Reading Like a Writer : A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
Author(s): Francine Prose
A distinguished novelist and critic inspires readers and writers with this inside look at how the professionals read—and write
Long before there were creative writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose.
As she takes us on a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters—Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov—Prose discovers why these writers endure. She takes pleasure in the signature elements of such outsatanding writers as Philip Roth, Isaac Babel, John Le Carré, James Joyce, and Katherine Mansfield. Throughout, she cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which literature is crafted. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.
Review(s):
“Prose’s little guide will motivate ‘people who love books’…Like the great works of fiction, it’s a wise and voluble companion.”
“Witty...Insightful.”
“a jewel of a companion…engrossing...and...daringly insightful.”
“The passages are…subtle and brilliant in their capture of human complexity…Prose is…a skilled…analyst of what makes them so.”
“Reading Like A Writer is different from the rest of the pack…[Prose’s] wise book serves as an ispirational reminder.”
“Sensible, valuable and highly readable, Reading Like a Writer deserves perusal — both in and out of the classroom.”
“Celebrates the pleasures of close reading and explores the power of well-wrought language…refreshing”
“An absolutely necessary addition to the personal library of anyone who is a writer or dreams of writing.”
“Makes a case for the rewards of reading.”
“Prose knows when to be funny, how to wield examples, and when to stop.”
ISBN: 9780060777050