Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and Want to Write Them

Bestselling and aptly-named author Francine Prose takes her readers on a guided tour of the tools and tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. Written with passion and humour, this book will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart. Take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; look at John Le Carre for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail; be inspired by Emily Brontë's structural nuances and Charles Dickens's deceptively simple narrative techniques. An inspiring book which reminds us that good writing comes out of good reading.