Identify Containing Books Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
| Title | : | Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them |
| Author | : | Francine Prose |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 297 pages |
| Published | : | April 10th 2007 by Harper Perennial (first published August 22nd 2006) |
| Categories | : | Language. Writing. Nonfiction. Books About Books. Reference. Criticism. Literary Criticism. Essays. Literature |
Francine Prose
Paperback | Pages: 297 pages Rating: 3.77 | 9324 Users | 1264 Reviews
Relation During Books Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. 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 - to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's Middlemarch. She looks to John Le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail. And, most important, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted.Describe Books To Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
| Original Title: | Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them |
| ISBN: | 0060777052 (ISBN13: 9780060777050) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating Containing Books Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
Ratings: 3.77 From 9324 Users | 1264 ReviewsCritique Containing Books Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
This was required reading for one of my Creative Writing classes in college. While I was reading I kept thinking I'd rather be reading short stories. Francine Prose is right about one thing, you learn the most from reading the classics, or the masters. Her list of suggested reading in the back led me to many youthful discoveries. She was so enthused about Chekhov that I ended up following her advice and reading the 13 volumes of his stories translated by Constance Garnett. In those volumes,The trouble with Prose's book is that it's good. It's annoyingly like finding oil changing advice in the New York Times crossword or having your wine snob friend demonstrate the way to lay drywall with metaphors drawn from the bouquet of their favorite shiraz.Still, Prose brings up several excellent points. Her section on gesture is particularly good; it's easily as illuminating and Stephen King's hatred of adverbs. But I think what I will take away most from this book is her advice for when you
If I didn't already have a 'book about books' shelf, I'd create it just for this. I had not thought about all those details about reading since I was in school, and my teachers were pleading with us to do what is here called 'close reading.' Since Evelyn Wood was up-and-coming into extremely popularity when I was in college, if I remember correctly, and we all threw up our hands in horror and went back to our Cliff notes. It's fun to look back on our old opinions and compare to today..That's
I was eagerly awaiting the paperback edition to read this, it sounded so interesting. And it was. Is. Grr. Don't worry, it's not about grammar or punctuation. This is about reading for enjoyment and also for inspiration, motivation, guidance, example.... Divided into chapters on words, sentences, paragraphs, narration, dialogue, gestures - you get the picture - Prose (isn't that the most perfect name?!) uses analysis, anecdotes and extensive quotes to bring books and short stories to life. The
Reading Like a Writer has certainly made me a better reader, and perhaps a better writer. I was worried that "reading like a writer" would make reading more of a chore and less enjoyable. Not so. For me, it enhances my reading pleasure to stop every once in a while and consider what the writer is doing, and why, and how well. This approach is very helpful in editing my own writing.I have accumulated many thoughts about writing, from Francine Prose and other sources, on my author blog. These
This was another one of my forays into "Books about writing written by writers," some of which have been quite interesting, a few of which have been useful, but often they turn out to be tedious.This was one of the tedious ones.For starters, Francine Prose (who is apparently a highly regarded novelist with many books to her name, but with apologies, I've never read anything by her nor had I even heard of her before) is very much a literary writer. Meaning, books should be Important and Literary
This may very well be the most horridly pretentious writing book I've ever seen. The only thing stopping me from throwing it across the room in sheer despair was that I bought the audiobook version - and there was enough pain involved in actually listening that it would have been almost vulgar to add that of broken glass.Seriously, though: ugh. There are some good points in this, certainly, but they're drowning in the haughtiest filler possible. My main problem is not the highly literary angle
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