Name Three Books Every Good Writer Must Read

The book just finished reading.

The book being read right now.

The book on the top of the TBR stack.


I don't think titles matter as much as good exposure.

Niccolo said:

I would love to see your list of 12+ great horror novels

1. The entire Goosebumps series. Not exactly literary masterpieces but hell, they got me into reading, which got me into writing. I wouldn't be where I am without R.L. Stine.
2. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. I'm sorry but not every other chapter needs a plot twist/revelation at the end.
3. The Mist by Stephen King. I don't think I will ever have a grasp on the horror genre the way King does in this novel.

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I don't expect I have a full twelve, but here's a handful:

Thinner, by Stephen King.....very fast, very fun, and very bleak ending.

Bag of Bones as the "opposite" side of King. Very gothic, and points in this thread, it was the book that made me want to become a writer.

A Lower Deep by Tom Piccirilli for atmosphere and weirdness....and if you can find it, City of Dog, one of his best shorts

Stinger by Robert McCammon--similar to Thinner, it is just a slick, fast ride...but this is more a popcorn flick where Thinner ends on a very dark note

Desperation (again, King) i just plain liked

Lost Boy, Lost Girl....Straub can write. I have mixed feelings about the end, but not the rest of it.

The Cormorant by Stephen Gregory...if you like The Mist, I highly recommend this book. The horror is less graphic and well-defined, but it has a similarly pooressive, smothering vibe. Creepy book.

Rebecca, by Du Maurier....Bag of Bones written 70 years earlier ;-) very atmospheric and gothig, it isn't particularly horror, but it is somewhere at the edge of the genre...

Something Wicked This Way Comes--Bradbury's writing is dated, but it had some really creepy moments, like the witch in her blimp, floating over the town. I felt The October Country was a far better book, but it is Bradbury...50 minutes of phenomenal sex is also better than 47 minutes of phenomenal sex, as it were...Something is still a fantastic book

Agyar by Stephen Brust--imagine Edward Cullen wasn't a sullen, glittery whiner, he fed off people without remorse, and he had no qualms about his controlling, abusive side instead of romanticizing it

Frankenstein, as mentioned

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson--I was lucky enough to pick up the "film edition" with Will Smith on the cover, which included about eight short stories as well as I am Legend. Legend is a landmark in horror, but the other stories show Matheson was an excellent horror writer otherwise as well.

The Bad Place and Watchers by Dean Koontz, although some of his other work pains me to even list Dean here at all....Watchers was before every single book included a Magic Retriever[SUP]TM[/SUP] and The Bad Place had none at all...they also didn't include painful surfer-speak or preaching.

Lord of the Flies; it isn't considered horror, but it is.

Moon on the Water by Mort Castle. Mort can be creepy as fuck, but more often his stuff is just sadly, wistfully poetic. All used as a sort of prism to view the awfulness we are capable of.

Dracula should be here but I haven't read it yet....sitting on my bookshelf

/end derail

quicklime said:

Dracula should be here but I haven't read it yet....sitting on my bookshelf

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Dracula was the first book I read that kept me up for nights and nights and nights after I read it. I didn't get a good night's sleep for over a week.

/derail, revisited

Crime and Punishment-Dostoyevsky
Blood Meridian-McCarthy
The Stand-King

... and as I can't count and have trouble knowing precisely what a novel is:

The Lord of the Rings-Tolkien
Hamlet/Macbeth-Shakespeare.

IMO:

Fahrenheit 451 - because books themselves are that important
The Iliad -read out loud, Lattimore translation because Homer and Lattimore make the words sing. I think everyone should read it, not just writers, probably not on everyone's must read list though.
Third: Not a specific title, but something on personalities or human nature in general. I find it easier to create characters when I understand the basics of how their "personality" might respond to any given situation.

I could nominate five hundred. Or more.

But, limited to just three, based on fiction that significantly affected me, I'll go with:

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. If any deserves the award for "Great American Novel", this is it. It also pioneers the modern informal first-person narrative, and for that reason alone, any aspiring writer should read it, and pay attention to how Twain handled that narrative style; it was new to him at the time, too.

The October Country, by Ray Bradbury*. Already nominated by Quicklime, I just add emphasis to it. The finest collection of short stories by any writer I've ever read. Magnificent concepts, magnificent style, unforgettable, every one. What more could you want?

The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. Yeah, it was written more than a century-and-a-half ago. And it's 900 pages long. It's also about the most completely sculpted and satisfying complex fictional narrative ever written. You want to write a good novel, read the best one.

caw

*I am eternally grateful that I got to meet one of these three writers, in person, while he was still alive. I have a signed copy of The October Country and a couple of his other works.

It's so hard to pick just three! But I tried.

1) The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. The writing is hauntingly beautiful and it's truly unlike anything else I've ever read.
2) A Bundle of Letters by Henry James. This changed the way I looked at perspective.
3) Letters to a Young Novelist by Mario Vargas Llosa. I think most books about writing fall flat, but this one is full of Llosa's responses to a young novelist asking for his advice on writing matters both technical and artistic. It also features references to dozens of other books writers should read. It's like a writing course taught by Llosa.

I've thought about this, and I can't do it. Too many books, too many genres. I'll read anything that's written well. (I have to agree with what K.L. Bennett said about Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)

A few standouts for me:

1. The Catcher in the Rye
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
3. My Name is Asher Lev

That was really hard to do, though. I kind of feel bad now, as if I've betrayed all those other great books I love.

OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck
THE WIVES OF BATH by Susan Swan
LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR by Judith Rossner

I would definitely agree to read within the genre you intend to write for because knowing the genre and what's out there is important. Beyond just genre reading, the book I would recommend any writer to read would be Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov. It is so well written, I actually sympathized with Humbert Humbert, even though he is a despicable, disgusting character. It really takes a master to make a pedophile sympathetic to the reader. The opening line is also one of the best I've ever read!

ALL OF THEM!

Failing that, three of my all-time faves:

Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

The Neverending Story, Michael Ende

Sunshine, Robin McKinley

And my TBR pile grows every day.

kmccabe said:

I would definitely agree to read within the genre you intend to write for because knowing the genre and what's out there is important. Beyond just genre reading, the book I would recommend any writer to read would be Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov. It is so well written, I actually sympathized with Humbert Humbert, even though he is a despicable, disgusting character. It really takes a master to make a pedophile sympathetic to the reader. The opening line is also one of the best I've ever read!

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Ah, I love Lolita! That would be a recommendation from me as well, seeing as the novel is so many things. The fact that they could make two polar opposite films out of it shows how versatile it is.

I'd recommend some Thomas Hardy and Scott Fitzgerald for well-written female characters. Hardy heroines get a bad rep but they're generally intelligent beautiful women who get screwed over by the uselessness of men. The novels are also very escapist and readable.

For a Hardy starter, I'd go for Far From The Madding Crowd, as it isn't bleak and it's a good romance. If you want bleak Hardy, I'd go for Tess of The D'Urbervilles. Jude the Obscure is the ultimate in bleakness if you can handle it.

Fitzgerald you've probably read. The Great Gatsby is a good taster for his style but my must-read is Tender is The Night. It has a great central female character, interesting use of flashbacks (you can compare the original version with the revised version, where the editor put everything chronologically!) and a lot of darkness.


But it really all depends on what type of novel you want to write. For example, if you're writing a coming-of-age novel, I could give you more specific recommendations.

Lolita--Nabokov's wording has a beauty I can only dream of.

The Beautiful and Damned--Because awesomeness, dammit. His characters are brilliant.

The Fountainhead--Because Roark always gives me the inspiration to say "Sod off. I don't care that you hate it, because I am pleased."


Everything possible by Shakespeare. You'll learn so much without trying.

kmccabe said:

It is so well written, I actually sympathized with Humbert Humbert, even though he is a despicable, disgusting character. It really takes a master to make a pedophile sympathetic to the reader. The opening line is also one of the best I've ever read!

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Funny, I always thought that that was the appeal of Lolita, too. But when I read it, as a twelve-year-old girl who rarely delved into the classics, I did not feel sorry for Humbert Humbert at all. I never saw him as anything other than what he was: an evil man, trying to justify raping and kidnapping his stepdaughter. Especially as he's an unreliable narrator... I found it pretty hard to believe that Lolita was the promiscuous, precocious young lady he sometimes presented her as.

And this was after watching the film adaptation with the adorable Jeremy Irons! I do think that it's well-written, though. Worth the read.

Lady Ice said:

Jude the Obscure is the ultimate in bleakness if you can handle it.

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Ah totally forgot about Jude the Obscure! That would have to be on my list as well...soooo beautiful and bleak! I loved Crime and Punishment for the same reason. It's always the saddest, most depressing books that I love the most and 19th century Russian lit is a great place to look for that sort of thing.

I might also add Confederacy of Dunces because it is hilarious and heartbreaking all at once. Humor is so hard to write well, but this book does it wonderfully!

The Old Man and the Sea

Of Mice and Men

Curious George Gets a Mindblowing Burst of Creative Energy and Finally Finishes Writing His Novel

Just read "How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy" by Orson Scott Card, and I found it a useful read if you intend to be in either genre.

The three that had the most impact on me;

Orwell - 1984
Hemingway - The Garden of Eden
Fitzgerald - The Beautiful and Damned (though the middle third is bit on the messy side, the beginning and make up for it.)

The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky (but this one may depend on the translation)
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Childhood's End - Arthur Clarke

llalah said:

...in your opinion, what three books should every writer read and why?

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I’d say that depends on the genre the writer writes about. If you write historical-fiction, for instance, then find 3 good books about that. If its true crime you'd like to do, then find 3 of the best of those.

RA

Epsilon -- Clarke's novel fought with Rossner's for position #3 on my arbitrary list; it was a close decision.

ReflectiveAcuity said:

I’d say that depends on the genre the writer writes about. If you write historical-fiction, for instance, then find 3 good books about that. If its true crime you'd like to do, then find 3 of the best of those.

RA

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I agree with this, particularly if you want to publish it, but wider suggestions are also helpful. For example, if the OP is really interested in different types of narrator, these wouldn't have to be genre books.

But it's really impossible to give blanket recommendations. If you want recommendations of what to read, it's best to be specific about what you're hoping to gain by reading these books. 'Making your writing better' is a bit vague, unless you're solely looking for writing-help books.

zanzjan said:

1. The one you read that makes you say, "OMG, I want to be a writer."
2. The one you read that makes you say, "crap, even *I* can do better than this!"
3. The one you read that makes you say, "no matter how hard I try, I'll never write something this good."

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YES.