Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an artist, designer, writer. I usually work in collage. I enjoy how the constraints of collage generate more inventive thinking, forcing me to come up with unexpected solutions. I also like how the found material retains traces of its original context. I’ve always been interested in the interplay between words and images – for 15 years I did the weekly Lost Consonants series in the Weekend Guardian – and that gradually led me to writing fiction. All my books have visual or structural elements designed to bring an additional narrative dimension to the story. Over the years, I’ve become fascinated by what makes great stories great. Hence this list.


I wrote

Book cover of Woman's World

What is my book about?

Five years in the making, Woman’s World is a 437-page novel collaged entirely from fragments of text clipped from the…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting

Graham Rawle Why did I love this book?

Syd Field is revered as the original master of screenplay story structure, and this guide continues to be the industry's gold standard for learning the foundations of screenwriting. Even if you’re not writing a screenplay, read this book.

I have learned over the years that the principles of three-act structure can be recognised in, or applied to, almost every form of storytelling, whether you are making a film; telling a joke; designing a firework display; writing a novel, a play, a song; performing a magic act or making a speech. No one explains 3-act structure more clearly than Syd Field. He doesn’t offer it as a failsafe formula, but I have found his paradigm invaluable as both a writer and a teacher, especially for identifying narrative flaws in a story that is not working. (Usually mine).

By Syd Field,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Screenplay as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Hollywood's script guru teaches you how to write a screenplay in "the 'bible' of screenwriting" (The New York Times)—now celebrating forty years of screenwriting success!

Syd Field's books on the essential structure of emotionally satisfying screenplays have ignited lucrative careers in film and television since 1979. In this revised edition of his premiere guide, the underpinnings of successful onscreen narratives are revealed in clear and encouraging language that will remain wise and practical as long as audiences watch stories unfold visually—from hand-held devices to IMAX to virtual reality . . . and whatever comes next.

As the first person to…


Book cover of The Elements of Style

Graham Rawle Why did I love this book?

This writing style manual is a rigorous guide to good writing. Revised and expanded many times since it was first written in 1918, it has been criticised for its blunt prescriptivism, but I love it. The main message to take from it, I think, is the importance of cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity. Citing numerous good/bad comparisons, it helps us to identify structural imbalance, verbosity, and weakness in our sentences. It proclaims that a sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences. This reminds us of the larger principles, that everything should be there to service the story; anything extraneous should be cut.

The Elements of Style has been praised by numerous great writers over the past century. American poet Dorothy Parker once said: “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

By William Strunk, E.B. White,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Elements of Style as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

You know the authors' names. You recognize the title. You've probably used this book yourself. This is The Elements of Style, the classic style manual, now in a fourth edition. A new Foreword by Roger Angell reminds readers that the advice of Strunk & White is as valuable today as when it was first offered.This book's unique tone, wit and charm have conveyed the principles of English style to millions of readers. Use the fourth edition of "the little book" to make a big impact with writing.


Book cover of If You Want to Write

Graham Rawle Why did I love this book?

Ueland firmly believed that anyone can write, that everyone is talented, original, and has something important to say. In this inspirational book, she encourages those of us with no elite education or literary culture to get down to writing our stories in our own voice, offering tips and strategies to ease us through the process. ‘Get out of your own way – stop trying to write and just let what you have to say come out.’ (I love that. I often need to get out of my own way.)

Her encouragement is invigorating, empowering her students to write passionately about what is important to them. ‘Tell me more,’ she says, ‘what did you see, how did you feel?’ She advises them not to worry about style, genre, whether the writing will be good or bad, whether it will get them an agent, please a publisher or make money and, most importantly, to ignore the critics, particularly those near and dear to us. ‘Families are great murderers of the creative impulse,’ she says, ‘particularly husbands’.

By Brenda Ueland,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked If You Want to Write as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Originally published in 1938, this classic by Brenda Ueland is considered by many to be one of the best books ever written on how to be a writer. Part a lesson on writing and part a philosophy on life, Ueland believed that anyone could be a writer and everyone had something important to say. Heavily influenced by the ideas of William Blake, Ueland outlines 12 points to keep in mind while writing and encourages writers to find their true, authentic selves and write from there. Born in Minneapolis in 1891 to a progressive household, Ueland’s father was a lawyer and…


Book cover of On Film-Making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director

Graham Rawle Why did I love this book?

