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Category Archives: Society at Large

Rapid Reads – A Progressive Innovation in the World of Publishing and Literature

28 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by Martin J Frankson in Language, Society at Large, The Arts in General

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literacy, literature, orca, plain english, rapid reads, reading


Imagine you are learning English as a foreign language or you have reading difficulties or you’re a teenager who just wants to expand beyond teenage literature or even if you simply haven’t the time to read but you still want to dive into the wonderful pool of literature with all the joys that entails.

It’s pretty difficult when you think about it.

Most novels are aimed at a readership that have fully developed literary skills and such works involve a high degree of complexity in terms of language, plotting and narrative structure that require the reader to have advanced reading skills and the time to read. These can act as a barrier to those who wish to enrich their lives that literature is wonderful at providing.

Well there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Rapid Reads is a recent newcomer to the publishing world whose mission and remit is to publish short works of both fiction and non-fiction between 12000-20000 words. Its works of fiction are set in the contemporary world, written in plain English with simple sentence structure. The stories are driven forward in time via linear narrative with minimal or zero use of sub-plotting and with a small number of characters without sacrificing quality, reader-engagement or entertainment. For non-fiction, plain written and concise English are also the order of the day. The aim is that all such books can be easily read, understood and completed in one sitting yet just as entertaining and informative as conventional literature.

There is a growing demand for such books and the Rapid Reads stable is home to many writers, some of whom have written conventionally structured novels for the mass market but have turned more than an able hand to writing within the guidelines that Rapid Reads stipulate. Moreover, its books are widely read and highly regarded by those who do read the more conventional, complex traditionally structured book. The books are simple but not simplistic, basic but not facile, uncomplicated without any less sophistication, informative yet not condescending.
According to Rapid Reads website, 50% of North Americans struggle with literacy to some degree, not to mention the numbers who lead very busy and demanding lives, in other words, time-poor. I suspect this degree of literacy and time challenges are not unique across the Western world.

This is a truly progressive innovation in the world of literature that surely will go a long way to increase literacy and the advocacy of the joy and empowerment of reading. There is no stigma in reading books from this stable either. I have just ordered two myself and I recommend you do too. For writers like myself, I particularly look forward to see how these books employ elegance and simplicity without loss of literary efficacy. This will surely serve as a good exemplar of cutting unnecessary complexity and long windedness from what we write, something I am quite guilty off myself.

Also all genres are welcome too.

Rapid Reads is an imprint of Orca Press who are based in Victoria, BC, Canada and you can find more details on their website

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Abraham Lincoln – A Warning From the Past

14 Friday Dec 2012


“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country … Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

20121214-233844.jpg

Posted by Martin J Frankson | Filed under Society at Large

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Derelict Buildings : My Fascination

08 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by Martin J Frankson in Society at Large, The Arts in General

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derelict buildings, Martin J Frankson


There is a little something you should know about me. Don’t worry, it’s not that I once bought a Dolly Parton CD or that I am  the only European person who loves that old wacky corny American TV show HeeHaw, it is that I have a compelling draw towards derelict buildings.

Derelict buildings fascinate me. They are like the dead, they know so much of the time of their hey-day yet are the least able to impart their secrets – to a point.

I think it stemmed from when I was kid in my hometown of Omagh, Tyrone when I once came across an old house while out cycling a good few miles further than I was allowed. Most of the windows had lost their glass while some had broken glass clinging to the wooden sidings more out of habit than strength. I remember an old forlorn curtain blowing slowly in the breeze, hanging outside the upstairs bedroom. It reminded me of a flag of a long vanquished nation fluttering over the violent quietness of a battlefield in mourning. I didn’t understand how a house ended up like this as the house itself wasn’t an old gothic mansion but just an ordinary two level house, built in the 1950’s or thereabouts.

I looke in through the living room window and saw an old sofa lying on its side. The floor was covered with a dark carpet, long rotted and discoloured by months or even years of spilt beer and wantonly scattered cigarette ash and stubs.  I remember the yellow wallpaper too.

