This book not only offers excellent writing exercises, it also includes the authors' examples so you can get a feel for how to make best use of the techniques described. I especially enjoyed the biography data sheets which help you to better understand your characters (or yourself!). This is a "teaching" book. Here, do this, it says, but goes on to show you how, step by step, which many books don't bother to do. The Writer's Path will keep you busy, entertained, and hopefully, writing better and better pieces.

Everyone, anyone will benefit from this book--beginners and masters, productive and blocked writers, literary and technical writers. The authors' premise is that everyone can write, has a unique voice, and has something to write about. Instead of poking us in the eye with rules and have-to's and shoulds--like so many English teachers seem to--Walton and Toomay, both accomplished writers, draw us out, help us discover, and encourage us. They do this through exercises: some to do alone, some with a writing partner; some take a few minutes, some longer; some simple, some difficult. I found them all useful. Well, I haven't tried all of them--there are probably hundreds of them including all the variations.

A convenient feature of the format in "Writer's Path" is that you can wade into the book at any point and pick the exercise for whatever skill you want to work on, then come back later for a different exercise. Like Yoga, you don't need an elaborate set up; you can do an exercise jotting on an envelope while you wait for the bus or during a dull meeting. Some are simple enough to do in your head, although I've found it best to write--that's the point of the book--to have a record of what I've done and, at best, to see in time the progress I've made. Many exercises are like improvisational skits--as in Drew Carey's show, "Who's Line is it Anyway"--where rehearsed performance is replaced with on-the-fly invention. Creative--sometimes silly--exercises such as changing one word at a time or reordering sentences help loosen imagination and foster creativity even if the result of an exercise isn't a finished product. To help make the exercises work, they've provided examples of results of most of the exercises. But they don't hold up the examples as models, just as guides. One of the best aspects of this book is that it draws writing out of us rather than pushing us to fit a mold. In that respect, this book inspires and encourages, and may be especially good for people who consider themselves refugees from hypercritical English instruction. As Toomay points out, one of the differences between taditional instruction and "Writer's Path" is that the former focuses on the product of writing, and the latter focuses on the process of writing. Better process necessarily improves the product, yet avoids the necessity for criticism in favor of practice practice practice. (As in the old joke, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?)

Although the subtitle--"A Guidebook for Your Creative Journey"--suggests it's for fiction writers, the help "Writer's Path" provides is applicable to any kind of writing because Walton and Toomay show us how to master the thinking, ideas, and psychology underlying written work as well as the mechanics. It could just as well have been titled, "The Psychology of Writing" or "Writing as Experience."

Primarily a technical writer, I have found the exercises useful in finding new formats and approaches to old problems. While there are no characters or plots in my papers, the exercises on those elements have helped me to think of the usual analysis or reporting instead as storytelling, and, I hope, to understand better how readers can relate to my topics.

The Writers Path is a not just about writing. It is also about reflections, healing and connecting to oneself and others. It serves not only the seasoned and blossoming writer, but also those looking for a sensitive structure to explore personal insight and creativity through writing.

As one who teaches a college class about the creative process as well as being a creative arts therapist I have found invaluable tools in the Writers Path. The exercises, essays and examples help students and clients alike connect with their spirit, their story. We all have a story to tell. Creativity is a great healer. Having methods of tapping into it though writing has proved insightful and therapeutic for my students and clients who claim "they are not writers". They have explored some of the techniques in the Writers Path to create some profound and touching stories.

I was first attracted to the book because I wanted toexpand my writing skills. I was pleasantly surprised to find it so divers in its application. It should be on every creative writing class syllabus. Those looking for creative group process ideas will find them in this book. Walton and Toomay present a beautifully written guidebook for ones creative journey.

I liked this book. Knowing that it got published gives me hope that my own stumbling endeavours may one day see the light of print. It's reasonably well written, but rough and disjointed. (In the case of the latter, purposefully so, I'd wager.) The end made no sense to me what-so-ever, as it is revealed that our humble narrator has allowed a man to die completely unfulfilled when it was within her power to easy remedy the situation. Perhaps I simply missed something. I shall have to read it again.

On another note: Several years ago, after finishing this book for the first time, I told some friends about it. Not one of them believed me. They insisted that no book could possibly exist with such a twisted plot.

Buy this book. Don't borrow it. You will end up rereading it, lending it, and killing to get it back. No book has ever actually scared me, but this assault on Western, New Age, and Radical thought for no reason, with seemingly no agenda is one of the most authentic things that I have ever read. Get it, read it, and then thank me. You owe yourself this.

This book is a fantastical voyage of discovery across a war-torn America in the grip of race war and the crumbling of it's society's infrastructure. The characters are all incredibly well-realised, and the plot twists and turns from fast-paced action to contemplative philosophy. A triumphant acheivement for Todd Wiggins, this is less of a recommended read, more of a compulsory one.

I picked the book for my nephew and ended up reading it myself. I thought it was an excelent book that lendsa bit of insight and history into the crews of the "Enterprise" and Calhoun's "Excelsior". I've been reading all of the Star Trek Starfleet Academy TNG Series.

