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Blog • Perfecting your Craft

Last updated on May 31, 2022

The 40 Best Books About Writing: A Reading List for Authors

About the author.

Reedsy's editorial team is a diverse group of industry experts devoted to helping authors write and publish beautiful books.

About Dario Villirilli

Editor-in-Chief of the Reedsy blog, Dario is a graduate of Mälardalen University. As a freelance writer, he has written for many esteemed outlets aimed at writers. A traveler at heart, he can be found roaming the world and working from his laptop.

For this post, we’ve scoured the web (so you don’t have to) and asked our community of writers for recommendations on some indispensable books about writing. We've filled this list with dozens of amazing titles, all of which are great — but this list might seem intimidating. So for starters, here are our top 10 books about writing:

• On Writing by Stephen King
• The Kick-Ass Writer by Chuck Wendig
• Dreyer’s Englis h by Benjamin Dreyer
• The Elements of Style by Strunk, White, and Kalman
• The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne
• A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
• Mouth Full of Blood by Toni Morrison
• How to Market a Book by Ricardo Fayet
• On Writing Well by William Zinsser

But if you're ready to get into the weeds, here are 40 of our favorite writing books.

Books about becoming a writer

1. on writing by stephen king.

Perhaps the most-cited book on this list, On Writing  is part-memoir, part-masterclass from one of America’s leading authors. Come for the vivid accounts of his childhood and youth — including his extended "lost weekend" spent on alcohol and drugs in the 1980s. Stay for the actionable advice on how to use your emotions and experiences to kickstart your writing, hone your skills, and become an author. Among the many craft-based tips are King’s expert takes on plot, story, character, and more.

From the book: “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” 

2. The Kick-Ass Writer by Chuck Wendig

If you haven’t checked out Wendig’s personal blog, head over there now and bookmark it. Unfiltered, profane, and almost always right, Wendig has become a leading voice among online writing communities in the past few years. In The Kick-Ass Writer , he offers over 1,000 pearls of wisdom for authors, ranging from express writing tips to guidance on getting published. Written to be read in short bursts, we’re sure he’d agree that this is the perfect bathroom book for writers.

From the book: “I have been writing professionally for a lucky-despite-the-number 13 years. Not once — seriously, not once ever — has anyone ever asked me where I got my writing degree… Nobody gives two ferrets fornicating in a filth-caked gym sock whether or not you have a degree… The only thing that matters is, Can you write well? ” 

3. Find Your Voice by Angie Thomas

Taking advice from famous authors is not about imitation, but about finding your own voice . Take it from someone who knows: Thomas is the New York Times #1 Bestselling author of The Hate U Give , On the Come Up , and Concrete Rose . While she’s found her calling in YA literature, she has plenty of insight into finding your own voice in your genre of choice. Written in the form of a guided journal, this volume comes with step-by-step instructions, writing prompts, and exercises especially aimed at helping younger creatives develop the strength and skills to realize their vision.

From the book: “Write fearlessly. Write what is true and real to you.” 

4. The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner

Since its publication in 2000, The Forest for the Trees  has remained an essential resource for authors at various stages in their careers. As an editor, Lerner gives advice not only on producing quality content, but also on how to build your career as an author and develop a winning routine — like how writers can be more productive in their creative process, how to get published, and how to publish well .

From the book: “The world doesn't fully make sense until the writer has secured his version of it on the page. And the act of writing is strangely more lifelike than life.”

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5. How to Write Like Tolstoy by Richard Cohen

From the book: “Great writers can be inhibiting, and maybe after one has read a Scott Fitzgerald or Henry James one can’t escape imitat­ing them; but more often such writers are inspiring.”

6. Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith

Smith is well-known for her fiction, but she is also a prolific essay writer. In Feel Free , she has gathered several essays on recent cultural and political developments and combined them with experiences from her own life and career. In “The I Who Is Not Me”, she explores how her own lived experience comes into play in her fiction writing, and how she manages to extrapolate that to comment on contemporary social contexts, discussing race, class, and ethnicity.

