Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.)

In Reading Like a Writer Francine Prose suggests that all great writers are readers of great literature. She contends that one need not pursue an advanced degree or attend writer's workshops in order to improve their writing - rather, all they need to do is become avid readers. This is a book that teaches readers how to be good readers. It also serves as a great writer's manual because it offers both inspiration and concrete, practical ways to improve one's writing. This is definitely a book that aspiring writers will read again and again.Early on in the book, Prose shares her dismay that so few people today seem to read great literature. She talks about her frustration teaching literature to graduate students who have never read Pride and Prejudice or A Good Man is Hard to Find.Prose seems determined to tackle this problem with Reading Like a Writer. The book is peppered with citations from various great works of literature, used to show examples of truly skillful writing. Prose talks about how to write good dialogue, and then shows an example of it. She expounds on the importance of efficient but beautiful sentences, and then shares several examples. The result is that this book is, in part, a collection of some of the juiciest, most compelling snippets of some wonderful works of literature. At the back of the book, Prose includes a list of recommended reading that includes these texts. The inevitable result is that the reader will find himself eager to discover these stories for themselves. I know that I added several books to my "to read" list over the course of reading this book!From a writer's perspective, one of the things I loved best about this book was that Prose repeatedly reinforced the idea that "literature not only breaks the rules, but makes us realize that there are none". For every suggestion she makes, she offers examples of great works of literature that did just the opposite with great success. This is one reason she does not place too much stock in writer's workshops, which might encourage a writer to change some aspect of his work to follow an utterly arbitrary rule of writing, when in fact his work correctly ignored said rule in the first place. As Prose points out, the beauty of literature is that it is all so different.Reading this book and reflecting on Prose's advice to aspiring writers has affected me in a profound way. After reading this book I feel more inspired than ever to make a serious attempt at writing a novel of my own. Prose has encouraged me to worry less about what others write, and instead to forge ahead with my own writing secure in the knowledge that of course my work will be different than that of the authors I so admire, and that is in fact a good thing. The irony is that Prose has made me feel this way while at the same time filling me with the irrepressible desire to read as many of these great books as I possibly can, in hopes of improving my own writing.In short: if you love books - reading them, or writing them - this needs to be on your bookshelf!

Drawing on her life's experience as a passionate reader and a quite successful author, Francine Prose sets out in this book "to help the passionate reader and would-be writer understand how a writer reads." She organizes most of the book according to chapters devoted to different elements of writing - words, sentences, paragraphs, narration, character, et al. - and in each she includes numerous examples to illustrate her points. Her tone is relaxed, almost conversational, and the book is decidedly non-pedantic.For me, three things stand out about the book:First, as Prose avers time and again - and then cites a marvelous quote from Isaac Babel to the same effect - writing is hard work. It requires "`putting every word on trial for its life': changing an adjective, cutting a phrase, removing a comma, and putting the comma back in." By the same token, READING also requires assiduous attention and care, if not quite the blood, sweat, and tears of writing.Second, there are no hard-and-fast rules. For this point alone, I am tempted to send copies of the book to half the English teachers my three sons had during their junior and senior high school years. "Show, don't tell!"; "Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence."; "No paragraph should have just one sentence."; etc. - Prose exposes these and other bromides of writing with telling examples from literature of their violation.Third, I was given a brief, teasing introduction to numerous books and authors I now am adding to my already overspilling "To Be Read" list, including Stuart Dybek, Henry Green, Gary Shteyngart, and Scott Spencer.READING LIKE A WRITER is not perfect. Prose's modus operandi is to quote an excerpt from literature and then unpack and explicate it; frequently, that explication is too detailed. In addition, I sense that she sometimes is captivated by good writing as a matter of stylistic innovation or craftsmanship, without regard to content. In other words, some of her examples of scintillating technique seem to be in service of a mediocre or inconsequential story. But these are relatively minor quibbles.I note that some reviewers have panned the book. I sense that what many of them were looking for is more of a prescriptive "how to" manual. If in fact that is what you are looking for, this is not the book for you. READING LIKE A WRITER might serve as inspiration to would-be writers, but it certainly will not teach anyone how to write literature (which, despite college creative writing programs, is beyond pedagogy, as Prose recognizes). On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe that the passionate reader of literature would not glean enough from the book to make reading it worth her time.

I love this book. I didn't think I would and I let it sit some time unopened. Something I now regret. I have just finished the first draft of my 3rd novel and will owe some of my re-writing to Francine's advice.It is a joy to be reminded of past book loves, the favourites of earlier times and find the new.Remarkably insightful and replete with advice and excellent tips. Well written clear and interesting, and a gift to writers.

I've lingered over the rating for this book. Is it truly a 5 or rightly a 4 star? I've plumped for the former on the basis that there is a universal, albeit less popular truth here. Sometimes, slow is good.We live in a throw away world increasingly dominated by speed. No time to write or punctuate so 'txt spk rls'...convenience of time over content so if it's fast it must be good. Not always so.I'm an avid reader. Now, mostly for pleasure but previously I'd acquired fast/speed reading skills to assimilate large amounts of work related text. Mostly dry, policy related documents or technical background data. Speed reading is great for that; skim the whole, identify and absorb the salient bits, move over the rest.The principles explored here turn a number of concepts on their head. Like a fine or good wine, reading is something to be savoured not gulped. Reading for pleasure should be an emotive experience where words reach into the soul. Even a simple sentence can strike a chord. This book encourages the reader to step back, slow down and think. What was the author trying to achieve? What are they saying? How are they saying it?In part it took me back some years to a time where an exam book was almost a line by line dissection of any narrative text. Clinical but thought provoking. This book examines similar principles in a more productive and positive way. As a reader, I found it affirming, helpful and instructive. I've often resisted fast reading for pleasure and this book confirms what may be missed and why. For writers, there's a whole different perspective on how to truly engaged with readers.Really enjoyed the content and the easy but not patronising approach so it's a 5 star winner for that.

Fantastic book, true to its name which gets straight to the point, filled with very helpful tips in getting the most of your reading experience. Reading it seems is similar to driving cars! As we get better we seem to drive faster which makes us oblivious to the obstacles somehow. Reading can induce a similar habit of reading too fast, which results in less absorption of the context or and flow of the book in our hands. Personally, I am facing a very real issue of reading too fast, an acquired habit I am desperately trying to change. Hopefully this book can result in motivating this change in me which I know will not be easy.The book is also filled with other tips to improve writing skills as well as various different styles to help improve writing. Very nice and helpful book, but not entirely sure most of the tips will be that useful to the writers in Britain though.I plan to use this book as a reference for my next writing venture.

Some points are interesting in this book. I thought the intro was good, got me hooked, but the rest of the contents bored and patronized me. I struggle to see who this book was aimed at; writers, a study guide for school/college students or someone just telling me what she thought was good fiction?As stated, not all bad. Good tips now and then. But I won't be referring back to this in a hurry.

The author makes a point that you must read books slowly in order to derive the real benefit and understand the hidden meaning, which is so very important. This may be a valid point, however, it is one I found essential when reading this book, in order to be able to extract the gems from the author's guidance, which proved rather difficult to find. There are references to great classics and the author talks about each and every one of them with passion, recounting life experiences, but it feels more like a philosophical review. Nevertheless, I did find some information contained therein, some of which I knew and some I did not.