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Notes from a Crusty Seeker

Oh Reader—Oh, What a Gift!

I'm a voracious reader as well as a writer, and therefore a lot of my journalism these days focusses on books.

 

I knew nothing about Oh Reader magazine except that they might be open to articles I'm interested in writing. And I was thrilled when editor Gemma Peckham accepted a piece about finding hilarious books by female writers. She has published it, under the title "Laughing with the Ladies," in the December 2022 (issue 010) Oh Reader and, oh boy, am I surprised and grateful for the discovery of this magazine.

 

I just finished reading it cover to cover, and this is a reader's heaven.

 

Of course, I like my own piece, detailing the difficulty of finding pee-in-your-pants funny books by women, why that has been a problem, and a list with short descriptions of the 13 books that I've discovered since I began my quest eight years ago.

 

But there's more.

 

My favorite stories: how being raised Hindu affected the writer's (Thulasi Seshan) reverence for physical books; the story of a neighbor's book collection and how reading it after her demise affected the author (Rebecca Duras); a fittingly short essay by a writer (Steven Allison) who couldn't read due to his ADHD about the unlikely way he learned he can read whole books; and a deeply moving contemplation by a bookseller (Laura Bridgewater) about what she learned was the true gift of the bookseller-customer interaction.

 

Not only are the articles wonderful, but the art, layout, and high-quality paper make this a magazine to save.

 

The December issue will be on magazine stands on December 8, 2022, and you can learn more at Oh Reader.com.

@betsyjuliarobinson A great magazine for readers #booktok #reading #books @ohreadermag #magazintiktok #readers ♬ original sound - Betsy Robinson
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Common Grammatical Errors that Make it into Published Work

From Remarkably Bright Creatures, a charming novel by Shelby Van Pelt

I'm an editor as well as a writer, and recently I couldn't resist correcting an error in a library book (see illus). When I posted about it on Facebook, I was overwhelmed by comments with people's grammar peccadilloes. People who read a lot get annoyed about errors in published material. Their ire made me retire my own. However it also brought up—not annoyance, because I get paid to fix mistakes—a screaming head full of chronic errors, which resulted in an article, just published by a site called Writing Bad.

 

They cut two of the most annoying errors, so I'm pasting them here—as a teaser … and for closure:

 

WELL/GOOD

Using "good" instead of "well" is commonly misspoken, but when this gaff makes it into print and is not part of a quotation, it's just annoying.

 

Wrong: He was offered a good-paying job.

 

"Well" is an adverb, meaning it describes the verb—how you do the verb.

 

Correct:

He was offered a well-paying job, and boy, did he feel good about that.

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