Another book focusing on the medium of film, but again the lessons to be learned about good storytelling are universal. Alexander ‘Sandy’ Mackendrick directed such classic Ealing comedies as The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers, also the Hollywood masterpiece, Sweet Smell of Success. After retiring from filmmaking in 1969, he spent nearly 25 years as a professor at CalArts in Los Angeles where he helped students to write better stories and communicate them effectively through the craft of filmmaking.

This book is compiled from Mackendrick's legacy of masterly handouts and lectures. One section I found incredibly insightful is his comparison of two versions of a key scene from the script of Sweet Smell of Success (initially written by Ernest Lehman and subsequently rewritten by Clifford Odets), seeing how increased tension between the characters is achieved.

By Alexander Mackendrick,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked On Film-Making as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An invaluable analysis of the director's art and craft, from one of the most revered of all film school directors. Alexander 'Sandy' Mackendrick directed classic Ealing comedies plus a Hollywood masterpiece, Sweet Smell of Success. But after retiring from film-making in 1969, he then spent nearly 25 years teaching his craft at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.

Mackendrick produced hundreds of pages of masterly handouts and sketches, designed to guide his students to a finer understanding of how to write a story, and then use those devices peculiar to cinema in order to tell that story…


Book cover of Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

Graham Rawle Why did I love this book?

McCloud has a unique gift for describing things visually. In Understanding Comics, he ingeniously uses the comic form itself, employing a host of visual narrative devices to communicate complex theoretical ideas simply and clearly in a way that is accessible to all. Particularly interesting to me is his section describing the role of the reader in closing the narrative gap between panels. I have long been intrigued by what can be made to happen in the space between two images, two sentences, two scenes. It’s the basis of film montage: one shot cutting to another, inviting the audience to find a connection. It makes them an active part of the storytelling rather than passive spectators. I’m currently making a collage feature film of Woman’s World, which explores how this idea can be expanded to create narrative coherency from discontinuous, mismatched found footage.

By Scott McCloud,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Understanding Comics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The bestselling international classic on storytelling and visual communication "You must read this book." - Neil Gaiman Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art form.


Explore my book 😀

Book cover of Woman's World

What is my book about?

Five years in the making, Woman’s World is a 437-page novel collaged entirely from fragments of text clipped from the pages of vintage women’s magazines, reassembled to tell the 1962 story of Roy and his sister Norma’s struggle to live up to the prescribed ideals of feminine perfection. Immersing herself in the forthright directives on feminine protocol, Norma takes on the source material’s distinctive voice. The gulf between the magazines’ demanding standards and her real-life situation is bridged by the newfound vocabulary.

Empowered by its authoritative tone, she adopts and reshapes the words themselves to recount her thoughts, but what emerges is a tender love story threatened by darker underlying themes of unresolved family business.

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The Bloomsbury Photographs

By Maggie Humm,

Book cover of The Bloomsbury Photographs

Maggie Humm Author Of Radical Woman: Gwen John & Rodin

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Woolfian Gym devotee World-traveller

Maggie's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group’s key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs. Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private insight into their lives.

Maggie Humm brings together a curated selection of these photographs to offer us a fresh portrait of the Bloomsbury Group, showing them in a new, domestic intimacy. She brings to life the texture of Bloomsbury: their pastimes, children, clothes, houses, servants, pets, and holidays.

The Bloomsbury…

The Bloomsbury Photographs

By Maggie Humm,

What is this book about?

An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group's key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs

Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private insight into their lives.

Maggie Humm brings together a curated selection of these photographs to offer us a fresh portrait of the Bloomsbury Group, showing them in a new, domestic intimacy. She brings to life the texture of Bloomsbury: their pastimes, children, clothes, houses, servants, pets, holidays. Several photographs are…


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Interested in film, Chicago, and the English language?

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