Reading is, dare I say, important to being a writer. (Controversial statement, I know.)
But if you had to choose one book that you think every writer should read, which one would it be?
The perfect novel? A guide to writing? Strunk & White?
I’m going with The Great Gatsby. It may not be my favorite novel of all time, but I think it’s perhaps the most perfectly written.
Which one would you choose?
(This post was inspired by a recent Forum discussion)
Dostoyevki's Crime and Punishment. In Russian.
I have to agree with most who have mentioned Stephen King's "On Writing". There's something very honest and unabashed when he goes into his own story of developing work. If anything it proves there isn't really a sure fire recipe rather luck that makes the difference at times.
But other than Stephen King's work?
My personal choice would honestly be "The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers" by Christopher Vogler. I know and understand it's geared towards screenwriters. Yet I found this book invaluable in helping to reflect and dig deep into plot developments. I really like how it breaks down the structure of the hero's journey, and sheds light on the significance of archetypes too.
Wow! So many responses. When I read the post the one that instantly leapt into my mind was Stephen King's ON WRITING – absolutely wonderful book.
Having read the comments I see I'm not alone in my humble opinion. 🙂
BTW, I had to read The Great Gatsby at school. I absolutely hated it! Admittedly I don't think I "got" half of it either. *shrug* Just thought I'd add my 2 cents.
Man Against Himself by Karl Menninger.
It's about the impulses towards self-destructiveness. (Self imposed illness, despair, self punishments as in addiction and accident proneness, and much more.)
Menninger tells how intelligent self-knowledge can give self-respect and understanding into one's psychological war against themselves for preservation.
The knowledge from this book helps when creating a character.
I couldn't find it in any library, but found a copy on the internet.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Is the author even necessary with this one…? A reminder that no matter your audience's age, you can be brilliant on so many levels in time to blow them away again and again as they grow up and keep reading. And spare no cleverness in your plot.
But, um, the classics are good too. Atticus Finch for the win!
If there was *one* book, life would be so simple that I would've killed myself. Already.
(p.s. It could be Bleak House or Beckett's Trilogy. But still…)
Tuesday's With Morrie. Albom's quick & easy read makes it difficult to put down. So touching & meaning on so many levels depending on where you may be in your life. A book you should read at least once, if not twice.
King's On Writing came to mind immediately. However, so did his amazing tale, "The Stand" — a powerful example for anyone interested in writing "can't put it down' fiction. "Read, read, read" means we learn by example from the stories that move us the most. "The Stand" works for me on many levels.
Any Shakespeare. But out loud. He is the "mother" of story.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
Elements of Style?!? Seriously???
Come on writer-people, do yourselves all a favor and NEVER read that pile of garbage. If you're unfortunate enough to own it, burn it.
It's an antiquated mess of dumb, toxic, unfollowable advice and bungled grammar claims. Heck, Strunk and White can't even follow their own "advice" WITHIN the freaking book, so why would you?
"Ender's Game" by Orsen Scott Card. I think I've read that book 2 dozen times and it still captivates me.
The ones that followed were absolute rubbish, but the first one was magic.
-Natalie
dubliners.
Sprizouse: had your coffee yet?
My book, obviously. Now I just have to finish writing it and sell it, then you can all read it and become complete. 😀
@Francis:
I've waged a decade-long, tiring battle against Strunk & White ever since my college lit professor shoved it in my face and told me it was the writer's Bible.
I studied it, found it's advice to be ridiculous and nonsensical but my professor refused to acknowledge the issues I presented. She never answered my questions and never could explain exactly why she thought it was 'the Bible'.
I cringe CRINGE! whenever I see a writer praise this horrid little book. So I won't stop battling until people realize how terrible the book actually is.
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. Zusak doesn't recycle the same phrasing we've seen everywhere else before. He creates, he doesn't copy, not just in story but in style. Seriously, I could teach a class on that book.
Thank you, Robin Constantine; I was afraid I would be the only one!
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
Sprizouse: Your issue is with the idiocy of blind faith, and I wholeheartedly agree. 100 TIMES!
