Favorite Books Bookshelf, July 31, 2018

I recently was forced to move masses of books off and then later back onto their shelves for a carpet cleaning project, and it occurred to me that it might be fun for me to create a record of the books that are on my hallowed FAVORITE BOOKS BOOKSHELF at this particular moment in time. The shelf is pretty packed, so the rule is that I can’t really add a book without subtracting one. The other rule is that I have to remind myself that some of these books may not be the “best” book ever, but that it’s on this shelf because it hit me at the exact right time, or the reading experience was extraordinary in some memorable way that enhanced the book, or, well, because I don’t really care that this isn’t the “best” book ever. Also, for sure, some actually ARE the “best” ever. Usually, I have a sort of feeling as I’m reading and finishing. If I have to ask myself if a book should go on this shelf, I know it shouldn’t.

A few words to remind everyone that I’ve been around about as long as a sequoia, and I’m sure this list reflects to some extent a reader coming of age during a certain time/place. So be it. That is who I am. And this is my secret place where I separate the art from the artist and try not to worry about writers who might be dicks in real life. Additionally, I try not to put books by friends in this area, because those books get their own special shelves. And I (mostly) resist including children’s books.

I’ll also say that I have shelves of other books that I absolutely love! But usually there’s a little something extra that makes me send a book to this shelf. I’m really loathe to remove (or even reread) books that have been here for a long, long, long time…so if you’re going to question me in a deep way about why a book is here, it’s quite possible that I may not be able to answer to your satisfaction or even coherently. Suffice to say that typing each of these titles, touching each of these covers as I unshelved and reshelved did so much more than spark joy, as Marie Kondo suggests: Each book reminded me of who I was, who I am, and how I got to here.

Oh, and for those of you worried that you’re not finding The Great Gatsby here--!!—it, and The Catcher in the Rye, are in with the writing books, due to their outsize influence on me and my writing life.

Presented alphabetically here, but PLEASE don’t think I have them alphabetized on the shelf? What, you think I’m crazy?!? (Also, forgive me for being too lazy to italicize titles.)

Abbott, Lee K.: Love Is the Crooked Thing

Ansay, A. Manette: Vinegar Hill

Austen, Jane: Pride & Prejudice

Baker, Nicholson: The Mezzanine

Black, Robin: If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This

Bodsworth, Fred: Last of the Curlews

Boswell, Tom: Why Time Begins on Opening Day

Bronson, Po: Bombardiers

Campbell, Bonnie Jo: Mother, Tell Your Daughters

Canin, Ethan: The Palace Thief

Capote, Truman: Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Cather, Willa: My Antonia

Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness

Didion, Joan: Play It as It Lays

Doerr, Harriet: Stones for Ibarra

Downham, Jenny: Before I Die

Eliot, T.S.: Collected Poems

Ellis, Bret Easton: Less Than Zero

Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides

Ferris, Joshua: Then We Came to the End

Fitzgerald, F. Scott: The Pat Hobby Stories

Ford, Richard: Independence Day

Frazier, Ian: The Great Plains

Fried, Seth: “Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre,” One Story magazine

Gilchrist, Ellen: Victory Over Japan

Hamper, Ben: Rivethead

Hemingway, Ernest: A Moveable Feast

Hemingway, Ernest: In Our Time

Hemingway, Ernest: The Sun Also Rises

Hemingway, Ernest: Winner Take Nothing

Hempel, Amy: Reasons to Live

Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day

Jong, Erica: Fear of Flying

Krakauer, Jon: Into Thin Air

LaChapelle, Mary: House of Heroes

LeCarre, John: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird

Lowell, Susan: Ganado Red

MacLean, Norma: A River Runs through It

McCarthy, Cormac: All the Pretty Horses

McEwan, Ian: Atonement

McInerney, Jay: Bright Lights, Big City

McKinght, Reginald: The Kind of Light That Shines on Texas

Melville, Herman: Moby-Dick

Minot, Susan: Monkeys

O’Connor, Flannery: The Complete Stories

Plimpton, George: Open Net

Porter, Katherine Anne: Pale Horse, Pale Rider

Richard, Mark: The Ice at the Bottom of the World

Salinger, J.D.: Nine Stories

Shipstead, Maggie: “Astonish Me,” One Story magazine

Shriver, Lionel: We Need to Talk about Kevin

Simpson, Eileen: Poets in their Youth

Smith, Patti: Just Kids

Stafford, Jean: The Mountain Lion

Strand, Mark: The Continuous Life

Swarthout, Glendon: The Homesman

Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Karenina

Townsend, Sue: The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole

Townsend, Sue: The Secret Life of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾

Updike, John: Pigeon Feathers

Wakefield, Dan: New York in the 50s

White, E.B.: Stuart Little

Whitman, Walt: Leaves of Grass

Wolfe, Tom: The Bonfire of the Vanities

Woodrell, Daniel: Winter’s Bone

Yates, Richard: Eleven Kinds of Loneliness

SILVER GIRL Available at a Stock-Up Price of $9!

