Tag Archives: Reading

CatNav Reviews the Five Stop Story App – 10 out of 10!

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I recently received a completely surprise review for the Five Stop Story app from Cat Nav. CatNav helps readers navigate the vast number of reading apps available in the app store. It identifies the best apps, reviews them and rates them.

It gave the Five Stop Story app 10/10. See the review below. You can download the Five Stop Story app from the app store here.

 

Review of Five Stop Story

Five Stop Stories Limited (Age +12) [10/10]

Similar in style to the Watchbook app, Five Stop Story is a gateway to a number of exciting stories. The app comes loaded with three short stories that give an indication of the type of quality you can expect. If you like what you read, you can subscribe for a year for just £1.99.

Five Stop Story’s interface is clean and minimalistic, allowing you focus on reading the stories. The text size can be increased or decreased and – aside from sharing your favourite passages on Facebook and Twitter – that’s about it.

Thankfully, there are options for sorting through the featured stories. Tabs are included for the latest and most popular. You can also choose to browse by author, genre, date and so on.

With so many stories available it’s probably best to focus on The Other Dave Clark, which is included free with the app. Written by Dave Clark, this short satirical story imagines a nightmare scenario where Nick Clegg wants to see more competition in society and so proposes cloning everyone. This spells trouble for our hero Dave as a committee decides who deserves to live, the original or the clone.

The Other Dave Clark is a perfect showpiece for the app. If every other story is only as fractionally entertaining as this, then the app is going to be immensely successful.

As the name suggests, Five Stop Story is designed to be read in short bursts, on a daily commute for example. There are already lots of stories to suit every mood and this is a great start to Five Stop Story.

This app is essential for iPad and iPhone owners, it’s as simple as that.

Joshua Douglas-Walton, CatNav

 

You can dowload the Five Stop Story app here.

If you want to see your own work featured on the app, you can enter our monthly competitions on the writers page of the Five Stop Story website.

You can find this review on the Persian Cat Press site here.

You can find more great reading apps on the CatNav app here.

Celebrating 11 years of the Bangkok Women’s Writers Group

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I’ve been a member of the Bangkok Women’s Writers Group for nearly a year now, and sadly will soon be leaving, as I’m heading back to London to work. The group is a talented bunch and their feedback on my novels and short stories has been invaluable.
Luckily Anette Pollner, who leads the group, is organising an event, which happens to place just before I leave the country. On 10 April, writers from the group will read from their works in progress at the artspace@newsong on Soi 39/1 Sukhumvit, Bangkok. The readers include Anette, myself, Carol Stephens, Dana MacLean, Lenora Bell, Mariejoy San Buenaventura, Michaela Zimmermann and Tejaswini Apte.

About the Group:

The BWWG meets every second Tuesday 7 PM at Starbucks Soi Lang Suan to workshop their writing in a supportive and creative environment. Current members include several published and international prize winning authors, novelists, essayists, academics, humorists and poets, as well as a few complete beginners. The authors come from different continents, and from a wide range of backgrounds and age groups.

The BWWG has been meeting continuously for 11 years. In 2007 they published the Thai English language bestseller ‘Bangkok Blondes’, and in 2009 they gave a reading at the British Council and published a pamphlet.

 

Five Stop Story Kindle Book now Live

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After lots of blood, sweat and tears (all mine), the Five Stop Story Kindle book is now live. To be honest, I’m quite relieved. It took a lot more time and was a lot harder work than I expected – It seems formatting is the biggest nightmare whatever medium you publish on! Luckily I got there in the end, plus I was really lucky to get Sarah Kate from Warm Onion Designs on board, designing the cover. And it’s out in time for Christmas 🙂
The book contains 30 short stories from the Five Stop Story competitions and 1 from me, which I might put up on this website when I get a moment.
Here is the link if you’re interested: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Five-Stop-Story-Stories-ebook/dp/B006O1QKD0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324625318&sr=8-1
My story is called “The Final Days of Trevor Morrison.”

Five Stop Story iPhone and iPad App Launch

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It’s been a busy month. The Five Stop Story iphone and ipad app is up and running and I’ve been in London putting flyers in bookshops, coffee shops and local libraries to encourage people to download it and discover new writers.
We’ve crammed the app with features and you can browse the stories by author, or by genre or by competition winners. You can also read more about the authors in their bios and visit their websites. The app links with Facebook and Twitter so that you can share the stories you really like.
You can download the app on the your iphone/ipad by visiting the app store and searching for “Five Stop Story.” Find out more about the app here.
On last check we were #2 in the UK “what’s hot” in Books list!

