A close-reading guide for writers and readers that works word by word, sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph through passages from classic and contemporary fiction to show how great prose actually functions, drawing constantly on named authors from Chekhov to Nabokov.
Books mentioned in Reading Like a Writer (61)
The Dead by James Joyce: “Among the most well known cadenced sentences are those that end James Joyce's "The Dead."”
First Love by Samuel Beckett: “Alternately, we can read Samuel Beckett's "First Love," in which we learn almost no physical details about the narrator.”
On Being Ill by Virginia Woolf: “Finally, let's look at one of the most complex and virtuosic sentences in all of literature, which appears at the opening of Virginia Woolf's "On Being Ill."”
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer: “If a character's going to light a cigarette, or almost light a cigarette, it should mean something, as it does in this scene from ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.”
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White: “For help with this specialized etiquette, I'd recommend a grammar manual such as Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.”
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor: “The opening pages of Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood shift perspective every few sentences.”
Angels by Denis Johnson: “The initial paragraphs of another first novel, Denis Johnson's Angels, also convey a series of subtle shifts.”
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger: “In Salinger's Franny and Zooey, Bessie Glass's bathrobe not only describes her personality and her entire way of life.”
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: “Nor are we entirely persuaded that, in Nabokov's Lolita, Humbert Humbert is transcribing verbatim the speech of Miss Pratt.”
Pamela by Samuel Richardson: “Such works are actually closer to the epistolary form in which a number of the very earliest novels, such as Samuel Richardson's Pamela, were written.”
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert: “Something similar happens in the first chapter of Gustave Flaubert's Sentimental Education.”
The Recognitions by William Gaddis: “the wild party that winds through so many pages of William Gaddis's The Recognitions.”
The Red and the Black by Stendhal: “Like many of Balzac's provincial novels, Stendhal's The Red and the Black begins by introducing the reader to the topography of the town.”
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: “Finally, before we leave the subject of sentences, let's return once more to Hemingway, and to the passage from his memoir.”
Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville: “In Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener," nearly all of Bartleby's demurrals and refusals are given separate paragraphs.”
Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor: “consider the detail of Julian's mother's hat in Flannery O'Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge.”
Big Sur by Jack Kerouac: “The story was told to me by a friend whose life in art mostly involved telling versions of his true life story... discussion follows a passage compared with Kerouac's Big Sur.”
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo: “Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC; Juan Rulfo, Pedro Paramo, discussed in the text as an example of narration.”
Bleak House by Charles Dickens: “discussed among examples of writers who convince readers of the realities of landscape and nature in their fiction.”
Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac: “The first paragraphs of Balzac's Cousin Bette function, to extend the cinematic metaphor, as a succession of tracking shots.”
Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy: “observe how much is conveyed by the moment in Tolstoy's Resurrection when a society woman, conscious that she is aging, reflects.”
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen: “This paragraph from Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections begins in what appears to be an omniscient third person.”
The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy: “Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych works its terrifying magic by bringing us in steadily closer to its protagonist.”
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien: “The haunting, dirgelike force of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is created by the repetition of the words necessity, carried.”
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: “Having read the ballroom scene in Anna Karenina, or the wild party that winds through so many pages of William Gaddis's The Recognitions.”
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “In the second chapter of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov enters the tavern in which he first meets Marmeladov.”
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert: “Madame Bovary begins from the perspective of a classmate of Emma Bovary's future husband, a narrator who is never heard from again.”
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol: “a lengthy roll call of eccentrics and oddballs (a man who loses his nose only to see it walking toward him down the street) discussed with reference to Gogol's Dead Souls.”
On Love by Stendhal: “regarded as a bore, what are the chances that a group of gentlemen will gather before a fire to exchange the detailed histories of their love affairs, as they do in Stendhal's On Love.”
The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez: “Reading García Márquez, you can almost feel him struggling against the desire to construct the endless paragraph, discussed with reference to The Autumn of the Patriarch.”
The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: “it seems far less likely that one passenger would tell another (as happens in Tolstoy's "The Kreutzer Sonata").”
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: “Something similar occurs in The Turn of the Screw, another psychological thriller whose readers need all the help they can get.”