Passing along this information from my wonderful publisher, Unnamed Press:

Hunting Party by Agnès Desarthe and Tacky Goblin by T. Sean Steele are both officially out today, which marks 50 books here at Unnamed Press!

To celebrate, we're offering a 50% discount on our website for the next 5 days. Experience the books that made us, and take a chance on something new.

When we think about all of the years of work (from writing to editing to production and publicity) that went into each of our 50 titles and the wonderful authors who made them, it's almost hard to believe. We're going to enjoy this for a little while.

Have a look at our website, where the discount is in full effect, and most books are around $8 each. (INCLUDING SILVER GIRL!!!!!!!!)

Best Writing Books Ever...according to this writer!

Here are my favorite craft books on writing (in random order). Each came along to me at exactly the right time, and most are either highlighted the hell out of or stickied up. If you’re new to writing and even this curated list feels daunting, I’ll follow with a few quick thoughts on what I think each book is best for. (NOTES: These are not resources for how to publish. Also, because I mostly writing fiction, these skew that way.)

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

The Art of Fiction by John Gardner 

On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

How Fiction Works by James Wood

Building Fiction by Jesse Lee Kercheval

Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir by Beth Kephart

On Writing:  A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Negotiating with the Dead by Margaret Atwood

Vivid and Continuous by John McNally

The Promise of Failure by John McNally

The Half-Known World by Robert Boswell

Thrill Me by Benjamin Percy

Memoir Your Way: Tell Your Story through Writing, Recipes, Quilts, Graphic Novels & More

Crash Course: 52 Essays from Where Writing and Life Collide by Robin Black

The Write Crowd: Literary Citizenship & the Writing Life by Lori A. May

Naming the World edited by Bret Anthony Johnston [writing exercises]

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Bird by Bird is like a funny, generous friend who says smart things and assures you it will all be all right. This is a good first writing book.

On Writing is also a good first writing book. There’s a memoir in the beginning about King’s horrific accident/recovery that feels tempting to skip, but I suggest reading it. Also, don’t listen to him when he says a novel draft should be completed in (I think) six months. I mean, REALLY??

John Gardner’s books are the one that will have to be pried out of my cold, dead hands. Everything I am comes from those books. BUT—I find that my low-res students at Converse often don’t like his “dictatorial” writing style which distresses me. I like his authority and confidence (and less so the focus on the male writer…a product of the time, alas).

Prose and Wood are great for learning how to close-read, and I’d say that some knowledge of Chekhov and other “ancient” masterpieces will be helpful. (Of course such knowledge is helpful anyway.)

You can find a very structural, “how to” approach in Building Fiction. Thrill Me is also helpful in approaching concrete topics. I like Vivid and Continuous because the topics addressed move beyond the “traditional” craft books, staking out new territory.

If you’re feeling lost and uncertain about yourself as a writer, I suggest The Promise of Failure. Also Crash Course, which intersperses writing tips with thoughts on managing your overall writing life.

And managing and shaping your writing life in a big-picture way is what The Write Crowd is all about.

Memoir Your Way offers creative approaches to sharing your life story.

Margaret Atwood is a brilliant thinker. The last essay in this book is something I refer to again and again; it’s not exaggerating that reading and rereading it informs my writing at its very core.

You can’t have a better guide leading you into CNF than the smart and generous Beth Kephart in Handling the Truth.

The Half-Known World is like listening to a series of intelligent and interesting craft lectures, which is what these chapters originally were (delivered at Warren Wilson).

Finally, Naming the World is the best of many prompt writing books/guides I’ve consulted. If I can only choose one, this is the one I’m snatching up.

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Let me add that I know there are million more excellent books on writing—and that I own maybe a half-million of those. This is just my winnowed-down, whittled list…the life-changing list that I can’t live without, the list that if you were my student, there’d be some point where I’d exclaim something like, “I know exactly which book you need to read,” and I’m 99 percent sure would be one of these. 

Happy reading, and, more importantly, happy writing!