben Macintyre. This tells the true stories of the D-Day spies who were used to deceive Hitler. A great read and one I’m happy to recommend.
I also recommend the same author’s Operation Mincemeat, which is the true story of “the man who never was”.
The depth of research in books like these is incredible, rightly so, but the purpose of these books is to show the background to the history we know and to shed light on things which, at the time, rightly had to be kept quiet.
I’ve developed a real love for non-fiction books like these in recent years. My only regret is not discovering them sooner!
I do like the development in non-fiction using some of the techniques of fiction to get wonderful information across to readers in an entertaining way. History, and factual books generally, do not have to be boring!
I’ve recently read Double Cross by Ben Macintyre. This tells the true stories of the D-Day spies who were used to deceive Hitler. A great read and one I’m happy to recommend.
I also recommend the same author’s Operation Mincemeat, which is the true story of “the man who never was”.
The depth of research in books like these is incredible, rightly so, but the purpose of these books is to show the background to the history we know and to shed light on things which, at the time, rightly had to be kept quiet.
I’ve developed a real love for non-fiction books like these in recent years. My only regret is not discovering them sooner!
I do like the development in non-fiction using some of the techniques of fiction to get wonderful information across to readers in an entertaining way. History, and factual books generally, do not have to be boring!