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: “But why should I have cared how anyone else was writing, or living, when I had Wuthering Heights as a model of how to write and of how to live.”
A Perfect Spy by John le Carré: “John Le Carré's A Perfect Spy begins: In the small hours of a blustery October morning in a south Devon coastal town.”
American Pastoral by Philip Roth: “This paragraph from American Pastoral encapsulates the meditation that lies at the center of the book.”
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: “I read more widely, more indiscriminately, and mostly with an interest in how far a book could take me from my life, discussing childhood reading of Gone With the Wind.”
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: “I liked novels with plucky heroines like Pippi Longstocking, the astringent Jane Eyre, and the daughters in Little Women.”
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez: “I remember how long it took me to get through the last hundred pages of Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera.”
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez: “The first paragraph of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude goes on for a page and a half.”
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren: “I liked novels with plucky heroines like Pippi Longstocking, the astringent Jane Eyre, and the daughters in Little Women.”
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates: “Here, in the opening paragraph of Revolutionary Road, he warns us that the amateur theatrical performance in the novel's first chapter will end badly.”
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: “So, in Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen speedily and almost offhandedly dispatches Mr. Dashwood.”
The Enormous Room by E. E. Cummings: “Gertrude Stein who had been much impressed by The Enormous Room said that Cummings did not copy, he was the natural heir of the New England tradition.”
The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: “The tale concerns a linguist known only as "the Professor," who travels into the North African desert in search of exotic languages.”
A Ship Made of Paper by Scott Spencer: “An equivalent amount of meaning is packed into every line of the following two scenes from Scott Spencer's A Ship Made of Paper.”
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead: “there are several notable literary examples of people ranting to children, most notably, in Harold Brodkey's story "S.L." and Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children.”
Hope Against Hope by Nadezhda Mandelstam: “In her memoir, Hope Against Hope, Nadezhda Mandelstam describes how her husband, Osip, and his friend and fellow poet, Anna Akhmatova.”
The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen: “Henrietta, the little girl in Elizabeth Bowen's The House in Paris, carries a stuffed toy monkey.”
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville: “details of landscape and nature (the facts of marine and whale biology in Moby Dick) discussed among examples of authenticating detail.”
The Earthquake in Chile by Heinrich von Kleist: “let's look at the opening of Heinrich von Kleist's story "The Earthquake in Chile": In Santiago, the capital of the kingdom of Chile.”
Access to the Children by William Trevor: “At the opening of William Trevor's story "Access to the Children," its protagonist, Malcolmson, arrives at an apartment house.”
Goodbye, My Brother by John Cheever: “a cross between an incantation, a lamentation, and the sort of sermon... appears at the end of John Cheever's "Goodbye, My Brother."”
We Didn't by Stuart Dybek: “Stuart Dybek's "We Didn't" is written in the first-person plural: the "we" of its subject is the narrator and his first true love.”
Edison, New Jersey by Junot Díaz: “the anxious hesitation of the customers in Junot Diaz's story "Edison, New Jersey," which concerns some boys who work delivering card and pool tables.”
Le Divorce by Diane Johnson: “Phillip Carver, in turn, could hardly sound more unlike Isabel Walker, the plucky, intelligent, simultaneously astute and innocent narrator of Diane Johnson's Le Divorce.”
The Daughters of the Late Colonel by Katherine Mansfield: “Such is the case with the opening of Katherine Mansfield's "The Daughters of the Late Colonel": The week after was one of the busiest weeks of their lives.”
My First Goose by Isaac Babel: “Something similar occurs in the opening of "My First Goose," though here the faint notes of discord and unease begin from the very first sentence.”
The Marquise of O by Heinrich von Kleist: “Martin Greenberg (translator) and Thomas Mann (preface), The Marquise of O—and Other Stories, listed among the recommended books.”
A Distant Episode by Paul Bowles: “I always feel a little guilty asking students to read Bowles's "A Distant Episode," the literary equivalent of a kick in the head.”
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney: “perhaps partly thanks to the success of Jay McInerney's novel Bright Lights, Big City, there was a brief vogue for writing in the second person.”
In the Ravine by Anton Chekhov: “And it was about this same time that I first read "In the Ravine," in which we don't realize that the peasant girl Lipa is our heroine until almost halfway through.”