A Book Review…
Thank YOU William Spivey…
Adventures beyond the paywall. Writing for the love of it…
Well, I am done!
I just finished delivered as promised my review of Mr. Spivey’s book and I am happy to report it is well worth the price of admission. I have been a follower for some time of William Spivey’s blog post on Medium. We routinely clap for one another! I love the writer’s etiquette.
I am a history nut and am a sucker for a new take on a topic that I am already familiar with and am often pleasantly surprised when I come across new “news” or hear about something I have never heard of or thought about in a particular way. He always delivers!
He has used the discipline of writing an almost daily blog and crafted a book around his collected essays. While I am still working on whether I like the title or not. It feels a little like click bait; I’m not mad at him. My grandkids say, the keywords and the invitation is necessary to have people click and then want to actually want to learn more. That’s what he has way more followers than read It is an orderly read, and I can see the theme and he treats every subject with respect.
I pray for everyone that lives in a red or a blue state and Florida has dropped into a new color dimension with a Governor running for the Presidency trying to be more outrageous and difficult to love with every tweet. Many nice people have moved to be in Florida, my New York City hometown folks even imagined it as a kind, and warmer, more gentler final resting place…so Mr. Spivey can never fail to come up with content worthy of commentary.
No one wakes up and truly wants to be an op ed writer when they grow up. It is an ill defined genre for those for whom journalism is not quite a good fit. However, a well written opinion even if you don’t agree with the author should give you a moment of pause.
Would be historians, educators, philosophers and preachers all have an opinion, but most folks are not courageous enough to share while not trying to convince anybody of anything…. It’s more than just the facts: they truly want to share a perspective based on their view of the world and if you are in luck based on who they believe they are because they have taken a moment to look in the mirror before ranting and writing.
I really like the notion of using a blog post as a framework for creatively developing your ideas over time. When you have enough posts, they are now called essays, and a few are a pamphlet or a broadside and then there is a book.
Giving away content for free is noble, but if you take the time to curate your own work or have someone to help you be better at spreading the information. Let’s reward them and buy the book. I can buy my own lunch and my own coffee. I want to encourage the bibliophiles of the world to unite and play nice in the sand box.
There is reader outside the Medium membership that might benefit from reading his book and taking it in with the small bites that for the most part are easily read as stand-alone essays on his response; just observations to what’s going on around him/. The fact that he often takes the long view is the mark of an elder.
Ask your library to purchase it and give books to friends and others a copy as holiday gifts.
It’s a safe bet that we can all get to know one another a bit better beyond the paywall at what may be a safe distance of settling in to read a book.