I too completely despise anyone who blindly promote a book, be it the actual bible, TWILIGHT, STUNK & WHITE, HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN TEN DAYS or SHE COMES FIRST… yes, I've met all of those.
The book itself isn't a steaming pile of poo though: Stunk might be a bit outdated, and seriously, his very first rule sounds ridiculous…"Charles's car sounds and looks a lot worse than Charles' car", but his concise gospel (see what I did here?) is convincing.
I don't agree with everything he says, but his arguing makes sense for MOST of the book. Then again, I can't remember a book I read which convinced me completely.
ON WRITING was good, except for the part where King says plot isn't important. SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS makes a point that speaker attributions should always and only be "said", without exception. I like to throw a "whispered" or "screamed" in there from time to time… typing '"Help," she said in a low voice' sounds pretty awful to me. HOW TO WRITE THE BREAKOUT NOVEL disses Harry Potter, yet I loved them. I still think Donald Maass knows his shit.
In the end, you have to know what to take and what to leave. Stunk & White sold over fifteen million copies since its first publication date, you're fighting an impossible battle, and while I admire your tenacity (and I too have hated a few self-righteous professors), all this energy would probably be more useful if channeled elsewhere.
Like, in your writing 😉
Nonfiction on writing: Ray Bradbury's Zen.
Fiction: Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay.
"Save The Cat," by my late, great screenwriting guru and friend, Blake Snyder, and "Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of
Writers' Manual" by Rita Mae Brown.
The ultimate book is the Bible, based solely on the structure of writing and the artistic words used.
Pumpernickel Tickle and Mean Green Cheese (Nancy Patz)…because you have got to learn to laugh at life!
The one book that taught me most about the wonders and vagaries and terrors and thrills of writing was Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. Trust your reader. Don't tell them everything you know. Tell a good tale, and tell a tale, uh, good.
Any book by Tim Winton. Dirt Music or Breath.
Okay, I am so totally going against the assignment here. I realize we are supposed to tell you what book every writer should read, but I've seen so many for Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott that I Have to go against it.
I hated that book! And here's why: Yes, it is funny, smartly written and well received, but it makes writing seem as if it is the biggest chore in the world. And as if every writer is drunk and drugged.
I know a few days ago you also posted something about BIC (in my circle we use BICHOK: Butt in chair, hands on keyboard) and talked about how difficult writing is at times, but seriously, tell me where we have a better job?
Anne Lamott makes it seem as if we are doomed for a life of abject poverty and desperation, and I simply do not believe that. No, we may not all sell. But truly, if you love to write, shouldn't that be why you do it? So yeah, I'm going completely off task and against that book…anonymously, of course. 🙂
And please don't hate me for posting this, I am normally not negative…I just really found that book to be discouraging and truly frustrating.
I wouldn't.
There is no way one book (even the best) can provide a balanced view of literature. People need to see and understand different writing styles, different rules, how to bend the rules, different genres…
(This is where I win the pageant, because the judges themselves don't know the answer and are blown out of the water by mine. lol:)
@ Francis:
Umm… no. My issue is NOT with the idiocy of blind faith. My issue is with Strunk & White's idiocy.
Among their many crimes, they think any sentence that begins with "there are" is a passive that needs to be corrected. Their mendacious little book has, unfortunately, caused thousands of writers worldwide to think the same.
The rest of the book contains a compendium of misleading and incorrect advice as well.
See, now you've provoked me…
Take a look at a section of Elements of Style, any section, and you'll find hypocrisy and stupidity.
In their section "Use the Active Voice" for instance, they cite examples of 'bad' passives but their examples rarely contain passives needing to be switched to active transitives! And their corrections of the 'bad' sentences sometimes contain passives themselves!
Anyone who reads Elements of Style will quickly see that the authors only have the faintest understanding of passive verbs. And it's 100% certain they can't tell transitive from intransitive.
So why would any writer take grammar advice from these guys? And why should college-lit students be forced to?
Elements of Style is, like I said, nothing more than antiquated and prejudiced soapboxing. And that's my issue.
I'm saying this without reading any of the previous comments – I'll read them after this post.
