Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.)

In Reading Like a Writer Francine Prose suggests that all great writers are readers of great literature. She contends that one need not pursue an advanced degree or attend writer's workshops in order to improve their writing - rather, all they need to do is become avid readers. This is a book that teaches readers how to be good readers. It also serves as a great writer's manual because it offers both inspiration and concrete, practical ways to improve one's writing. This is definitely a book that aspiring writers will read again and again.Early on in the book, Prose shares her dismay that so few people today seem to read great literature. She talks about her frustration teaching literature to graduate students who have never read Pride and Prejudice or A Good Man is Hard to Find.Prose seems determined to tackle this problem with Reading Like a Writer. The book is peppered with citations from various great works of literature, used to show examples of truly skillful writing. Prose talks about how to write good dialogue, and then shows an example of it. She expounds on the importance of efficient but beautiful sentences, and then shares several examples. The result is that this book is, in part, a collection of some of the juiciest, most compelling snippets of some wonderful works of literature. At the back of the book, Prose includes a list of recommended reading that includes these texts. The inevitable result is that the reader will find himself eager to discover these stories for themselves. I know that I added several books to my "to read" list over the course of reading this book!From a writer's perspective, one of the things I loved best about this book was that Prose repeatedly reinforced the idea that "literature not only breaks the rules, but makes us realize that there are none". For every suggestion she makes, she offers examples of great works of literature that did just the opposite with great success. This is one reason she does not place too much stock in writer's workshops, which might encourage a writer to change some aspect of his work to follow an utterly arbitrary rule of writing, when in fact his work correctly ignored said rule in the first place. As Prose points out, the beauty of literature is that it is all so different.Reading this book and reflecting on Prose's advice to aspiring writers has affected me in a profound way. After reading this book I feel more inspired than ever to make a serious attempt at writing a novel of my own. Prose has encouraged me to worry less about what others write, and instead to forge ahead with my own writing secure in the knowledge that of course my work will be different than that of the authors I so admire, and that is in fact a good thing. The irony is that Prose has made me feel this way while at the same time filling me with the irrepressible desire to read as many of these great books as I possibly can, in hopes of improving my own writing.In short: if you love books - reading them, or writing them - this needs to be on your bookshelf!

This book was really good. I liked it.

Drawing on her life's experience as a passionate reader and a quite successful author, Francine Prose sets out in this book "to help the passionate reader and would-be writer understand how a writer reads." She organizes most of the book according to chapters devoted to different elements of writing - words, sentences, paragraphs, narration, character, et al. - and in each she includes numerous examples to illustrate her points. Her tone is relaxed, almost conversational, and the book is decidedly non-pedantic.For me, three things stand out about the book:First, as Prose avers time and again - and then cites a marvelous quote from Isaac Babel to the same effect - writing is hard work. It requires "`putting every word on trial for its life': changing an adjective, cutting a phrase, removing a comma, and putting the comma back in." By the same token, READING also requires assiduous attention and care, if not quite the blood, sweat, and tears of writing.Second, there are no hard-and-fast rules. For this point alone, I am tempted to send copies of the book to half the English teachers my three sons had during their junior and senior high school years. "Show, don't tell!"; "Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence."; "No paragraph should have just one sentence."; etc. - Prose exposes these and other bromides of writing with telling examples from literature of their violation.Third, I was given a brief, teasing introduction to numerous books and authors I now am adding to my already overspilling "To Be Read" list, including Stuart Dybek, Henry Green, Gary Shteyngart, and Scott Spencer.READING LIKE A WRITER is not perfect. Prose's modus operandi is to quote an excerpt from literature and then unpack and explicate it; frequently, that explication is too detailed. In addition, I sense that she sometimes is captivated by good writing as a matter of stylistic innovation or craftsmanship, without regard to content. In other words, some of her examples of scintillating technique seem to be in service of a mediocre or inconsequential story. But these are relatively minor quibbles.I note that some reviewers have panned the book. I sense that what many of them were looking for is more of a prescriptive "how to" manual. If in fact that is what you are looking for, this is not the book for you. READING LIKE A WRITER might serve as inspiration to would-be writers, but it certainly will not teach anyone how to write literature (which, despite college creative writing programs, is beyond pedagogy, as Prose recognizes). On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe that the passionate reader of literature would not glean enough from the book to make reading it worth her time.

So as a budding young writer, and the word 'young' refers to my writing ability not my age, I have been reading a few books about writing and taking a course or two. I feel I need to post a review about this book. Anyone who fancies themselves a writer or has any designs on possibly being one some day needs to read this book.It was eye opening. It will not only help me to read books in an entirely new way, but it opened my mind to different ways of writing and really gave me some good ideas. Things I probably would never have thought of otherwise. Or maybe things that I never would have thought would be "okay". While she explains the "rules", she also explains how and when it's okay to break them. And gives examples from novels of other writers breaking said rules and doing it well. At times her examples from books were intimidating and very humbling, but in the end I felt inspired and encouraged. I had planned on going back through the book and noting a number of the one's she referenced, especially those that made me really want to read them after only reading a paragraph or two. But she offers all of them in a handy list at the back of the book. I've been working on reading the 100 "Best books ever written", but have come to find that I don't always agree with that list. And her references and quoted passages from other books really opened my eyes to some books that I wouldn't have heard of had I not read this book. Now I have a whole new list of over 100 books to find and read.