The Writer's Guide to Obscurity by John Steinberg & Illustrated by Fiona Wilson - #bookreview #blogtour

 

Since time immemorial, man has found writing an uphill struggle so one might reasonably ask: why bother going to all that effort?

Yet one day it must have suddenly dawned on an enlightened individual that there had to be better ways to communicate than the traditional method of relying upon physical force to get one's point across. This individual was called Norman...

***

Norman was born to write, but doesn't know his destiny is written in his DNA, inherited from generations of earlier Normans who yearned to put pen to paper - once those items had been invented! Yet with nothing to show for all his literary endeavours and struggling to pay the rent, he tells himself there must be easier ways of making a living. It's only when

Norman discovers his descent from a long line of wordsmiths who'd experienced many of the same setbacks as himself yet had found the resolve to keep on going, that he wants to know:

'What was their secret?'

The Writer's Guide to Obscurity is an illustrated record of Norman's research into his vast family tree, sharing with us his predecessors' trials, triumphs and absolute catastrophes through the centuries, before bringing us back to Norman today - and the twist in his own tale.

***

This short book was a humourous look at the life and frustrations of a writer. Told from the perspective of a man called Norman, it covers the period of Ancient Norman from 4500 BCE right through to Modern Day Norman which covers the period from 1900 until the present day.

I liked the quirky illustrations of the time line at the beginning of the book, taking us through eight generations of Norman. In fact, Fiona Wilson has done a great job with illustrating this book, and they really add something to this short volume.

It is both witty and original, and I do not think I have ever read anything quite like it before.

ISBN: 978 1914083747

Publisher:  2QT Ltd

Formats: Paperback

No. of Pages:  44

About the Author:

Born and raised in North London in 1952, John still lives in the city with his wife and three children. Privately educated, John left school after ‘A’ levels and completed a business diploma in what is now the University of Westminster, before entering banking.

He started training as an accountant but did not complete the course, choosing a position in his family’s furniture manufacturing business instead. John started his own mergers and acquisitions business in 1987, which he ran for almost 20 years before quitting to become a full time writer in 2007.

John has co-written and produced comedies for the stage and has created a series of books for children.

“Previously, I had only been interested in comedy and finally started to write down the things I said or thought of. That led me to co-write and produce a play, In the Balance, and then W for Banker – which appeared at the New End Theatre, Hampstead. It was then I decided to quit the world of business in favour of writing full-time, and move toward more serious subjects. My first novel has taken two years to write and is the first in a series of books I am calling the ‘Steinberg Stories’.”