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07/09/13 02:389 Essential Books on Reading and Writing | Brain Pickings
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9 Books on Reading and Writingby Maria Popova
Dancing with the absurdity of life, or what symbolismhas to do with the osmosis of trash and treasure.
Hardly anything does ones mental, spiritual, and
creative health more good than resolving to read more
and write better. Todays reading list addresses these
parallel aspirations. And since the number of books
written about reading and writing likely far exceeds the
reading capacity of a single human lifetime, this
omnibus couldnt be shouldnt be an exhaustive list.
It is, instead, a collection of timeless texts bound to
radically improve your relationship with the written
word, from whichever side of the equation you approach it.
THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE
If anyone can make grammar fun, its
Maira Kalman The Elements of StyleIllustrated marries Kalmans signature
whimsy with Strunk and Whites indispensable style
guide to create an instant classic.
The original Elements of Style was published in 1919
in-house at Cornell University for teaching use and
reprinted in 1959 to become cultural canon, and
Kalmans inimitable version is one of our 10 favorite
masterpieces of graphic nonfiction.
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labors of love
On a related unmissable note, let the Elements of Style Rap make your day.
BIRD BY BIRD
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must-reads
Anne Lamott might be best known as a nonfiction
writer, but Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writingand Life affirms her as a formidable modernphilosopher as well. The 1994 classic is as much a
practical guide to the writers life as it is a profound
wisdom-trove on the life of the heart and mind, with
insight on everything from overcoming self-doubt to
navigating the osmotic balance of intuition and
rationality.
On the itch of writing, Lamott banters:
We are a species that needs andwants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem toshare this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.But we do. We have so much we want to say and figure out.
And on the grit that commits mind to paper, she counsels:
You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story.You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, topreserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to makereal or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this tohappen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work.So you might as well just go ahead and get started.
On why we read and write:
Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. Theydeepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed thesoul. When writers make us shake our heads with theexactness of their prose and their truths, and even make uslaugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. Weare given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping alongwith, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it overand over again. Its like singing on a boat during a terriblestorm at sea. You cant stop the raging storm, but singing canchange the hearts and spirits of the people who are togetheron that ship.
ON WRITING
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HOW TO FIND YOUR PURPOSE AND DOWHAT YOU LOVE
FAIL SAFE: COURAGE AND THE CREATIVELIFE
FAMOUS WRITERS ON WRITING
HOW TO STAY SANE
CULTURAL ICONS ON THE MEANING OF LIFE
Hailed as one of the most successful writers alive,
Stephen King has hundreds of books under his belt,
most of which bestsellers. On Writing: A Memoir ofthe Craft is part master-blueprint, part memoir,part meditation on the writers life, filtered through
the lens of his near-fatal car crash and the newfound
understanding of living it precipitated.
Though some have voiced skepticism regarding the
capacity of a popular writer to be taken seriously
as an oracle of good writing, Roger Ebert put it
best: After finding that his book On Writing had
more useful and observant things to say about the
craft than any book since Strunk and Whites The Elements of Style, I have gotten
over my own snobbery.
A few favorites from the book follow.
On open-endedness:
Description begins in the writers imagination, but should finishin the readers.
On feedback:
Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.
On the lifeblood of writing:
It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every timeyou sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isnt in themiddle of the room. Life isnt a support system for art. Its theother way around.
On the relationship between reading and writing, which I wholeheartedly
second:
Can I be blunt on this subject? If you dont have time to read,you dont have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.
ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING
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ALBERT EINSTEIN ON THE SECRET TOLEARNING ANYTHING
THE BEST BOOKS OF 2012
THE DAILY ROUTINES OF FAMOUSWRITERS
5 ESSENTIAL BOOKS ON FEAR AND THECREATIVE PROCESS
10 TIPS ON WRITING FROM DAVID OGILVY
In Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the CreativeGenius Within You, Ray Bradbury acclaimedauthor, dystopian novelist, hater of symbolism
shares not only his wisdom and experience in
writing, but also his contagious excitement for the
craft. Blending practical how-tos on everything
from finding your voice to negotiating with editors
with snippets and glimpses of the authors own
career, the book is at once a manual and a
manifesto, imbued with equal parts insight and
enthusiasm.
On the key to creativity (cue in Elizabeth Gilberts
TED talk):
Thats the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats:you make them follow you.
On what to read:
In your reading, find books to improve your color sense, yoursense of shape and size in the world.
On art and truth:
We have our Arts so we wont die of Truth.
