13 Aug 2009 was a sad day for me: i finished reading this book, one of my youthful favorites, for the Nth time, and had to admit that it's no longer a top-shelfer. I have outgrown my reverence for John Gardner's reverence for the craft of writing.

Unlike Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird (BbB)—my other top-shelf how-to-write-right book—The Art of Fiction (AoF) is judgmental. Unlike BbB, AoF is prescriptive. Unlike BbB, AoF is 100% seriousness. Unlike BbB, AoF attempts to be scientific—which for many readers might be deemed humorous because it'll remind them of the scene from Dead Poets Society when Mr Nolan takes over English class from Mr Keating and tries to show the boys how a perfect poem can be represented as an equilateral triangle.

The strength of AoF is Gardner's sincerity and overwhelming love for the Art of Fiction. As a young wanabe writer, it fueled a similar fire within me. As a cynical adult conflicted by the desire to write and the fact of Not Writing, BbB's much more enlightening because it attends to adult-onset writers' anxieties.

AoF's subtitle really sums up the ideal audience. Adults who read it also can find a wealth of recommended reading (my examples are now on a gardnerrecommends shelf), great insights into what makes some Great Writing so great, practical advice for how to practice writing (i keep kidding myself into thinking i'll actually go through all 30+ individual exercises and/or start up a writing group so that we can do the group exercises together), and inspirational words about how great Great Writing is.