I have been an avid reader since childhood. Every Saturday I would borrow the maximum allowed six books from the Waterloo Public Library. By Wednesday, the books were read. At the age of 11, I had reached a point of despair: I had read all the books there were to read—in the children’s department. My mother ushered me through that crisis by introducing me to the adult section of the library and, consequently, to a vast new world of reading. It has been smooth sailing ever since. There is always something to read or re-read.
I know I am a great reader, but I would like to be a great writer too. Sadly though, writing is hard work. It takes discipline and perseverance. How do writers do it? That is why I started reading about writing. Maybe books about writing would help me write better? Although that hasn’t been the case so far, books about writing are fun to read and they do enhance my appreciation of great writing.
Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is a must-read for anyone interested in trying to write. He tells the story of how he became a writer while also advising aspiring writers in typical King verbiage, such as “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
A good handle on grammar helps minimize confusion for the reader. Most of us have hazy memories of learning grammar; but, I loved parsing sentences, one line under the subject, two lines under the verb; arrows connecting adjectives to nouns, adverbs to verbs, and a thick vertical line separating the subject and the predicate. Grammar lover or not, everyone can enjoy Lynne Truss’ best-seller, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, which offers a funny, witty primer on grammar.
One of my favourite books about writing is Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence. Reading and re-reading this wonderful book provides a key to understanding how great writing works, as well as paying tribute to the craft of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Henry James, Martin Luther King Jr. and Elmore Leonard. Like those who appreciate fine art or fine wine, Fish appreciates fine sentences.
And then there are books about writing and about life along the way. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott is a funny, helpful and provocative guide for anyone with writing ambitions. Lamott talks about the perils of perfectionism and how to know when you’re done. The title comes from her father’s advice to her 10-year-old brother who was struggling to write a school report about birds: “Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
And that’s just good advice to live by.
Reading list
Reading about writing has prompted me to write more frequently and to write perhaps a little better. While I continue to work at my own memoir, I highly recommend reading these titles for inspiration:
- I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron
- The Moveable Feast by Anne Patchett
- Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
- Truth and Beauty by Anne Patchett
- Why Be Happy When you can be Norma by Jeanette Winterson
- A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin
- Tender to the Bone by Ruth Reich
- A Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
- Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
- Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Dianne Wing helmed various titles as Publisher with St. Joseph Communications for 20 years.