75 books every writer should read
Whether you plan to pen the next great American novel or you would just like to communicate more effectively on paper, there is a slew of reading material out there aimed at writers, and wannabe writers, looking to hone their skills. Online Universities collected 75 such books that cover everything from the basics of grammar to how to make writing a viable career.
A sampling:
The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr., and E.B.White: This book is a must-have for anyone who writes, as it has been the standard model for proper English style for decades.
Telling Lies for Fun & Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block: This book offers plenty of advice for those who want to write better and get their work published.
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O’ Conner: O’ Conner is an editor at the New York Times Book Review and gives a witty and fun take on the often boring subject of grammar in this book.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King: This is widely regarded as one of the best books for any aspiring author to read. Why? King’s book divides it’s time between being an instructional manual for writers and a richly engaging memoir that serves as a great example of how to write and write well.
Full list at Online Universities.
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Comments (4)
I'm not a great writer and I apologize if this sounds blasphemous but I've never heard of Elements of Style until I read On Writing by Stephen King. More importantly, even if I had, I wouldn't be interested in it had I not been reading On Writing.
Furthermore, I really wasn't a fan of King and at the time, I was just looking for a book he wrote that I could finish so I can at least say I read at least one of his books and understood better why his writing style appeals to people all around.
In the end, I liked the book precisely because it didn't ask of me to read more books or taught me another process of how "I" should write but instead was told from a perspective of how Stephen King thinks he should write based on his own experience and perspective and I'm not sure this is the universal agreement but for me, after I read the book, I didn't want to read another how to write book as much as I had a clearer understanding of how to write and if not that, seeing as I haven't written anything famous, a clearer motivation of why I wanted to write.
I can't speak for the other books in that list but that's the benefit of a good writing book. All you need is one and you can go on and start writing better or at the very least more inspired.
There's nothing major a 2nd edition or another book can impart except maybe publishing knowledge, grammar and the likes but for the most part there's no new "upgraded" way to write/type. Hell, just look at the popularity of Twilight, you can be "great" at writing by being bad at writing and you can still excel.
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