I got this to help me through NaNoWriMo and I am glad to say that it was helpful and fun. I had many post-it notes covering this book and it was an essential read during November to boost spirits or for exercises to boost word count.

THE NEW WRITER’S HANDBOOK 2007 is the start of a yearly series of volumes to help the novice writer. There are plenty of essays on how to write, how to revise, how to find an agent, how to get published, and what to do after you get published. Contributors include Barry Lopez, Richard Powers, Jane Yolen, Ridley Pearson, and William G. Tapply among others. And I really liked the introduction to this volume written by the irrepressible Erica Jong. It begins with a quote from George Orwell: “All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing unless driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” Orwell nails it.

After just posting Prose’s Primitive People I realized I never posted Reading Like a Writer, which I suppose I read last fall, just about a year ago (very shortly after it came out).

The book is a tour of how one writer (Prose–it is often quite autobiographical and personal) reads, for education, inspiration, and pleasure. By using a variety of examples she redefines the standard creative-writing vocabulary through works of the past. Moves on to discuss her own relationship with Chekhov’s work and finally provides a list of books that she believes anyone who wants to writes–should really have already read.

So for those of you wanting to write, or just who enjoy reading and writing and such related activities, you will likely enjoy this book.