August Reading Review

Here's a roundup of all the books I read in August 2016. Which ones have you read?

One Green Omelet, Please!
A fun children's book about discovery and appreciation.



Substitute: Going to School with a Thousand Kids
A memoir chronicling time spent as a K-12 substitute.
Read my review



Pasadena
A murder mystery grips a group of high school friends.
Read my review


The Velvet Hours
Two stories intertwine to show the power of love.
Read my review


I Love You!
A sweet children's story.


The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett
A YA novel that asks the question: do we really know who a person is inside?
Read my review


 Private Beach
A graphic novel following Trudy Honeyvan.
Read my review


My T-Rex Gets a Bath
A cute bedtime story for children.

New Reviews!

Finally got around to reviewing some more books... check them out and let me know what you think.

An Illustrated Romance (review of Kiss & Tell by MariNaomi)
Discovering Home (review of No Place Like Home by Brooke Berman)
Flights of Fancy: The Great Pretenders (review of The Great Pretenders by Julia Wertz)
John Lennon's Story Through Pictures (review of John Lennon: Unseen Archives by Marie Clayton)
Hostility in Writing: Passive Aggressive Notes (review of Passive Aggressive Notes by Kerry Miller)

No Time

While I have very little time to read new books, I thought I would catch you all up on those books that I highly recommend. Check out my AMAZON STORE for Shy Writer's Recommendations.

The most important book on the shelf

A lot of friends ask me for book recommendations because they know that I love to read, but they also think that I may have some insight on good books because I'm a writer. I don't know if that is necessarily the case, but I try to provide advice when I can. And for writers, there are some books they just cannot live without.

The most important book on my shelf just may be The Hollywood Standard (read my review of the Three Essential Books for Scriptwriters). Not all writers would need this book, but I'm very interested in writing screenplays. The Hollywood Standard is a guide to properly formatting a script so that it should not get thrown in the agent's rejection pile based on those type of errors. It may still end up in that pile, but at least you'll know that it wasn't because you didn't know how to format a telephone call.

I have read a few other scriptwriting books that give advice on how to format, but most of those were also focused on plot structure, scene development, etc. That means that only a few pages in the back could be dedicated to formatting issues. If you want a resource that you'll keep coming back to, I definitely recommend this book. I know that I have kept it on my lap for quick reference whenever I work on one of my scripts.

If you are a writer (script or otherwise), what's your most important book?