Holiday Reading

I have a week’s holiday planned for next week and I have been deciding what I want to read. I say read rather than do since I like to make maximum use of holiday time from work to catch up on my reading. In fact, as I did just today, I usually end up ordering a new batch of books from Amazon, despite the rather large piles already sitting about the house.

As many of you will know, I enjoy making use of reading lists. Although I also tend to read a lot of other things as well, I do like the satisfaction of completing a book list. Ticking each title off once it has been read is most enjoyable. I completed the BBC list of ‘100 books that everyone should read’, some time ago, and I moved on to another list, one I had long wanted to attempt. This was the Great Books list that I have discussed before. I have expanded the list of books out so that entries that are listed ‘The works of…’ are detailed more fully, providing me with the nice side effect of more boxes to tick. However I was shocked to see that, even without doing this for all authors, the list has expanded to at least 700 books. Some of them are not easy reads either. I think this may take the next decade or so, especially given my non list reading also.

I have also been putting off getting a ticket to see Audrey Niffenegger speak at Ely next week. I am not sure why I have been putting it off. I will get a ticket soon no doubt. It will be nice to have a cultured evening out, one that doesn’t involve the consumption of alcohol and/or curry!

I also hope to get a decent amount of writing done on my holiday, making a start on my new Writers Bureau course.

I should finally finish Sophocles tonight too. That’s another seven entries off the list.

Home Writing Courses

The other day I was looking at writing courses online, either as purely online courses or as distance learning ones. I found a few interesting things, but the main one that sparked my interest was by the Writers Bureau. It was described as a Comprehensive Creative Writing Course. I was wondering if anyone had ever taken this course, or knew anyone who had, and whether it was something worth doing. I would appreciate any comments about the usefulness and efficacy of this course. It looks interesting at first glance but I haven’t investigated fully yet. It doesn’t seem too expensive which is a major consideration. However, since expense can only really be decided in terms of value, I suppose whether or not it is expensive depends upon the extent of its value to me.

If anyone has experience of this or other, relatively cheap, courses I would be most interested. I often find that I work better with some guidance, especially in the early days of a new interest or pursuit, as this is. I like the structure of following courses to learn the basics of things, and I find you often learn a lot of things quickly that would take you some time to learn by trial and error yourself.

Do other people like to take courses? I have taken a number of Open University courses, in a number of areas, purely for the sake of interest and have always enjoyed them. I always think that there is something new to learn, whatever your stage of development, however much you feel you know about a subject or field.