Amy Winehouse: The Curse of 27

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It was sad to hear the news this weekend that Amy Winehouse had died. Partly because her life was cut short so young and partly because the path she was on almost made the outcome almost inevitable.

It seemed the “curse of 27” had struck again and Amy Winehouse added her name to a long list of stars who lived hard and died young, all at the same age:

Kurt Cobain. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison…

But 27 is a strange age for everyone, not just multi-million selling musicians. The fact that these musicians achieved so much before they even reached 27 makes ordinary people seem – well- even more ordinary.

Up until your mid-twenties your horizons are generally widening. You go to uni and you suddenly have the freedom from the restrictions of your parents. You get a job and you have your own money which you can spend recklessly and at will, without a hint of guilt. You have the freedom to flit around from job to job, location to location, trying different lives on for size.

But at 27 you suddenly realise that certain options are no longer available to you. Your options are narrowing. It’s time to decide what to do with your life.

Is a good book always memorable?

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Since starting my time off work, I’ve relished the prospect of having more time to read. A couple of weeks ago, I studied my bookshelf, savouring the possibilities. The shelves were creaking under the weight of books I hadn’t read – books I bought from Amazon when I got distracted browsing the internet, gifts from friends, slightly tattered books from charity shops and a whole collection of books with the sticker “3 for 2” on their front covers.
I spent half an hour happily browsing through the shelves, envisaging myself by the swimming pool with book in hand. Eventually I selected one. The blurb sounded enticing and I wanted to start it straight away.
But by the time I go to around the fifth chapter I was starting to get a bit of déjà vu. The plot seemed a bit….familiar. But I decided that maybe I’d just watched a programme with a similar plot on TV. I put the feeling aside and read on.
By the time I was about a third in and more familiar with the characters I knew I had read it before. I was confused. The book was well-written and interesting – I was enjoying it. So why didn’t I remember it?
I racked my brains to remember the ending but couldn’t. I felt frustrated. Now I knew I’d read it before it all seemed a bit pointless. What was the point of reading it again, only to forget it again? I started to think of all the other books I wanted to read and found I couldn’t concentrate on the book any more. It was using up time, and my time was valuable.
So I put it to one side and started a new book – Dead Game, by Claire Kinton, one of the books selected for the Brit Writers publishing programme.
The old book is sitting on my bedside table and it looks at me reproachfully whenever I pick up Dead Game. I feel guilty. I enjoyed the old book, but just not enough. It wasn’t memorable.
It got me thinking. Should books be stay with you long after you read them? What makes a book memorable?

The books that nurture young minds….

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What books influenced when you were young? Catcher in the Rye?  Lord of the Flies? Intelligent and provocative fiction that made you think and question the very nature of society?

I’m not ashamed to admit that for me it was nothing as thought-provoking as all that. It was Sweet Valley High. Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, with their silky blonde hair, aqua blue eyes and perfect size six figures were loved by pre-teen females across the globe and by the time the series ended over 300 books had been written about the twins, tracing their journey from kids to university students. It must have been one of the most profitable “brands” in pre-teen fiction.

So imagine my delight when, meandering aimlessly around the internet, I found the website of my childhood dreams:

http://shannonsweetvalley.com/

Yes – it’s a whole site dedicated to sweet valley. And it’s brilliant. For each book, Shannon has identified a tongue in cheek moral of the story and written a detailed synopsis. I admired her dedication and spent a blissful hour (or two) browsing the site before cursing her for distracting me.

But there was even better news to come. Francine Pascal, the creator of the twins, had decided to bring them back – 10 years on. And they’re 27 – my own age! It seems like things are meant to be. When I read the book it will be like welcoming back old friends.

Or will it?

I was so excited that I decided to read the reviews before going back to work.

They weren’t good.

Apparently Francine Pascal didn’t appear to have read the original books (most of which had been written by ghostwriters). Characters’ entire personalities and even their names (in some cases) had changed. Key plot points in previous books had been forgotten – including a character’s death.

For a new writer these kind of errors would be unacceptable.

Can I forgive her and read the book?

The thing is I think I will. I can’t resist the power of the brand.