From the book: “Writing exists (for me) at the intersection of three precarious, uncertain elements: language, the world, the self. The first is never wholly mine; the second I can only ever know in a partial sense; the third is a malleable and improvised response to the previous two.”

Books about language and style 

7. dreyer’s english by benjamin dreyer.

A staple book about writing well, Dreyer’s English serves as a one-stop guide to proper English, based on the knowledge that Dreyer — a senior copy editor at Random House — has accumulated throughout his career. From punctuation to tricky homophones, passive voice, and commas, the goal of these tools should be to facilitate effective communication of ideas and thoughts. Dreyer delivers this and then some, but not without its due dosage of humor and informative examples. 

From the book: “A good sentence, I find myself saying frequently, is one that the reader can follow from beginning to end, no matter how long it is, without having to double back in confusion because the writer misused or omitted a key piece of punctuation, chose a vague or misleading pronoun, or in some other way engaged in inadvertent misdirection.”

8. The Elements of Style (Illustrated) by William Strunk, Jr., E. B. White, and Maira Kalman

A perfect resource for visual learners, this illustrated edition of The Elements of Style has taken the classic style manual to a new, more accessible level but kept its main tenet intact: make every word tell. The written content by Strunk and White has long been referred to as an outline of the basic principles of style. Maira Kalman’s illustrations elevate the experience and make it a feast for both the mind and the eye. 

From the book: “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

9. Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale

If you’re looking to bring a bit of spunk into your writing, copy editor Constance Hale may hold the key . Whether you’re writing a work-related email or the next rap anthem, she has one goal: to make creative communication available to everyone by dispelling old writing myths and making every word count. Peppered with writing prompts and challenges, this book will have you itching to put pen to paper.

From the book: “Verbose is not a synonym for literary.”

10. The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker

Combining entertainment with intellectual pursuit, Pinker, a cognitive scientist and dictionary consultant, explores and rethinks language usage in the 21st century . With illustrative examples of both great and not-so-great linguistic constructions, Pinker breaks down the art of writing and gives a gentle but firm nudge in the right direction, towards coherent yet stylish prose. This is not a polemic on the decay of the English language, nor a recitation of pet peeves, but a thoughtful, challenging, and practical take on the science of communication. 

From the book: “Why is so much writing so bad, and how can we make it better? Is the English language being corrupted by texting and social media? Do the kids today even care about good writing—and why should we care?”

11. Eats, Shoots, & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss

From the book: “A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. "Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder. "I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up." The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation. Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

Books about story structure

12. save the cat by blake snyder.

Best known as a screenwriting manual, Save the Cat! is just as often named by authors as one of their most influential books about writing. The title comes from the tried-and-true trope of the protagonist doing something heroic in the first act (such as saving a cat) in order to win over the audience. Yes, it might sound trite to some — but others swear by its bulletproof beat sheet. More recently, there has been Save the Cat! Writes a Novel , which tailors its principles specifically to the literary crowd. (For a concise breakdown of the beat sheet, check this post out!)

From the book: “Because liking the person we go on a journey with is the single most important element in drawing us into the story.” 

13. The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne

Shawn Coyne is a veteran editor with over 25 years of publishing experience, and he knows exactly what works and what doesn’t in a story — indeed, he’s pretty much got it down to a science. The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know  outlines Coyne’s original “Story Grid” evaluation technique, which both writers and editors can use to appraise, revise, and ultimately improve their writing (in order to get it ready for publication). Coyne and his friend Tim Grahl also co-host the acclaimed Story Grid podcast , another great resource for aspiring writers.

From the book: “The Story Grid is a tool with many applications. It pinpoints problems but does not emotionally abuse the writer… it is a tool to re-envision and resuscitate a seemingly irredeemable pile of paper stuck in an attack drawer, and it can inspire an original creation.”

