Fitzsimmons can write
580540
This rambling expose about life in the TV promotion business has many enjoyable moments.  The main character is deeply flawed, but you end up liking him anyway.  The murder mystery part of the story is underplayed, so the reader is focused more on the observations and thoughts of the protagonist.  A good easy-going read.
105722
It's F. Scott Fitzegrald. Should be all you need to know to know it's going to be a fantastic read.
1442162
This guy can really write. It is so rare to find this kind of writing - the words just roll right of the page, effortlessly. You don't have to slog through the story as with so many books. The pacing is spot on, the characters believable, the dialogue works.
3840543
An amazing book, exactly what one would expect from the master. The writing is fluid and effortless, it is a different world, where you find people like Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound frequenting the brightly lit cafe. A charmed world of art and literature where people would live for the sake of art and Tatie would write, even when very poor and still be very happy. The writing is unpretentious and innocent and the episode about Scott Fitzgerald brings a sudden smile to the reader.
2800707
I am delighted to catch up with Fitz and partake again of Hobb's exquisite prose.  However, compared to her other novels, this book is less successful as a stand-alone story.  I was lucky enough to have Fool's Quest available to open as soon as I finished Fool's Assassin and have now started on the Rain Wilds Chronicles.  Robin Hobb is able to harness her incredible imagination and take us on a fascinating ride.
1059814
Back in the early `60s, at the dawn of his writing career, Block -- one of the best suspense and mystery novelists in the business -- turned out a handful of pseudonymous erotic novels to pay the bills. When his "real" books began to sell, he drifted away from that line of work until 1971, when he thought he'd give it another shot, this time under his own name, and that he would do it in the epistolary style, like Richardson's _Pamela,_ but with several voices. The result contains a lot of "dirty" words though I don't regard it as especially erotic, by today's harder-core standards. It is, however, very, very funny in an unapologetically crude way. Laurence (with a U) Clarke (with an E) was hired to edit a children's magazine but after a couple of months (and absolutely through no fault of his) the magazine folded, but the publisher didn't seem to notice that Laurence was still around. Six months later, he's still drawing his salary and spending his days reading in his office -- quietly, so as not to draw attention to himself. Finally, the  boss notices he never charges anything to his expense account and the jig is up. And on the same day he gets the sack, his second wife leaves him. For his best friend. And empties out the savings account. And his first wife sends him a letter demanding payment of back alimony. The single worst day of his life, right? But Laurence is a gleefully manipulative maniac with a typewriter, and he still has access to the office Xerox machine, and he knows how to get even. (But he's so engaging,  even his enemies find they can't hate him.) And then there's the abundantly endowed secretary of his late employer, just waiting to be liberated. And the six teenage girls from the convent school, who are already delightfully liberated and who enjoy the attentions of the Mad Poet. This is not a terribly long book -- Block wrote it in four days, or (he says) it wrote itself -- and it would be the perfect thing to take on your next plane trip. But don't giggle too loudly or you'll worry the stewardess. It's kind of a shame Block is too successful now to write more books in this delightfully unbuttoned style.
4930560
Yes these are not huge writings, but the thought and style is most enjoyable to this crone. Now going to look for more of her writings.
3380873
Here's a writer on par with the best, and yet he's only writing non-fiction. He should write a novel, he's just a brilliant writer. This tome is an intellectual feast made all the more appetizing by his brilliant writing style.
644245
I got introduced to Jude Morgan through the very wonderful The Taste of Sorrow and was swept up by his ability to write what I suppose must be called 'fictional biography'. In that earlier book, he had clearly steeped himself intensely in the writings of the Bronte Sisters, and also in the known biography of their family, and had produced an astonishingly beautifully written, creative piece, true to their literature and what we know of their lives, but rounded by the imagination of a superb narrative and empathetic imagination. I felt my understanding of the books and the lives had been enriched.

In that earlier book, we were dealing with a more nearly modern world, where facts can be checked, less than 200 years ago. This time, Morgan has freer range with creative imagination, as the facts of Shakespeare's life are far fewer, though the canon of work by which the man is also revealed, is much larger. And it seems to me that what Morgan has so clearly done is to say 'by their works, you shall know them', and has steeped himself in the work, to reveal an idea of Shakespeare the man. Which seems enormously right and proper.

For me, this was an utterly successful book. I have spent the past few days letting the reading settle, really wishing I could meet Shakespeare, but with a wry smile, as of course I can, by re-reading the works. Morgan, a beautiful writer, does well with these fictional biographies of other beautiful writers. Phrases from the plays and poems are scattered, very naturally, within the text.

He has even made an acute and creative leap to make a virtue out of the fact that we know very little of the man. Other more defined historical characters trot through the pages, Jonson, Marlowe, Kyd, Dekker et al - but it is Jonson, musing about his friendship with Will, who is given this thought

''How if indeterminacy is Will's essence? But it can't be- because if he is nothing, how can he be what he so magnificently is?''

Shakespeare the actor; Shakespeare the writer. Both acts which if properly done, require a kind of negation of the self and the ego, so though invention must come from the actor or the writer's sense of self, there must be a supreme and non-judgemental ability to get inside other - however virtuous or vicious that other - and inhabit them from within themselves, not from a sense of the actor or the writer commenting on their creation.

