Reading Like a Writer
A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
HarperCollins · Print & ebook · April 10, 2007
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?
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- Who it’s for
- Francine Prose makes attention to words feel like both a reader’s pleasure and a writer’s education.
- Themes
- Literary craft, Learning to write through reading, Close attention to language
- Pacing
- Reflective
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Start with this bookAbout this book
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.
Continue reading
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.
Reading Closely
Francine Prose makes attention to words feel like both a reader’s pleasure and a writer’s education.
Come here for
- A guided look at how celebrated writers use literary tools and tricks
- Fresh reasons to return to Austen, Kafka, Woolf, and others
Expect
- A call to slow down and notice words
- Passion, humor, and wisdom in a close-reading guide
Where it sits
| Books & Reading | 41% |
|---|---|
| Fiction Writing | 38% |
| Essay Collections | 22% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Writing as a Career
- Writing Nonfiction & Memoir
- Poetry Writing
- Linguistics
Show all 8 publisher categories
- Reading Skills
- Rhetoric
- American Literary Collections
- Essay Collections
- Authors
- Francine Prose
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Published
- April 10, 2007
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Literary craft · Learning to write through reading · Close attention to language
- Reading lane
- Writing as a Career