Best Books List: Writing

I’m on a roll here with the blog. I have been meaning to “complete” the lists of Best Books for years, and I am almost there! I have two more lists left (religion and plays), but they are in sight, during this stay-at-home order. I am an avid list maker, and I will admit that I enjoy making these book lists. I am going to miss doing it, but I rarely have the time, anyhow. Perhaps I’ll find something else to list on the blog. Plus, I’ll have many years of checking things OFF the list ahead of me. Fun times.

So, here is the list of best books on writing and best books for writers. I felt like this list could have gone on another hundred books or more, but I tried to limit it. Turns out, there are plenty of other writers and readers who have an obsession with lists, too, so it wasn’t too hard to come by suggestions for best books on writing. This is, perhaps, the area in which I am most likely to accept mediocre books, only because I feel like I can learn and become better even from those. But I do really enjoy a great writing book, one that is not only informative and a catalyst for change, but also one that is beautiful and full of stories. To date, my favorite is the essential On Writing, by Stephen King.

When I was younger and therefore stupider, I believed that educating in the arts was just a way to stomp out the authenticity. I avoided learning anything in the arts, including writing, because of some voice that was telling me it can’t be taught. You either have it or you don’t. Consequently, I wasted a lot of my formative years avoiding that which could have made me a better musician, painter, and writer. (For some reason, I never believed this about cooking and have self-educated for many years.) There are so many things you can learn about craft and so many tools that you can put into your artist tool belt. You can improve, you can get better, you can learn how to function in the world of art. You can link elbows with other writers. You can learn what and how and when and why, and it doesn’t just have to be by the osmosis of reading thoroughly (though I do recommend that, as well). You can educate yourself about writing and become a better writer. See below.

Once again, I am not bothering with italicizing titles because nobody got time for that. I fully expect there are spelling errors, as well, possibly gratuitous ones.

[image error]On Writing, Stephen King
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Browne and King
Zen in the Art or Writing, Ray Bradbury
Publish. Repeat., Platt and Truant
Indie Author Survival Guide, Susan Kaye Quinn
Story Genius, Lisa Cron
Steering the Craft, Ursula K. LeGuin
The Writer’s Journey, Christopher Vogler
The Creative Tarot, Jessa Crispin
Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
Writer’s Market, Robert Lee Brewer[image error]
On Writing Well, Willian Zinsser
The Elements of Style, Strunk and White
The Associated Press Stylebook
How to Write Bestselling Fiction, Dean Koontz
Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg
Plot & Structure, James Scott Bell
The Writing Life, Annie Dillard
The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron
Word Work, Bruce Holland Rogers
A Writer’s Guide to Persistence, Jordan Rosenfield
War of Art, Steven Pressfield
The Writing Life, Marie Arana
Art & Fear, Bayles and Orlando
The Sense of Style, Steven Pinker
The Lonely Voice, Frank O’Connor
Self-Publisher’s Legal Handbook, Helen Sedwick[image error]
How to Make a Living with Your Writing, Joanna Penn
Writer for Hire, Kelly James-Enger
Earn More Money as a Freelance Writer, Nicole Dieker
Scratch, Mandula Martin
Everybody Writes, Ann Handley
Letters to a Young Writer, Colum McCann
Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster
Burning Down the House, Charles Baxter
To Show and to Tell, Phillip Lopate
The Situation and the Story, Vivian Gornick
What the Living Do, Marie Howe
Pity the Reader, Kurt Vonegut
Woman Writer, Joyce Carol Oates
Wild Words, Nicole Gulotta
Murder Your Darlings, Roy Peter Clark[image error]
How to Grow a Novel, Sol Stein
The Science of Storytelling, Will Storr
Why Writing Matters, Nicholas Delbanco
Tell It Slant, Miller and Paola
The Poets and Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer
Everybody Writes, Anne Handley
The Road, Jack Kerouc
Daily Rituals, Mason Currey
The Last Draft, Sandra Scofield
The Forest for the Trees, Betsy Lerner
Story Engineering, Larry Brooks
On Writing, Charles Bukowski
The Sense of Style, Steven Pinker[image error]
Nobody Want to Read Your Sh*t, Steven Pressfield
A House of My Own, Sandra Cisneros
A Little Book on Form, Robert Haas
A Personal Anthology, Jorge Luis Borges
A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf
About Writing, Samuel R. Delany
The Anatomy of Story, John Truby
The Art of Death, Edwidge Danticat
The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr
Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert
Black Milk, Elif Shafak
Books & Islands in Ojibwe Country, Louise Erdrich[image error]
Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words, Bill Bryson
Bullies, Bastards, and Bitches, Jessica Morell
Crazy Brave, Joy Harjo
Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
The Emotional Craft of Fiction, Donald Maas
The First Five Pages, Noah Lukeman
The Forest for the Trees, Betsy Lerner
Free Within Ourselves, Parker Rhodes
Getting Into Character, Brandilynn Collins
The Heart of a Woman, Maya Angelou
If You Want to Write, Brenda Ueland
Immersion, Ted Conover[image error]
In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri
In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, Alice Walker
It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences, June Casagrande
The Kick-Ass Writer, Chuck Wendig
The Portable MFA in Creative Writing, New York Writers Workshop
The Poetry Home Repair Manual, Ted Kooser
The Poet’s Companion, Addonizio and Laux
The Paris Review Interviews, 1-4
Outlining Your Novel, K.M. Weiland
One Continuous Mistake, Gail Sher[image error]
On Writing, Eudora Welty
Negotiating with the Dead, Margaret Atwood
Naked, Drunk and Writing, Adair Lara
The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop, Stephen Koch
Memoirs, Pablo Neruda
Making a Good Script, Linda Seger
The Magic Words, Cheryl Klein
The Lie That Tells a Truth, John Dufresne
The Language of Fiction, Brian Shawver