M A N T E X N E W S L E T T E R Number 49 - June 2001 Typography + Design + Fiction ------ ISSN 1470-1863 ----- 0----- 'Good Fiction Guide' Keen on a well-written story? Lots of people like a 'good read', but aren't sure what to choose next. The 'Good Fiction Guide' is a new type of reference book which makes suggestions for you. It combines mini-essays on different kinds of fiction with potted biographies of authors - and lots of recommendations on what's most approachable. The emphasis is on modern literature (in English) but entries range from Achebe to Zola, or from Daniel Defoe to Sue Townsend. Review at -- http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/rogers.htm 0----- 'Stop Stealing Sheep' Despite the daft title, this is a best-selling book on typography. Erik Spiekermann and E.M. Ginger take you through the basics of type and offer an appreciation of good design. It's an elegant production, with a minimum of technical detail and lots of enthusiasm. Review at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/spiek.htm 0----- D.H. Lawrence items Two subscribers have sent in notes related to D.H. Lawrence - who gets lots of hits in the GREAT WRITERS section of our literature pages. http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/dhl-00.htm The first is a holiday offer! You can stay in the same house where Lawrence lived in Taormina, Sicily between 1920 and 1923. "The house is simply wonderful and its ancient style make it a unique place to visit and stay." If you visit the web site of Sr. Claudio Puglisi, it's worth the short wait for a really spectacular graphic. http://www.taorminaholidays.com The second item is from Pacific Book Auction Galleries, who will be offering a small collection of D.H. Lawrence books, including signed limited editions. One highlight is a copy of 'Bay: A Book of Poems', 1/30 copies on Japan vellum. The catalogue is on their web site http://pacificbook.com 0----- 'Learning Web Design' Do you want a good beginner's guide to web page design? Jennifer Niederst is a professional web design trainer, and her books are best-sellers. Her latest is a very thorough series of tutorials - well illustrated, and with lots of helpful tips and wrinkles. She quite rightly advises you to learn coding by hand, but being realistic, also shows how her most important suggestions can be done using Front Page, Dreamwever, and GoLive. She covers all the basics and offers brief introductions to more advanced topics such as style sheets, JavaScripts, and multimedia. Work through her suggestions, and you could have a decent small-scale site up on the Net. Review and details -- http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/nieder-4.htm 0----- Post-graduate writing skills Several people have recently asked for recommendations of web sites devoted to post-graduate writing skills. We have a very popular bibliography of writing guides, but it does not include web sites. If you know of a good site which provides guidance on academic writing at postgrad level, please could you let us know about it. We will collect the suggestions and pass them on here. Our writing skills bibliography is at -- http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/bib-01.htm 0----- Welcome to new subscribers South Africa (za) fm Italy (it) Singapore (sg) Tuvalo (to) Andorra (ad) South Korea (kr) 0----- Creating Desktop Scraps Did you know that in Word, you can drag text off the page onto the Windows desktop? When you drag text out of Word, the text is placed in a document scrap and given its own icon. You can then drag the text back into a Word document at a later time. You can also double-click the scrap icon to open it as a document. Scraps enable your desktop to double as a super-Clipboard, capable of holding not just one, but many text snippets that you can paste together later. 0----- FREE XML Editor (336 KB) XML Notepad's user interface is simple and intuitive, displaying all of the source code graphically. Expanding and collapsing data structures, the creation of elements with attributes, and sub elements are all a breeze with XML Notepad. It's a quick download, and installs quicker than anything I've ever seen! http://www.WebmasterFree.com/microxml.html 0----- Editing eBook - cheap Bruce Kaplan's "Editing Made Easy" is packed with helpful tips and advice. Presented in an attractive e-book format, this is one of the most helpful books on writing I have had the privilege of reviewing. http://www.vangoachbooks.com/nonfiction.html (c) Copyright 2001, MANTEX All Rights Reserved PO Box 100 Tel +44 0161 432 5811 Manchester Fax +44 0161 443 2766 M20 6GZ UK www.mantex.co.uk If you like this newsletter, PLEASE FORWARD IT to friends and colleagues. New subscribers should register at the following address -- http://www.mantex.co.uk/newslet.htm FREE BACK ISSUES featuring news items, reviews, and product details are available at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/news/archive.htm Please retain the copyright and subscription information. It may be posted, in its entirety or partially, to newsgroups or mailing lists, so long as the copyright and subscription information remains. If you have any requests, observations, or items you would like to be included in our next issues, just mail us at -- news@mantex.co.uk You receive the MANTEX newsletter because you subscribed to it. If you wish to unsubscribe, go to -- http://www.mantex.co.uk/newslet.htm News-49-June-2001 ISSN 1470-1863 The British Library