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Book genres and suggestions for holiday gifts

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It is the season of giving and what better gift to give than the gift of reading, whether to yourself or to friends and relatives! In this post, I explain the two genres of books and showcase the types of books under these genres. I also suggest books from each genre that have had international or national acclaim and would make great holiday gifts. Book Genres Books are divided into two genres - fiction and non-fiction.  The Encyclopedia Britannica defines fiction as follows: ... literature created from the imagination , not presented as fact, though it may be based on a true story or situation. Types of literature in the fiction genre include the novel, short story and novella. The word is from the Latin  fictiō,  “the act of making, fashioning, or molding. While “ [n]onfictional prose , is any literary work that is based mainly on fact, even though it may contain fictional elements. Examples are the essay and biography.” So you have a choice of books from w...
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COVID-19 and the Black Death: Present and Past Collide

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If you are a student of literature, you would have met Francesco Petrarch. His name is immortalised in the term Petrarchan sonnet , even though he didn’t develop the form. He lived in the 14 th century and survived the Black Death , the Plague that ravaged Eurasia between 1347 and 1351, killing millions of people. Interestingly, that Plague started in the East before moving to Europe and, like the COVID-19 disease which is ravaging the world in 2020, it made a devastating pit stop in Italy of that time. Petrarch was Italian and reflected in many letters about the course of that Plague. One of his reflections has much resonance today.   Kevin Shau , in an article on Medium ,  shares some excerpts from Petrarch's letters that he wrote to his friend and fellow literary great, Giovanni Boccaccio. Of the passage of the Plague, Petrarch wrote : “While I am lamenting in vain and unburdening my spirit of these sorrows, I am accusing men who cannot reply: if only...
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The how, why and what of writing

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How did you learn to write? Not the letters of the alphabet but a composition. Probably a composition about your pet, or the summer holiday, or your best friend, or your visit to some site... I am sure that you wrote one such composition. And you used one of the following guidelines that your teacher gave you. Structuring Writing 1 In primary school your teacher told you that you needed to have a beginning, a middle and an end, when you wrote your composition. That is, the first paragraph being an introduction, the second paragraph being about the thing that you were writing about and the third paragraph being your conclusion – a three paragraph structure.  When you went to high school, you upgraded from compositions to what your teachers called essays. This time, your teacher told you to write your essays having a beginning, middle and end. That is, an introduction, a middle with at least three paragraphs and a conclusion – the five paragraph struct...
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