This was a room where once a family lived in. I tried to imagine how the room was once, when the carpet was clean and bright, a TV in the corner and the room itself filled with furniture and the sounds of voices. I then began to wonder what had happened on that final day of the house being inhabited. Who had lived there and why did they leave?

Why did they just leave so suddenly?

Why didn’t they get someone to move in?

Looking into the living room was like looking into a robbed grave. The beercans and stubbs were a million papercuts of sacrilage. The body once moved, once laughed, once felt the warmth of love. Now it was just reduced to barewalls and the wind and the rain doing their best to reclaim this haven back to the bosoms of the green man of nature. The wallpaper was like the dusty black suit jacket that now covered the grey bones of the corpse.

I felt strangely excited by this however. It was taboo, well it is taboo to break and enter and stare into someone’s house but this was not a house; it was a time capsule, a edificial tomb. I wondered what secrets were left behind. Old letters, drawers, news papers? I went around the back of the house to where the kitchen was. Through its windows I saw the food cupboards, divorced from their doors which were long torn down and scattered on the floor. The floor was reduced to its concrete base for its lino had long been stripped, eaten and torn.

I would have gone inside if I hadn’t heard someone shouting ‘Who’s there’ from nearby. I ran to my bike and scarpered like the clappers.

I went back to that house the following week but I think someone got wise to it and it was properly boarded up. I was disappointed of course but I was glad. It gave the old house some of its dignity back. The wooden slats on the windows were like the coins they used to put over the eyes of the newly dead.

Macabre but fitting.

Ever since then, dereliction has held an extreme fascination for me, be it houses or old office blocks. I always stop and peer in whenever I can just to see what it was like on that unmarked day in the not to distant past when, for someone, the clocks had stopped and all remained frozen in that dark split second when a home became a mere house. I began to imagine stories behind the houses and the people who lived there and what had happened to make them flee so suddenly.

I still catch glimpses into those past lives, those past worlds.

Who was the last to eat at that table?

What was the last meal?

What was the last radio or TV show to echo through the rooms?

Did they know that the last day in the house was the last day at all?

 

 

Gary McKinnon and Chris Tappin

24 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by Martin J Frankson in Society at Large

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I rarely offer any social or political opinions here as its not the forum and you all have opinions of your own which I have no right to seek to change or challenge. After all, I am a crime writer and not a politician.

However, I am a human and I do have a sense of moral and social justice. I hate bullying for instance. I hate seeing ordinary, decent, harmless people ending up in trouble for actions which were not guided by malice or criminal intent.

I am talking about my fellow citizens, Gary McKinnon and Chris Tappin. You can search the internet for the details and make up your own minds but here are useful places to start

http://freegary.org.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Tappin

Gary McKinnon suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. He is a young, harmless man who is also a computer expert. Of course he had no right to breach Military computers and nations do have the right to defend themselves but common sense and compassion should be exercised here and not just a ‘one size fits all’ judicial policy imposed. There are shades of grey in every human endevour and while it does take time and effort to examine and identify those shades of grey, its an effort that is ESSENTIAL in the pursuit of justice.

Gary McKinnon is not a terrorist nor were his intentions borne from malice. He was just a daft, misguided young man who channeled his superb technical talents in a childish direction. He does not deserve to be sentenced to a WHOLE LIFE TARIFF which is a real and blood chilling possibility if he is extradited.

if you agree, follow @freegary

As for Chris Tappin, a late middle-aged, suburban Kentish businessman, chairman of his golf club. This man is a pipe and slippers man, not a terrorist. There may be a case to answer in terms of what he claims was sold or not sold but does he deserve to spend the rest of his natural life in a foreign prison for this?

It’s the lack of compassion and proportionality that angers me.

So I say in the strong possible terms to the British Home Secretary Theresa May, please stop the extraditions.

You have the power.

Use it.

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