On signal and noise, with an embedded message that you are a mashup of what
you let into your life:
Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is intreasures.
THE WAR OF ART
Steven Pressfield is a prolific
champion of the creative process,
with all its trials and tribulations,
best-known for The War of Art: Break Through theBlocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles apersonal defense system of sorts against our
greatest forms of resistance. Resistance with a
capital R, that is.
Are you paralyzed with fear? Thats a good sign. Fear is good.Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have
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9 BOOKS TO HELP YOU READ MORE ANDWRITE BETTER
JOHN CLEESE ON THE 5 FACTORS TOMAKE YOUR LIFE MORE CREATIVE
JOAN DIDION ON KEEPING A NOTEBOOK
100 IDEAS THAT CHANGED GRAPHICDESIGN
7 MUST-READ BOOKS ON THE ART &SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS
to do. Remember our rule of thumb:The more scared we are of a workor calling, the more sure we can bethat we have to do it.
Resistance is experienced as fear;the degree of fear equates thestrength of Resistance. Therefore,the more fear we feel about aspecific enterprise, the more certainwe can be that that enterprise isimportant to us and to the growthof our soul.
Also of note: Pressfields recent companion guide to the text, Do The Work, one
of our 5 favorite manifestos for the creative life.
ADVICE TO WRITERS
Advice to Writers is a compendiumof quotes, anecdotes, and writerly
wisdom from a dazzling array of
literary lights, originally published in 1999. From
how to find a good agent to what makes characters
compelling, it spans the entire spectrum of the
aspirational and the utilitarian, covering grammar,
genres, material, money, plot, plagiarism, and, of
course, encouragement.
Here are a few favorites:
Finish each day before you begin thenext, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. Thisyou cannot do without temperance. ~ Ralph WaldoEmerson
Dont ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd comingout. ~ Charles Bukowski
Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry. ~ MurielRukeyser
Begin with an individual and you find that you have created atype; begin with a type and you find that you have created nothing. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
You never have to change anything you got up in the middle
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RICHARD DAWKINS ON EVIDENCE INSCIENCE, LIFE AND LOVE: A LETTER TOHIS 10-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER
CREATIVE CARTOGRAPHY: 7 MUST-READBOOKS ON MAPS
CARL SAGAN ON SCIENCE ANDSPIRITUALITY
JOHN STEINBECK ON FALLING IN LOVE: A1958 LETTER
7 OBSCURE CHILDRENS BOOKS BYFAMOUS AUTHORS OF ADULT LITERATURE
of the night to write. ~ Saul Bellow
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. ~ T. S. Eliot
Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie. ~Stephen King
Good fiction is made of what is real, and reality is difficult tocome by. ~ Ralph Ellison
Listen, then make up your own mind. ~ Gay Talese
Find a subject you care about and which you in your heartfeel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, notyour games with language, which will be the most compellingand seductive element in your style. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Write without pay until somebody offers pay; if nobody offerswithin three years, sawing wood is what you were intendedfor. ~ Mark Twain
Originally featured, with more quotes, last December.
HOW TO WRITE A SENTENCE
Humbly titled yet incredibly
ambitious, How to Write a Sentence:And How to Read One by Stanley
Fish isnt merely a prescriptive guide to the craft ofwriting its also a rich and layered exploration of
language as an evolving cultural organism. It
belongs not on the shelf of your home library but in
your brains most deep-seated amphibian
sensemaking underbelly an insightful, rigorous
manual on the art of language that may just be one
of the best such tools since The Elements of Style.
In fact, Fish offers an intelligent rebuttal of some of
the cultish mandates of Strunk and Whites bible, most notably the blind
insistence on brevity and sentence minimalism. To argue his case, he picks apart
some of historys most powerful sentences, from Shakespeare to Dickens to
Lewis Carroll, using a kind of literary forensics to excavate the essence of
beautiful language. As Adam Haslett eloquently observes in his excellent FT
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WHY WE LOVE: 5 BOOKS ON THEPSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE
7 MUST-READ BOOKS ON MUSIC,EMOTION & THE BRAIN
BERTRAND RUSSELL'S 10COMMANDMENTS OF TEACHING
5 TIMELESS COMMENCEMENT SPEECHESTO TEACH YOU TO DEFINE YOUR OWNSUCCESS
explore
activism advertising
animation artbooks children'sbooks collaborationcreativity
review:
[Pared-down prose] is a real loss, not because we necessarilyneed more Jamesian novels but because too often theinstruction to omit needless words (Rule 17) leads youngwriters to be cautious and dull; minimalist style becomesminimalist thought, and that is a problem.
