Archive (Page 2) • Topic Sentence • Buttondown

Bibliopath is moving! Also, not called Bibliopath!

February 8, 2019

Dear reader, Sorry this will be a double email for some of you, but just a short note to say that I'm moving this humble little sentence newsletter to...

Bibliopath #28: In which we join the sentence hunt

December 7, 2018

Dear reader, Consider this topic sentence, from Dorothy Dunnett, who should be more widely considered the greatest historical novelist of all time: "It had...

Bibliopath #27: In which we get down to the bone

November 23, 2018

Dear reader, Here's our topic sentence for today: I stay downstairs while the family breathes above me and I write it down, I lay them out in nice sentences,...

Bibliopath #26: In which we dance around the subject

November 9, 2018

Dear reader, Here's our topic sentence for today: But writing, whatever its medium, is made of words, and words are bodily, made with the body and the...

Bibliopath #25: In which we make up everything

October 19, 2018

Dear reader, Believe me, I never thought it would come to such an extraordinary step—but let's talk about physics. A handful of types of elementary...

Bibliopath #24: In which we spin silver

October 5, 2018

Dear reader, Here's our topic sentence: Silver coins were going out with the water like leaping fish, tumbling away between the shards, a treasure that was...

Bibliopath #23: In which you best believe I have some thoughts about Crazy Rich Asians

September 7, 2018

Dear reader, A slightly different letter today, but I saw Crazy Rich Asians last night and I have some thoughts: --- Of course they make dumplings. Despite...

Bibliopath #22: In which we are always a tramp

August 24, 2018

Dear reader, The internet can still be good sometimes. I came across our topic sentence on a meandering through the Internet—from a Twitter stream of...

Bibliopath #20: In which we attempt an act of transmutation

July 12, 2018

This one is dedicated to M. Dear reader, “First you shape the vision of what the projected work of art will be. The vision, I stress, is no marvelous thing:...

Bibliopath #20: In which we inevitably talk about Orwell

June 30, 2018

Dear reader, There comes a time in the life of every email newsletter about sentences where we have to talk about George Orwell. For example, we could start...

Bibliopath #19: In which we get a bit crude

June 15, 2018

Dear reader, Here's a sentence that I think about a lot: I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style...

Bibliopath #18: In which we work very hard to stay still

June 1, 2018

Dear reader, Here's a sentence: Ask any ice-skater or ballet dancer or show jumper, anyone who lives by beautiful moving things: nothing takes as much work...

Bibliopath #17: In which we get lost in the woods

May 18, 2018

Dear reader, Here's our topic sentence—it comes from Tana French's In the Woods, a sharply crafted murder mystery/police procedural that I read obsessively....

Bibliopath #16: In which we get down to the bone

May 4, 2018

Dear reader, I've written before how Helen Garner's Feel of Steel is a lodestone for me, something that I reread when I feel like I'm struggling as a writer,...

Bibliopath #15: In which we make an announcement, vague

April 20, 2018

Dear reader, Did I tell you I'm making a podcast? (Making a podcast is the millenial's version of 'Let's start a band', someone tweeted this week.) It's...

Bibliopath #14: In which we language ourselves free

April 13, 2018

Dear reader, My favourite sentence this week was from Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table: What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in...

Bibliopath #13: In which we talk about Ursula just one more time

April 6, 2018

Dear reader, I'm pivoting this newsletter slightly to talk about a sentence I liked this week, and hoping to email a bit more frequently. With that in mind,...

Bibliopath #12: In which we get back to work

February 16, 2018

Dear reader, Apologies for my absence. You may have already heard, but Ursula K. Le Guin died on January 22nd. Regular readers will know what this means to...

Bibliopath #11: In which time has some explaining to do

February 24, 2017

Dear reader, The writing of this has been on pause for a while. I guess it's partly because this newsletter is predicated on the assumption that 'reading...

Bibliopath #10: In which the author twiddles his thumbs out loud

October 22, 2016

Dear reader, So ... this is awkward. I don't really have a book for you this week. Not that I haven't been reading, because I have (I finished Sea for...