This book is another really good book. For people who don't know, this is a book about Geordi (from TNG) as a cadet in Starfleet Acadamy. Overall, this is a very good read, although I believe Capture The Flag (#4) is slightly better.

This is a wonderful book about what a best friend is and does. Children will immediately relate and respond to the best friend how-tos, as well as, to the illustrations of bold primary colors and silly line illustrations reminiscent of a child's line drawings. Pure joy for both children and adults.

We have the underwear book and the feelings book and our 16 month old daughter loves them so we just got this one for her. She loves it as much as the others. She has maybe a hundred books already but this is one she reaches for herself over and over and we already have it memorized along with the other ones! I think it must be the bright colors and goofy drawings.

Got to love the Coens, and thheir style of filmmaking. Read it.

This is a terrific book for anyone interested in the Coen brother's films, or indeed anyone interested in the filmmaking process. While the book is true to its title, other Coen films such as 'Raising Arizona', 'Miller's Crossing' and 'Barton Fink' are also briefly discussed. Along with spotlighting Joel and Ethan's work practises, the book looks in detail at the storyboards, cinematography, set and wardrobe design on 'The Big Lebowski'. Of particular interest is the comparison of still frames with their orginal storyboards during a detailed breakdown of 4 Lebowski scenes. Also appreciated is Robertson's practise of actually explaining many of the film terms used is the book, recognising that not all his reader's are Directors!

This gives quite a bit of information on the mountain biking trails, I just wished it listed more of them.

I read this book with interest....I like to ride,and who doesn't like to drink beer? This book is nicely written and an easy read. I've riden many of the trails in Michigan, and some in the surrounding states, plus I've eaten in some of the brew pubs also, so, as I review this, I believe I am qualified to give FIVE STARS *****. Mercer hits the "nail on the head" with his description of the rides, and the food/beer appears to be on track also....but I think I have a passion for a pale ale rather than a porter. I've started traveling more for work, I'll pack my bike and this book......every work trip will become a road trip. Buy it!!!!

I can be frequently found in bookstores, but I have never encountered a dead body. Botanist Max Boyle finds not one, but two bodies in a small, musty bookstore on a small side street off Totenham Court Road.

Max Boyle is soon joined by two polar opposites: the irascible Professor John Stubbs, a Scottish botanist with a penchant for solving murders, and their old acquaintance, the reserved (and often underestimated) Chief Inspector Reginald F. Bishop of Scotland Yard. Professor Stubbs reminded me of Colin Dexter's brilliant, and sometimes quarrelsome, Inspector Morse. Both Stubbs and Morse solve mysteries by jumping to conclusions, one after another, until reaching the final, correct solution. Those around them often have difficulty keeping up with their shifting focus. Neither Morse nor Stubbs could imagine a day without one or more visits to nearby pubs; draft beer is essential for good deductive efforts.

"Bodies in a Bookshop", written in 1946, is entertaining and amusing. Boyle says early on: The trouble with bookstores is that they are as bad as pubs. You start with one and you drift to another, and before you know where you are you are on a gigantic book-binge.

Ellery Queen offers better constructed deductive mysteries. P.D. James and Colin Dexter are more literate. Robert Van Gulik's Judge Dee's mysteries are more exotic and G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries are more moralistic. Nonetheless, "Bodies in a Bookshop" makes good reading and I am thankful that Dover has republished this nearly forgotten book. Apparently "Bodies in a Bookshop" is only one of several stories involving Boyle, Stubbs, and Bishop. I look forward to finding others works by R. T. Campbell.

R.T. Campbell was the pen name of Scottish poet, scholar, art critic and fantasy novelist Ruthven Campbell Todd (1914-1978). His detective stories were written in a short period in the 1940s.

For those who can never own enough books, R.T. Campbell's 1946 Bodies in a Bookshop is, to use a weary phrase, a "must read." It is a delightful, droll murder mystery. Under the pen-name R.T. Campbell, Ruthven Campbell Todd wrote several detective novels that follow the escapades of the witty botanist Professor Stubbs who always seems willing to resolve the toughest murders. In Bodies in a Bookshop, while browsing many several secondhand bookstores, Stubbs' assistant stumbles across a locked room filled with gas and two dead bodies. How were these men murdered? Enter the obstreperous Professor Stubbs who becomes involved in trying to solve this "locked room" mystery. The story is well written and the characters are highly amusing. I strongly recommend this book as well as Campbell's 1945 Professor Stubbs novel Unholy Dying.

I gave this book 4 stars because it was exciting with something always happening. Lots of suspense. A real page-turner. You really get to know and understand the characters. It has a touch of humor but not silly. I didn't give it 5 stars because I didn't think it was as good as Gator Prey -- not as descriptive and the characters in Gator Prey were more fun. I like animals and Gator Prey had more animals in it.

Henry and his little brother, Paul, who live with their mom in Los Angeles, are going to visit their dad in Los Vegas. To save their mom the money, Henry and Paul ride with Amber, a girl Henry knows from school, in an old, beat up van driven by Luke, Amber's nineteen year old brother. Then the van breaks down in the middle of the burning desert. Now they don't have enough food or water, and they're surrounded by dangers - poisonous snakes, scorpians, and spiders, buzzards, and open mine shafts. Can they survive all this?