I need to slow down. I am halfway to my New Year’s resolution to read 100 books this year.
Like most of us, I dreamed of being a better person, when I made my New Year’s resolution. I saw a hero’s journey open before me, a new adventure. Like most of us, I got sidetracked. Now, I’m on the path to a Pyrrhic victory instead of the hero’s elixir.
The more business / self-improvement books I read, the faster I read. Too fast. Some of these I regret reading; I am checking a box. For all of these I can get the point from PowerPoints, online reviews, and YouTube videos. I’m not reading these books for their prose styling. I’m not enjoying or improving. I will make a mid-years’ resolution: no more business / self-improvement books.
Instead, I will read more short stories, essays, and poems. Someone else’s PowerPoint cannot present my experience of these texts.
I posted what I learned from my first twenty books, my next thirty taught me to slow down and read better writing.
The Best
It hasn’t been all bad, these were the best of books 21–50, the ones that changed my life or at least how I look at it.
Several Short Sentences About Writing — Verlyn Klinkenborg
Klinkenborg’s stark sentences prescribe simple and direct writing. Stunk & White, Zinsser, and Hemingway have given a similar prescriptions, but Klinkenborg’s sentences changed my whole approach to writing.
I learned that each sentence does three things:
1) Says something
2) Does not say something
3) Implies something
Great writers focus as much on 3 & 2 as on 1. Much of what is taught in school is bunk. Forget about transition words: for example, however, moreover. Forget about transition sentences. Forget about sentences that summarize paragraphs. Do not hold back the best until the end. Trust the reader.
Forget about all the things reportedly needed to write. Forget about flow. Forget about passion. Learn to write at any time and place. Write better by writing, one sentence at a time. Visualize each sentence. Revise. Keep it simple. Simple sentences are easier to revise and make rhythm with. Write long sentences after mastering short sentences. Vary lengths and leave space for the reader to fill in the blanks. Trust the reader. When the reader fills in the blanks that’s when writing engages. What matters is how the reader feels.
Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott
The classic how-to book, Bird by Bird focuses on small assignments, breaking things down to easy 500 or 1000 word portions — writing the story bird by bird. Lamott’s passion for teaching shines.
Stuck, blocked? Write down everything from your childhood — Christmases, graduations, school lunches, first days, first times. Start writing crappy first drafts without restraint. Remember each character has an acre, tend to it. Characters make the story. Life is not a submarine, there are no plans, stop plotting. Listen to a real person’s five minute speech, reduce it to one sentence. Dialogue is the way to nail character.
Creative work is done in the subconscious. Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. Tell the truth and write about freedom. Writing is about hypnotizing fiction into belief. Use index cards. Read I go back to May 1937 by Sharon Olds.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Her first sentence called me to read the whole novel. The New York section, that queer sultry summer, outshines the Boston section, that summer fall into depression. Esther meets memorable characters in New York and her personal electrocution ceremony brings the section’s climax back to the Rosenbergs. In the Boston section, Esther becomes a less reliable narrator and boarders on melodrama.
A Confederacy of Dunces — John Kennedy Toole
Ignatius Reilly belongs in character hall of fame next to Holden Caulfield and Hans Schneider. But Ignatius is not the only clown, New Orleans is a city-state of dunces. And Toole doesn’t have Ignatius narrate in the first person like Holden or Hans. Mixing third person perspectives and nailing dialogue, allows Toole to get all the character building benefits of the first person and to shift perspectives between characters that only third person can do. The non-Ignatius scenes allow Toole to develop a multi threaded story.
Toole’s work scenes reminded me of Office Space and The Office. Being ostensibly about nothing reminded me of Sienfield. Some of Toole’s comedy lampoons outdated social mores, which were on the way out at the time of his writing. I had some genuine lol moments reading this.
The Drifter By Christine Lennon
This debut novel starts with serial-murderer at University of Florida, then goes into the long fall out for an ex-sorority girl. The girl moves to New York and tires get on, but there is an eerie innuendo that hangs around until the final resolution. The novel captures cultural change from the happy-big-hair-arena rock eighties to the grungy-dark-Nirvana of the nineties.
The Most of Nora Ephron by Nora Ephron
I haven’t seen When Harry Met Sally, but I’ll have what she’s having. This collection stretches across Ephron’s career as a journalist, screenwriter, short story writer, and blogger. Her essay on revision and her life story in 3500 words help understand the writing craft.
How she writes is as interesting as what she writes. She starts with the first paragraph then keep retyping until she builds up a enough steam to transition to the next paragraph and and so on. A six page essay may require 300–400 pages of papers. In using all this paper, she found her own voice, which is personable and funny.
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
A classic collection of her essays. See my full write up here.
Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
The best self improvement book I’ve read in a long time. If only following it was as easy as it is to read. Our ego gets in our way all the time: before we start something, when have mastered something, and when we fail at something. Holiday gives his own personal experience and famous failures of ego maniacs. He includes strategies on how to master your ego.
Essentialism: The Discipline Pursuit of Less by Greg McKown
Another book I’d love to follow, but struggle to do so. Managing your energy is more important than time. Focus on the task or two that bring your the biggest return and require the most of your energy. Say no.
Loneliness by John Cacioppo
Loneliness drives our sociability and fining those quality interpersonal connections defines us. Loneliness makes us sick and dead. It can even change our DNA. Cacipioppo presents his findings then gives a few tools to use to be more social.
Flaneuse: Women Walk the City by Lauren Elkin
Part personal memoir, part literary history and travel journal, Elkin takes us through the cities haunted by the best female writers like Wolfe and Sands. I want to visit London and Paris after reading this. She had me at the suburbs suck.
The Rest
Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel This story proves that truth is stranger than fiction. See my full write up here.
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.
The Right Word at The Right Time by William Safire
The Writers Journey: A mythic guide for writers by Christopher Vogler
The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty
The Red and The Black by Stendhal
The Signature of All Things By Elizabeth Gilbert
The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks
The Futures by Anna Pitoniak See my full write up.
Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott
Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton. This is my favorite Merton book.
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
New Buffettolgoy by Mary Buffet
Gratitude by Oliver Sachs
Waking up Spiritually by Sam Harris. Why did I read this?
The Next
Goodreads charts my progress. Medium provides me platform for reflection. Twitter gives me instant updates. I have William Zinsser’s On Writing Well and two short story collections waiting for me to pick up at the New York Public Library.
For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth, Anne Lamott writes, books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.
