A Writer's Bookshelf
March 14, 2019

I talked earlier this year about the writer as reader--that a writer should read
as much and as broadly as possible. The books writers use to enrich their minds
and to stimulate their art may be transient, moving onto and off of writers'
bookshelves and into and out of their lives. But what about "tool" books: books
that stay on the shelf for reference purposes, books that discuss the craft and
business of writing?

As with any almost every other aspect of this art, personal preference affects
which books the writer chooses to use, and so I can't give a canonical listing.
However, I thought it might be useful to list the writing- and business-related
books I've got sitting on my bookshelf, and to explain why it is I use them.
Here goes:

Writing-related Books
  
    o "Techniques of the Selling Writer," by Dwight Swain -- I was fortunate to
discover this gem early on in the process of learning to write. I still feel
it's one of the best books on the art of fiction.
    o "On Writing Well", by William Zinsser -- My favorite book on writing 
nonfiction.
    o "The Elements of Style," by William Strunk and E.B. White -- This little 
book is either loved or hated. I love it, and try to re-read it every year.
    o "On the Art of Writing," by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch -- One of my favorite 
books on writing. "Q" discusses the creation of both poetry and prose, and 
provides suggestions for writing clearly and forcefully.
    o "The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition" -- It contains everything you 
ever wanted to know about the mechanics of punctuation, usage, proper 
quotation, citations and formatting.
    o A good dictionary -- Choose your own. I also suggest John McPhee's 
Draft No. 4[1]. After reading it, I stopped using a thesaurus.
    o A good book on English usage -- I tend to be formal in my writing, so I 
use Fowler's Modern English Usage, but I've also heard good things about the 
fourth edition of Garner's Modern English Usage.
  

Business-related Books
 
    o "How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling," by Frank Bettger
-- I mentioned this book a couple of times in last year's blog. It's been a
great help in improving my organization and tracking my productivity as a
writer.
    o "The Success System that Never Fails," by W. Clement Stone -- This book
may be hard to find, but it provides several valuable techniques to improve
motivation and achieve goals.
    o "How to Live on 24 Hours a Day," by Arnold Bennett -- Describes how having 
a plan and sticking to it, day-in day-out, can add up to great achievements.
    o "The Richest Man in Babylon," by George Clason -- The faux-biblical 
language can be annoying, but it contains good advice on handling income and 
building wealth.
  

That's my tiny writer's bookshelf. If you have tool books that you use regularly
and would like to suggest, I'd love to hear from you--I still have plenty of
room on that shelf.

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/29/draft-no-4 

(c) 2019 by Andrew Gudgel 
email: contact [at] andrewgudgel.com