Werk werk werk werk werk
On singular v. plural, getting back into work, and whether you should ever tell an author that you hate their book.
Are you also back to work now after this strange summer that we’ve had? My boys started back at school last week, and so I’ve been trying to get back into this work malarkey, too.
I thought I’d ease back in with a pretty easy editing tip this month but one that is easy to get wrong:
Is a company singular or plural?
The answer is: singular. Always.
“The company has launched a new product, it announced today.”
It's something that trips up a lot of people, most likely because a company is made up of a number of people and also because companies often refer to themselves as “we” in press releases and when quoted.
What I’ve read and enjoyed recently
On a recent episode of The High Low podcast, hosts Pandora Sykes and Dolly Alderton discussed whether or not you should say if you didn’t like a book. They concluded that it puts out negative energy and that you shouldn’t do it.
I am not sure that I fully agree with this. I think that discussion is important and often necessary.
On the other hand, I am in complete agreement that you should never EVER do this:
I mean, I don’t even know where to begin with this.
Well, no, that’s not true; I do know where to begin: just don’t do it.
If I don’t like a book, then I say so and say why it didn’t work for me. I share that with a small circle of people. The probability that Margaret Atwood would hear that I didn’t like The Testaments is slim. On the other hand, if I wrote to her and told her that I didn’t like it? Well, that would just make me an a***hole. She doesn’t need to know my opinion. Hundreds of thousands of others did like it.
And imagine doing this to a first-time author? Someone who has put their words out into the world for the first time. And then they get an email saying why someone didn’t like their book? No. If I write a review of a book that I didn’t like and post it publicly, the author has the choice of reading that review or not. But to confront them in an email is quite a different matter.
Okay, rant over. And now on to the books that I have enjoyed recently (and one that… you know… I didn’t).
Old Baggage - Lissa Evans: I adored this book and all the characters that Lissa Evans has created. She has such a deft touch in combining humour, misfortune, friendship, and love. And I appreciated that the heroine of the story is a woman in her 50s struggling to make a place for herself in a world that is beginning to pass her by.
Brit(ish) - Afua Hirsch: This one has taken a long time to complete but was worth every trip to the library to renew it. Its subtitle - “On Race, Identity & Belonging” - sums it up succinctly. I found the passages about her search for belonging particularly compelling.
Atomic Habits - James Clear: I ended up taking pages of notes while reading this one. Highly recommended.
I finished Opium and Absinthe by Lydia Kang and, unfortunately, it fell into the category of books that I didn’t like. I thought it was meticulously researched in terms of location and interiors and dress. Still, I just felt that it was written with all the main characters exhibiting far too modern sensibilities.
And to balance this out, I sped through The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. She’s a social historian who has investigated the lives of the five victims of Jack the Ripper. It focuses on who they really were and how they ended up in the East End on those fateful nights. But it spares the details of their deaths and barely mentions the Ripper himself, which feels like the perfect antidote to all the myriad books written about him. She brings out each of these women as real people rather than just the victims they became.
I’m still reading Ibram X Kendi’s How To Be An Antiracist, The Romanovs by Simon Sebag-Montefiore, and Rich People Problems - the last of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. And I’ve now added a few more to the pile. It’s probably a terrible habit, but I just need to have a number of different books on the go at one time. On the other hand, it does give me a book for every mood.
What I’ve been up to recently
Over the past month, I’ve not worked as much as usual. We undertook a massive road trip through Sweden for the second half of July and into August that occupied most of our time.
We travelled way, way up north and hiked and played with husky puppies and jumped into frozen lakes (well, some of us did, and if you know me, you’ll know it wasn’t me). And it was epic.
And then we headed back to Stockholm for about 36 hours to do laundry and repack, and then we drove all the way down to Skåne. We got to catch up with family who we haven’t seen since January, and it was simply lovely.
I did have time to write an article on golf in Sweden during that time (to be published shortly!) and to work a little more on the book I’m editing. I’m really getting invested in the characters’ lives.
When I am not living vicariously through them, I am busily jotting down notes on topics that I want to write about, which I think can only be a good sign that I’m excited about writing again.
I’m also researching vintage typewriters, so I don’t know what that says about me. But I think it must also be a good indication.
Photo by Charlie Foxtrot
But, I mean, who wouldn’t want to own this baby? I’m sure she’d make me a better writer.
I have this mad idea about typing letters to people and sending them in the real-life mail. Now I just need to make this happen.
And until then, as always, take care of yourself and others.
Kat