14. Story Structure Architect by Victoria Schmidt

For those who find the idea of improvising utterly terrifying and prefer the security of structures, this book breaks down just about every kind of story structure you’ve ever heard of . Victoria Schmidt offers no less than fifty-five different creative paths for your story to follow — some of which are more unconventional, or outright outlandish than others. The level of detail here is pretty staggering: Schmidt goes into the various conflicts, subplots, and resolutions these different story structures entail — with plenty of concrete examples! Suffice to say that no matter what kind of story you’re writing, you’ll find a blueprint for it in Story Structure Architect .

From the book: “When you grow up in a Westernized culture, the traditional plot structure becomes so embedded in your subconscious that you may have to work hard to create a plot structure that deviates from it… Understand this and keep your mind open when reading [this book]. Just because a piece doesn’t conform to the model you are used to, does not make it bad or wrong.”

15. The Writer's Journey  by Christopher Vogler

Moving on, we hone in on the mythic structure. Vogler’s book, originally published in 1992, is now a modern classic of writing advice; though intended as a screenwriting textbook, its contents apply to any story of mythic proportions. In The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers , Vogler takes a page (literally) from Joseph Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces to ruminate upon the most essential narrative structures and character archetypes of the writing craft. So if you’re thinking of drawing up an epic fantasy series full of those tropes we all know and love , this guide should be right up your alley.

From the book: “The Hero’s Journey is not an invention, but an observation. It is a recognition of a beautiful design… It’s difficult to avoid the sensation that the Hero’s Journey exists somewhere, somehow, as an external reality, a Platonic ideal form, a divine model. From this model, infinite and highly varied copies can be produced, each resonating with the essential spirit of the form.”

16. Story Genius by Lisa Cron

From the book: “We don't turn to story to escape reality. We turn to story to navigate reality.”

17. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

More than just a New York Times bestseller and the winner of the Booker Prize, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a distillation of the MFA class on Russian short stories that Saunders has been teaching. Breaking down narrative functions and why we become immersed in a story, this is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand and nurture our continued need for fiction.

From the book: “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?”

Books about overcoming obstacles as a writer

18. bird by bird by anne lamott .

Like Stephen King’s book about writing craft, this work from acclaimed novelist and nonfiction writer Anne Lamott also fuses elements of a memoir with invaluable advice on the writer’s journey. Particularly known for popularizing the concept of “shitty first drafts”, Bird by Bird was recently recommended by editor Jennifer Hartmann in her Reedsy Live webinar for its outlook take on book writing. She said, “This book does exactly what it says it will do: it teaches you to become a better writer. [Lamott] is funny and witty and very knowledgeable.”

From the book: “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.”

19. Take Off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker 

From the book: “When it comes to the eternal quandary of pantsing or plotting, you can keep a foot in each camp. But if your goals will require you to write with speed and confidence, an effective outline will be your best friend.”

20. Writing into the Dark by Dean Wesley Smith 

And for those who eschew structure altogether, we’ll now refer you to this title  from profile science fiction author Dean Wesley Smith. Having authored a number of official Star Trek novels, he definitely knows what he’s talking about when he encourages writers to go boldly into the unknown with an approach to writing books that doesn’t necessarily involve an elaborate plan. It might not be your action plan, but it can be a fresh perspective to get out of the occasional writer’s block.

From the book: “Imagine if every novel you picked up had a detailed outline of the entire plot… Would you read the novel after reading the outline? Chances are, no. What would be the point? You already know the journey the writer is going to take you on. So, as a writer, why do an outline and then have to spend all that time creating a book you already know?”

21. No Plot, No Problem by Chris Baty

If you’re procrastinating to the point where you haven’t even started your novel yet, NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty is your guy! No Plot, No Problem  is a “low-stress, high-velocity” guide to writing a novel in just 30 days (yup, it’s great prep for the NaNoWriMo challenge). You’ll get tons of tips on how to survive this rigorous process, from taking advantage of your initial momentum to persisting through moments of doubt.

Whether you’re participating in everyone’s favorite November write-a-thon or you just want to bang out a novel that’s been in your head forever, Baty will help you cross that elusive finish line.

From the book: “A rough draft is best written in the steam-cooker of an already busy life. If you have a million things to do, adding item number 1,000,001 is not such a big deal.”

