5 replies to this topic

[J.A.A. Purves]

I've been slowly building a bookshelf of style and reference books on writing. Besides an assortment of dictionaries and thesauruses, I've also collected so far:

The Elements of Style - by William Strunk and E.B. White
On Writing Well - by William Zinsser
Reading Like a Writer - by Francine Prose
The Writer's Art - by James J. Kilpatrick

and then, also:

Fowler's Modern English Usage - updated by R.W. Burchfield
Funk & Wagnalls Standard Handbook of Synonyms, Antonyms, and Prepositions
Modern American Usage: A Guide - by Wilson Follett
New Rhyming Dictionary and Poets Handbook - by Burges Johnson

What books have specifically encouraged you in writing? Or what books, if any, have you found essential or indispensable as tools when you write? What am I still missing?

[Joel]

Style by Joseph Williams is a good one. (I most frequently consult the APA style manual, but that's not really relevant.)

Stanley Fish's How to Write a Sentence is interesting, though I didn't finish it. I think he has some good ideas about how to teach writing.

Some more non-technical books that I've appreciated are Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, which is often mentioned but is really good, and Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write, which I read in college but have not revisited, so don't know if I'd still recommend it (it's more of a 'rah rah you can do it' book, but it was written in 1938, so it's not too self-help-y). I also really like Xiaoming Li's "Good Writing" In Cross-Cultural Context, which is a bit unusual in that it is about how expert high school writing teachers from the US and China conceive of good writing, but it's really well written and interesting.

[CherylR]

Are you interested in any specific genre? Most of my books are about writing fiction. Gotham Writers Workshop Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York's Acclaimed Creative Writing School is a good one.

[J.A.A. Purves]

CherylR, on 03 September 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

Are you interested in any specific genre? Most of my books are about writing fiction. Gotham Writers Workshop Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York's Acclaimed Creative Writing School is a good one.

Nope, not outside the general genre of your favorite or most useful books on the art of writing itself. More specific books about writing particular things like fiction or even poetry fit in this category. Thanks for the suggestion.

[CherylR]

Oh, how could I forget Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor.

Edited by CherylR, 04 September 2012 - 01:41 PM.

[Overstreet]

These have been particularly inspirational for me:

The Writing Life - Annie Dillard
Walking on Water - Madeleine L'Engle
Steering the Craft - Ursula LeGuin
The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron
Art & Fear - Ted Orland and David Bayles