Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who… (2006)

Don't read this book the way I did -- cover to cover out of general interest. The structure of the chapters are all the same: topic is presented, briefly discussed, then many good examples by famous authors are presented, often through long quotations. As a reader, this was tedious.

Instead, I think this book could be useful to a novice writer as a reference when they are struggling with a particular concept. In such situation, they can read the corresponding chapter to get some pointers and be exposed to a variety of strong examples. For a writer, this might be helpful.

The author sets up her exposition as if she is going to share some very important guidelines for writers. Aside from the fact that she acknowledges (in the final chapters) that anytime she gives a Do or Don't to her students she finds an effective example to prove her wrong, she doesn't give guidelines. She gives examples. Take out the quotations from this book and you have an extended newspaper feature article. Boiled right down, her thesis is "read good writing" and proceeds to give you examples of what you should be reading. At least, she does organize the samples to say "this is a good example of ____." I wish she would have closed her examples better; they're almost all intro heavy and exit light (or non-existant). Articulating what specifically was so good about the passage was not a strength. Though perhaps that is her point -- you can't nail down what makes writing good. Yet she has a whole book trying to tell you what good writing is.

In summary, this is a decent reference book for consultations as needed, but not a read-through kind of book. ( )

Thanks to Francine Prose, I have been introduced to Chekhov and other writers. Recommended for those who love books or have a interest in creative writing. ( )

Informative and relevant to serious writers. ( )

Good

Francine Prose is an author who starts this book questioning if “creative writing can be taught” and concluding, as a teacher of creative writing, that it cannot. How to improve your writing can be taught but the love of story and the creative inspiration cannot. However the book does attempt to address the second part of writing, improving the craft. The chapters are “words”, “Sentences”, “Paragraphs”, “Narrative”, “Dialogue”, “learning from Chekov” and “Detail” which give you some idea of her approach. Throughout she is a passionate advocate of reading and liberally intersperses her points with quotes (sometimes very long quotes that last several pages) from her favourite writings.

Overall – Recommended for anyone interested in the craft of writing ( )

Blockbuster!

Prose lives up to her name :-)

Writers know that reading is critical to learning their art and craft---this book goes beyond proving it---soaring in the heavens of literature... ( )