Books to read to help you write

Vladimir Nabokov! FTW! I'm in love with that man's prose like you wouldn't believe.

Ray Bradbury
Michael Chabon
Harlan Ellison
Mervyn Peake
Ray Bradbury (yah, he's in there twice cause he's amazing)
John Updike

Haruki Murakami (though his works translated by Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin, but he does great job with his works)
Jody Picoult, for she done great in explaining and creating the words for the reader's imagination
Michael Cunningham...odd opening in each his works
James Patterson, fast and mind binding
There are some other classic stories, that I forgot the authors name

Lois McMaster Bujold. She's brilliant. I learned a lot about structure from reading her novels, too.

TS Eliot. Google any of his poems, they're all online. My favorites:

The Wasteland
The Hollow Men
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock


I hate poetry but I love him.

For novels:
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (I'm not swooning over his prose but I loved the plot)
Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall
White Oleander by Janet Fitch

Although this is going to sound like a copout, I don't think there is any single author or book you can read that will improve your writing as much as having read a very great number and wide variety of books and authors.

ClaudiaGray said:

Although this is going to sound like a copout, I don't think there is any single author or book you can read that will improve your writing as much as having read a very great number and wide variety of books and authors.

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I second this.