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David Hastings

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in Belize City, Belize

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Biography, History, Nonfiction

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October 2021

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https://www.goodreads.com/davidhastings01

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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

David Hastings The idea for my latest book came from my experience of teaching English as a second language. I used to encourage the students to read for pleasure as…moreThe idea for my latest book came from my experience of teaching English as a second language. I used to encourage the students to read for pleasure as a very good way, perhaps the best way, of expanding their vocabulary. But in one advanced class many of them said that they could not get any pleasure out of reading in English because, even at their level, they had to look up so many words and colloquial expressions that it spoiled the enjoyment. However, one student argued that when learning a language, you should always try to work out the meaning of unknown and unfamiliar words and phrases from the context rather than reaching for the dictionary as first resort. He spoke with some authority because he was not only the best English speaker in the class, but English was his fifth language, so he clearly knew what he was talking about.
What he said got me thinking because although working out the meaning from context is standard advice for any language learners it is not often followed up with sufficiently detailed explanations of how you do it. Hence my new book The Vocabulary Detective: How to get meaning from context. It is quite different from the other books I have written which are all non-fiction and either historical or biographical or a combination of both. The Vocabulary Detective, by contrast, is a guide to the questions to ask and the clues to look for. These methods are described and then demonstrated through six non-fiction short stories.
When I was working on the ideas for the book, I was simultaneously learning Spanish and road-tested my ideas on authentic Spanish texts (novels, histories and news reports). I estimate my Spanish level was about intermediate or upper intermediate at the time and I had about a fifty per cent success rate in getting the meaning about right.
An example from my experiences with Spanish explains how it works. I was reading Julia Alvarez’s novel En el tiempo de las Mariposas when I came across the word ‘atareada’ which I had never seen before. The immediate context was ‘ … durante la atareada estación de la cosecha’. I knew this was ‘the (something) season of the harvest’ but could see no clue that would help me work out the meaning of the adjective. I was about to reach for the dictionary when I recalled the words of my star student whose advice was always to keep reading because you might see the same word in a different context, and this will help you guess or infer the meaning.
Sure enough, five pages later the word appeared again: ‘Estábamos atareadas con las clases, y hacienda nuevas amigas’ which means ‘we were (something) with classes and making new friends’. But this time there were plenty of clues. Alvarez was describing the first days at a new school of one of the main characters in the book and there were lots of details about people coming and going and lots of things to do. The meaning of the mystery word came to me instantly and I was so sure of it that I didn’t need to look it up in a dictionary. Indeed, I didn’t even want to match it with an English equivalent because the details in Alvarez’s description were enough to reveal the meaning. But, in the end, the English equivalent occurred to me anyway: ‘busy’. The girls were busy at school and their parents had been busy with the season of the harvest.
This idea of paying attention to the details surrounding unknown words and phrases is one of the key points outlined in my book for working out meaning from context but there are many others.
From my experience, there are numerous advantages to developing this skill. One of the most important of these is that you are less likely to forget a word or expression if you have worked out the meaning in this way. Another is that you learn to appreciate that words mean different things in different contexts. But perhaps most important of all is that it brings back the enjoyment of reading even though you might be struggling a bit with your new language. Indeed, it adds an extra dimension, a bit like solving a series of crossword puzzles or mysteries as you follow the story.
So that is where the idea for the book came from, and I hope readers find it useful and pleasurable. Although I wrote mainly for people learning English, you can adapt the ideas and become a vocabulary detective in any language. And, of course, I would be very interested to hear any feedback.
P.S. Alvarez’s novel is based on the tragic and heroic story of a group of sisters who resisted the brutal Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in the middle of last century. When I read it in Spanish, I didn’t it was a translation and that it had originally been written in English: In the time of the Butterflies. Because I spoke so highly of the book, my wife bought a copy in the original English, and she admired it greatly too. This also enabled me to check the original wording against my translation. The first quotation is ‘ … during the busy harvest season’ and the second ‘We were busy with classes and making new friends.
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David Hastings’s books

Average rating: 3.69 · 48 ratings · 11 reviews · 6 distinct works

	The Many Deaths of Mary Dobie: Murder, Politics and Revenge in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand 3.52 avg rating — 23 ratings — published 2015 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Odyssey of the Unknown Anzac really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 2018 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Over the Mountains of the Sea: Life on the Migrant Ships 1870–1885 3.73 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 2007 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Extra! Extra!: How the People Made the News liked it 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2013 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Vocabulary Detective 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2022 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Look Back: How to talk about the past in English B1-C1 (Vocabulary Detective #2) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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First Impressions

In 1877 Paris, a struggling artist by the name of Camille Pissarro was so desperate to create interest in his paintings that he decided to raffle one. He was part of an emerging school of artists known as the Impressionists who were getting a hard time from the critics.
One described them as “six madmen and a mad woman” and their works were routinely rejected for inclusion in the most important exh Read more of this blog post »

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David is Currently Reading

David Hastings is currently reading

Chicos que vuelven

by Mariana Enriquez

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Oct 13, 2025 08:01PM

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The Myth of the Zodiac Killer: A Literary Investigation

by Thomas Henry Horan

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Aug 14, 2025 06:43PM

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Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity of America's Most Elusive Serial Killer Revealed

by Robert Graysmith (Goodreads Author)

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Jul 28, 2025 08:45PM

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David Hastings is currently reading Chicos que vuelven by Mariana Enriquez	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 13, 2025 08:01PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Chicos que vuelven by Mariana Enriquez. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Chicos que vuelven by Mariana Enriquez <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
David Hastings rated a book it was amazing Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego by Mariana Enriquez	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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David Hastings rated a book it was amazing Bad hombre (Spanish Edition) by Pola Oloixarac	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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David Hastings is currently reading The Myth of the Zodiac Killer: A Literary Investigation by Thomas Henry Horan	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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David Hastings is currently reading Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right by Angela Nagle	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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