Magnificent book, Mr Morgan. Not least also for the literary criticism element - but from showing how Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe et al as people, give rise to who they are, as writers. Morgan illuminates the men by their writing, and it is the writing which illuminates the men. He (Morgan)has a brilliant almost psychoanalytical understanding of human complexity, and how to allow each person to show their story.

I was given this as a review copy
1353384
Review of Poems People Liked

An extremely well written collection of poems, both long and short.
It is obvious having read the first page that the books composer is no stranger to writing poetry and has a comprehensive command of the English language. By that I mean he paints a new picture with every verse.
I do not claim to be a poetry expert, but having read Poems People Liked it has enlightened my view of poetry, which I, up to now have shown  very little interest in. Phrases like Wind needles me or the poem Frog Drought are quite ingenious in an unpretentious way.
The two poems for me that stand out and became my personal favourites are Moths and the Old Men, both cleverly written and each with a story to tell painted on a canvas of verse.
Reading some of the earliest poems that dated back to the mid nineteen-seventies and on into the nineteen-nineties, one can clearly see the writer has honed his craft in a subtle but noticeable way. Consequently, his style of writing has developed and bloomed.
I am not at all surprised that many of the poems in the book have won various poetry competitions in the UK, and in my opinion Mr Finchs future work will continue to do so given the high standard of his writing.
Highly recommended.

bookmark
4699601
Wow, this one was hard to put down.  It's always exciting to find a new author as good as Mr. Fitzsimmons!  Excellent story, lots of plot twists, terrific characters... I've already pre-ordered his next book and can't wait to read it this October!  Keep up the excellent writing, sir.  Loved this book!
4359243
Another well written mystery that uses brain power rather than brawn to resolve the murders. DCI Fitzjohn is a Sydney detective who utilizes a sharp mind and even sharper, and ever so subtle, wit as he does battle with villains and the police managerial system alike.

I have rated this book 4 stars.

I obtained this book from Amazon in Kindle format.
3534485
GREAT track! I heard him before and was lucky to score a free download from Amazon. He sounds alot like Iron and Wine, so if you like them you'll love William Fitzsimmons.
2690395
"This is deeply indigenous poetry, vitally in touch with a loved community and its experience." Les Murray

"These sonnets make the best collection yet of Fitzmaurice's adult poems." Declan Kiberd

"The best contemporary, traditional, popular poet in English."
Ray Olson, Booklist

"Fitzmaurice is a wonderful poet."
Giles Foden, The Guardian

"He has a gift for making the quotidian interesting and investing the ordinary with extraordinary significance."
Gearid Mac Lochlainn, The Celtic Pen

"[Fitzmaurice] is poetry's answer to John B. Keane."
Fred Johnston, Books Ireland

"[Fitzmaurice] favours the sonnet and is able to manipulate this challenging form very effectively." Angela Topping, Orbis

"[Fitzmaurice] is a master of the sonnet form."
Eugene O'Connell, Southword

Gabriel Fitzmaurice was born, in 1952, in the village of Moyvane, County Kerry where he still lives. He has been teaching in the local primary school, where he is now principal teacher, since 1975. He is author of more than forty books, including collections of poetry in English and Irish as well as several collections of verse for children. He has translated extensively from the Irish and has edited a number of anthologies of poetry in English and Irish. He has published two volumes of essays and collections of songs and ballads. A cassette of his poems, The Space Between: New and Selected Poems 1984-1992, is also available. He frequently broadcasts on radio and television on education and the arts.
3637353
I side with those reviewers who appreciated the social satire of a particular class. More important, however, as a writer, is the unfailing brilliance of Shipstead's similes. From the central character's waking, "his torso canting up from the sheets like the mast of a righted sailboat" (both the sexual and the nautical metaphors deliberately foreshadowing) to the finger breaking "neatly as a breadstick," every page sparkles with them and not a one misses. A pleasure to read such a master of the craft.
3388137
As the title suggests, this book is written by a talented writer who tells the story of Senator Pat McCarran to perfection. The reader learns both about McCarran and Nevada. It explains what made McCarran tick. That is the basic and sometimes difficult task of the biographer.  You can tell by the title that the writer has an excellent talent as a story-teller.
432382
The Final Solution is Michael Chabons homage to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Its a delightful short novel with a once-famous but never-named sleuth, now an elderly bee-keeper, drawn into a mystery involving a mute Jewish boy and his African Gray Parrot. In Doyles Sherlock Holmes stories, almost the whole business is the powerful tidiness of rational deduction, as all the disparate pieces are put together with logic ribbon tied neatly in a bow. In Chabons take, the detective is old and diminished, and there is a touch of nostalgia to the story if not the person:

Oh, she thought, what a fine old man this is! Over his bearing, his speech, the tweed suit and tatterdemalion Inverness there hung, like the odor of Turkish shag, all the vanished vigor and rectitude of the empire.

Chabon has been criticized by reviewers for neglecting the tidy logical forms of the mystery, and he has been criticized for letting his prose run away with the story. It is clear, however, that this is a Chabon story and not a Doyle story. Chabons incredible talent is in his command of language, and the ineluctable rhythms of a long sentence. He gives us a Holmes finally aware of his limitations, and of the limitations of rationality and logic. He gives us a story with subtle allusions to heavier things yet unknown to England of the day. Only the boy and the bird knows, and it has turned the boy quiet. The bird sings of things it doesnt understand. And so do we.