Book Review - Broadmoor Revealed by Mark Stevens

Book Review - Broadmoor Revealed Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum by Mark Stevens

This was a fun book to read, it's not comprehensive and I would have liked to see more in the way of case notes or journal entries of the patients themselves. It's a good overview of the history and the life inside Broadmoor. Chapters look at 4 individual patients, escapees and babies born inside the asylum.

Rating 3/5
Challenges read for Goodreads and The 2012 Ebook Challenge.

See amazon link below for more details:

Book Review - Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

Purely on a pleasure level, I found this really slow going and tedious. It was hard to keep up with the style of writing the way one thought bled into another unrelated thought. Hard to really know who all the people Virginia writes about are as they were so personal to her daily life that they meant nothing to me as a reader.

Also I never got a sense of change in Virginia's personality as the diaries moved through the years.

From a writer's interest, I found it inspiring to keep going with my own diaries, having all that personal history documented for myself even if it is meaningless to someone else. It's also comforting to know that as writers we will always keep producing work, writing new novels as the years continue to pass.

Rating: 2/5

For further info use the amazon link below:

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (April 2003)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 0156027917
• ISBN-13: 978-0156027915

Other Books you may be interested in:

Write Good or Die edited by Scott Nicholson

A quick heads up - New web host

Just a quick heads up that there may be disruption to the main website over the next few days as I'm transferring to a new hosting provider. The address will remain the same.

Take care

Katy

Website Updates and Blog Updates

The following have been updated at the website:

Dark Metre issue 12 is now live.
Horror poets updated.
Writing prompts updated.

Recent blog posts you may have missed:
Book Review - Write Good or Die edited by Scott Nicholson.
My Top 5 Favourite Horror Books of 2011.
Merry Christmas

I've also added my Goodreads reading challenge widget to the right hand side of the blog.

Happy New Year
Katy

Book Review - Write Good or Die edited by Scott Nicholson

Book review - Write Good or Die edited by Scott Nicholson

This is a free download for the kindle, it offers articles of advice on many aspects of writing such as time management, determination, discipline, promotion, publishing and craft techniques. I will be referring back to some articles at a later date and I liked the relaxed tone of the articles some of the heavier "How to" books can be quite stringent.

Rating: 4/5
Product details:

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 286 KB
• Publisher: Haunted Computer Books; 1 edition (13 April 2010)
• Language English
• ASIN: B003H4QZOG

The publishers website can be found here.

My Top 5 Favourite Horror Books of 2011

Another year comes to a close, my goodreads reading challenge saw me finishing the year with 20 books read. For next year I'm increasing that goal to 25 and at least 10 of those will be ebooks. Also hoping to get through a few more poetry collections as well.

These are my top 5 horror books of the year, not necessarily published in 2011.

1) Banquet for the Damned by Adam Nevill. My review and book details here.

2)The Road by Cormac McCarthy. My review and book details here.

3)The Ritual by Adam Nevill. My review and books details here.

4) We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. My review and book details here.

5)The Rhysling Anthology 2011 edited by David Lunde. My review and book details here.

An honourable mention goes to Peter Straub's long story "The Buffalo Hunter."

What were your favourite reads of the year?

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thanks to all my followers and visitors for swinging by my blog and to the writers among you I hope 2012 will be a productive year.

My only New Year's resolution is to begin subbing my poetry regularly next year, oh and to get back to a semi-regular blog schedule.

See you all in 2012

Katy

Website Updates and blog updates

Another round up of updates:

Over on the website:
Issue 11 of Dark Metre is now live.

Recent blog posts you may have missed:
Writing Tips- Using a Task Manager
Remembrance Sunday - Poem - The Poppy
2012 Ebook Challenge
My Top 5 Favourite iPad Apps - Part 1
My Top 5 Favourite iPad Apps - Part 2
Book Review - Playing With Fire
Book Review - The Small Hand by Susan Hill

Take care

Katy