I think the one book every writer should read has got to be the dictionary.
Writers should read many books, but the books one reads should be related in some way to the type of book one wants to write, and since there are so many different genres and styles out there – from rhyming (Dr. Seuss, Shel SIlverstein, Julia Donaldson) to PB prose (Runaway Bunny, Courduroy, Olivia) to early chapter books (Magic Tree House series, Junie B. Jones Series) to MG (Roald Dahl, Ramona Quimby, Percy Jackson Series, Harry Potters) to YA to adult fiction… And this doesn't even touch the genres like Biography, Popular Science, Non-Fiction Political, Green, Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi… I could go on and on. Different writers should read different books. But NO-ONE can do without the Dictionary.
Josin McQueine said the Dictionary, too – I'm not the only one! Woo-Hoo!
I'm surprised by how many people chose books about writing instead of novels as the one book every writer should read. I think writers learn a lot more about writing by reading good books than by reading books about writing. East of Eden is my choice.
Every text is a two dimensional computer existing in a three dimensional field stumbled upon by a four dimensional perceiving thermal field called hue man and woe man.
The Four Shadows of God:
Bible
Hamlet
Moby Dick
To Kill A Mockingbird
My Green Eggs And Spam
Then simply walk out to a lonely place and ask the universe if it has any chores it needs done.
Then you either have a best seller or a taxicab to paradise/stairway to heaven. Always their is the choice.
Some people get to do both.
If all else fails steal Abby Hoffman's
"Steal This Book" from a used bookstore like the one in "The Neverending Story"
I love the power and desperation underlying Chang-Rae Lee's A Gesture Life, Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. I better stop at 3 before I get going…
Sol Stein "On Writing." I may not agree with everything he writes, and he has it in for John Grisham, but he does make a point sometimes.
Watership Down is the book that inspired my to even try to write. I marveled at how the authors could combine fiction with reality.
Another vote for Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment – total immersion in the author's world.
And, for structure, pace, depth, brevity – Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West.
In fact, his complete works would also do you good, taken before or after meals – The Day of the Locust,A Cool Million, The Dream Life of Balso Snell- and as they're short, I count them as one book….
Since I struggle sometimes with writing description … for a great example … most anything by James Lee Burke.
I don't think anyone should say there is one book that every writer should read. We all have different tastes and learn differently and write different genres.
"On Bunker Hill" by John Fante. And many others. Saying that a writer must read is NOT controversial at all.
The Norton Anthologies, Jerome Stern's Making Shapely Fiction, and everything by Chekhov.
On Writing.
Story by Robert McKee.
I've got to go with Save the Cat.
"The Art of War for Writers" by James Scott Bell.
Wow. There are a lot of votes for ON WRITING, and it is a marvelous book, but I think, if you only get one book, it should be a novel. While I agree that THE GREAT GATSBY is a wonderful choice, I'd go for something a bit longer like EAST OF EDEN. While it's not my favorite, I think it captures the essence of what a novel should be. (Crime and Punishment was a close second, but I thought, for this, I should chose a novel originally in English–for English writers. No matter how good a translation you get, it's still not the same as reading the author's own words, and, boy-o, Steinbeck knows how to use words.)
Anything not written by Stephen King or Terry Brooks.
MYSTERY AND MANNERS by Flannery O'Connor. Or anything by Truman Capote.
THE INVISIBLE MAN by H.G. Wells.
You go half the book without even knowing the MC's name, and you can't stop flipping pages. When I read it the first time, I read chapter 1 through 5 in one sitting, because I seriously could not put it down. When I did put it down, I couldn't stop thinking about it. No beginning of a novel ever had me so captured the first time I read it. There have been books I've read before that I couldn't put down because I knew what was coming.
There's only one flaw I find in this book: when H.G. Wells references the reader.
Definitely Stephen King's "On Writing."
Homer's "Odyssey"
Rudolfo Anya's "Bless Me, Ultima"
John Knowles' "A Seperate Peace"
And don't forget the ol' "Harry Potter" series. Oh wait, did you say just one? Sorry.