Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
Description
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.
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About the Author
Reviews
"Makes a case for the rewards of reading."--Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel
"Prose's little guide will motivate 'people who love books'...Like the great works of fiction, it's a wise and voluble companion."--New York Times Book Review
"Celebrates the pleasures of close reading and explores the power of well-wrought language...refreshing"--Time Out New York
"An absolutely necessary addition to the personal library of anyone who is a writer or dreams of writing."--National Public Radio
"Reading Like A Writer is different from the rest of the pack...[Prose's] wise book serves as an ispirational reminder."--Washington Times
"The passages are...subtle and brilliant in their capture of human complexity...Prose is...a skilled...analyst of what makes them so."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Witty...Insightful."--Washington Post Book World
"a jewel of a companion...engrossing...and...daringly insightful."--Los Angeles Times
"Readable and illuminating...few...advice volumes offer as much insight into writing as you will find in Francine Prose's latest book"--Capital Times
"Prose knows when to be funny, how to wield examples, and when to stop."--More magazine
"Prose's guide to reading and writing belongs on every writer's bookshelf alongside E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