To dissect the Tetris-like quality of words, Fish examines the following Anthony
Burgess sentence from his 1968 novel Enderby Outside:
And the words slide into the slots ordained by syntax, and glitteras with atmospheric dust with those impurities which we callmeaning.
Before the words slide into their slots, they are just discreteitems, pointing everywhere and nowhere. Once the words arenested in the places ordained for them ordained is awonderful word that points to the inexorable logic of syntacticstructures they are tied by ligatures of relationships to oneanother. They are subjects or objects or actions ordescriptives or indications of manner, and as such theycombine into a statement about the world, that is, into ameaning that one can contemplate, admire, reject, or refine.
Originally featured here last January.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY ON WRITING
Ernest Hemingway famously
maintained that it was bad luck to
talk about writing. Yet, over the
course of his career, he frequently wrote about
writing in his novels and short stories, his letters to
editors, friends, critics, and lovers, in interviews,
and even in articles specifically commissioned on
the subject. In Ernest Hemingway on Writing, editorLarry W. Phillips culls the finest, wittiest, mostprofound of Hemingways reflections on writing,
the nature of the writer, and the elements of the
writers life. The slender volume packs insights on
everything from work habits to mood management
to discipline to knowing what to leave out, delivered with Hemingways
unmistakable personality and his signature zeal for integrity.
On what makes a great book:
All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they hadreally happened and after you are finished reading one you willfeel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs
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culture datavisualization designdiaries documentaryeducation film foodhappiness historyillustrationinnovation interviewknowledge lettersliterature love musicneuroscience omnibusphilosophyphotography poetrypoliticspsychology remixscience social webSoundCloud sustainabilitytechnology TEDvideo vintage vintagechildren's books world writing
to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse andsorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. Ifyou can get so that you can give that to people, then you area writer.
On symbolism:
There isnt any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The oldman is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. Thesharks are all sharks no better and no worse. All thesymbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is whatyou see beyond when you know.
(Cue in other famous writers on symbolism, from Jack Kerouac to Ray Bradbury
to Ayn Rand.)
On the qualities of a writer:
All my life Ive looked at words as though I were seeing themfor the first time.
First, there must be talent, much talent. Talent such as Kiplinghad. Then there must be discipline. The discipline of Flaubert.Then there must be the conception of what it can be and anabsolute conscience as unchanging as the standard meter inParis, to prevent faking. Then the writer must be intelligentand disinterested and above all he must survive. Try to get allthese things in one person and have him come through all theinfluences that press on a writer. The hardest thing, becausetime is so short, is for him to survive and get his work done.
The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in,shockproof shit detector. This is the writers radar and all greatwriters have had it.
HOW TO READ A BOOK
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How to Read a Book, originally written byMortimer Adler in 1940 and revised with Charles
van Doren in 1972, is the kind of book often
described as a living classic classic because
it deals with the fundamental and unchanging
mesmerism of the written word, and living
because it does so in a way that divorces this
mesmerism from its hard medium, allowing the
essence to evolve as our culture has evolved over
the decades. From basic reading to systematic
skimming and inspectional reading to speed
reading, Adlers how-tos apply as efficiently to
practical textbooks and science books as they do
to poetry and fiction.
One of the books finest points deals with the fundamental yin-yang of how ideas
travel and permeate minds the intertwined acts of reading and writing.
Marginalia those fragments of thought and seeds of insight we scribble in the
margins of a book have a social life all their own: just ask The New York Times
Sam Anderson, who recently shared his years worth of marginalia in a
wonderful interactive feature. Hardly anything captures both the utilitarian
necessity and creative allure of marginalia better than this excerpt from Adlers
classic:
When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it, justas you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay forthem. But the act of purchase is actually only the prelude topossession in the case of a book. Full ownership of a bookonly comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and thebest way to make yourself a part of it which comes to thesame thing is by writing in it.
Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, itkeeps you awake not merely conscious, but wide awake.Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tendsto express itself in words, spoken or written. The person whosays he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usuallydoes not know what he thinks. Third, writing your reactionsdown helps you to remember the thoughts of the author.
Reading a book should be a conversation between you andthe author. Presumably he knows more about the subjectthan you do; if not, you probably should not be bothering withhis book. But understanding is a two-way operation; thelearner has to question himself and question the teacher, oncehe understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book isliterally an expression of your differences or your agreementswith the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.
First featured here, along with a meditation on modern marginalia, in
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