The Elegant Variation: TEV GIVEAWAY: ALL WE EVER WANTED WAS EVERYTHING

TEV DEFINED

The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

June 06, 2008

TEV GIVEAWAY: ALL WE EVER WANTED WAS EVERYTHING

Brown One of the pleasures of BEA was finally meeting Cindy Spiegel, given that we're fans of Spiegel & Grau. There are a number of titles you're likely to hear about here in the months ahead, including Sana Krasikov's One More Year and Todd Hasak-Lowy's Captives, both of which we scored during BEA, but today is all about Los Angeles novelist Janelle Brown's debut All We Ever Wanted Was Everything. Meghan Daum has called this novel "“A razor-sharp critique of the absurd expectations that, these days, have come to stand for ambition, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything is wrenching, riveting, and still manages to be great fun. This is a wise, intimate chronicle of one family’s struggle to take off their masks and live in the place they most feared: the real, imperfect world.” It's been called "a winning debut" by People and "swift-paced and very readable" by the San Francisco Chronicle. And you should know that Mrs. TEV tore through it in three sittings.

Now, because this week has been all about largesse, Spiegel & Grau is offering up not one but five - yes, five - signed copies for five lucky TEV readers. You all know the drill, so sing along: Drop us a line, subject line: GIMME EVERYTHING. Because we're giving five, previous winners may once again step right up. And because we're in Chicago, we'll keep the contest open until 8 p.m. PST Sunday evening - giving you two full extra days, so vote early, ~~vote often~~. Until then.

Posted by TEV at 12:01 AM in Giveaways | Permalink

Comments

"Vote often?" Does this mean that we can vote more than once?

Posted by: Dan | June 06, 2008 at 05:54 AM

I guess that's misleading, isn't it? Was going for the old joke. Will modify, but please only one entry per. Thanks.

Posted by: TEV | June 06, 2008 at 06:17 AM

Thanks for clarifying. =) I'm new around here and I just wanted to check!

(By the way: Are Canadians eligible?)

Posted by: Dan | June 06, 2008 at 06:40 AM

Yes! No geographic restrictions.

Posted by: TEV | June 06, 2008 at 06:47 AM

thanks!

Posted by: Kari Follett | June 06, 2008 at 12:10 PM

How nice that someone took on this topic that affects almost all middle-class Americans and first-born kids with an over-achiever complex. Since I can't do everything, it might take me a while to get around to reading it, but it's on my list.

Posted by: Cheryl | June 09, 2008 at 12:27 PM

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June 06, 2008