22. The 90-Day Novel by Alan Watt

And for those who think 30 days is a bit too steam cooker-esque, there’s always Alan Watt’s more laid-back option. In The 90-Day Novel , Watt provides a unique three-part process to assist you with your writing. The first part provides assistance in developing your story’s premise, the second part helps you work through obstacles to execute it, and the third part is full of writing exercises to unlock the “primal forces” of your story — in other words, the energy that will invigorate your work and incite readers to devour it like popcorn at the movies.

From the book: “Why we write is as important as what we write. Grammar, punctuation, and syntax are fairly irrelevant in the first draft. Get the story down… fast. Get out of your head, so you can surprise yourself on the page.”

23. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

If you feel like you’re constantly in the trenches of your “inner creative battle,” The War of Art is the book for you. Pressfield emphasizes the importance of breaking down creative barriers — what he calls “Resistance” — in order to defeat your demons (i.e., procrastination, self-doubt, etc.) and fulfill your potential. Though some of his opinions are no doubt controversial (he makes repeated claims that almost anything can be procrastination, including going to the doctor), this book is the perfect remedy for prevaricating writers who need a little bit of tough love.

From the book: “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”

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Books about writing as a lifestyle and career

24. steal like an artist by austin kleon.

As Kleon notes in the first section of Steal Like an Artist , this title obviously doesn’t refer to plagiarism. Rather, it acknowledges that art cannot be created in a vacuum, and encourages writers (and all other artists) to be open and receptive to all sources of inspiration. By “stealing like an artist,” writers can construct stories that already have a baseline of familiarity for readers, but with new twists that keep them fresh and exciting .

From the book: “If we’re free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running away from it.”

25. Mouth Full of Blood by Toni Morrison

From the book: “A writer's life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.”

26. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

No matter what stage you’re at in your writing career, Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones will help you write more skillfully and creatively. With suggestions, encouragement, and valuable advice on the many aspects of the writing craft, Goldberg doesn’t shy away from making the crucial connection between writing and adding value to your life. Covering a range of topics including taking notes of your initial thoughts, listening, overcoming doubt, choosing where to write, and the selection of your verbs, this guide has plenty to say about the minute details of writing, but excels at exploring the author life.

From the book: “Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.”

27. Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

What does it take to become a great author? According to the beloved writer Ray Bradbury, it takes zest, gusto, curiosity, as well as a spirit of adventure. Sharing his wisdom and experiences as one of the most prolific writers in America , Bradbury gives plenty of practical tips and tricks on how to develop ideas, find your voice, and create your own style in this  thoughtful volume . In addition to that, this is also an insight into the life and mind of this prolific writer, and a celebration of the act of writing. 

From the book: “Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a land mine. The land mine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces back together. Now, it's your turn. Jump!”

28. The Kite and the String by Alice Mattison

One of the most common dilemmas an author faces is the struggle between spontaneity and control. Literary endeavors need those unexpected light-bulb moments, but a book will never be finished if you rely solely on inspiration. In The Kite and the String , Mattison has heard your cry for help and developed a guide for balancing these elements throughout the different stages of writing a novel or a memoir. Sure, there may be language and grammar rules that govern the way you write, but letting a bit of playfulness breathe life into your writing will see it take off to a whole new level. On the other hand, your writing routine, solitude, audience, and goal-setting will act as the strings that keep you from floating too far away. 

From the book: "Don’t make yourself miserable wishing for a kind of success that you wouldn’t enjoy if you had it."

29. How to Become a Successful Indie Author by Craig Martelle

This one’s for all the indie authors out there! Even if you’ve already self-published a book, you can still learn a lot from this guide by Craig Martelle, who has dozens of indie books — “over two and a half million words,” as he puts it — under his belt. With patience and expertise, Martelle walks you through everything you need to know: from developing your premise to perfecting your writing routine, to finally getting your work to the top of the Amazon charts.

From the book: “No matter where you are on your author journey, there’s always a new level you can reach. Roll up your sleeves, because it’s time to get to work.”

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30. How to Market a Book by Ricardo Fayet 

From the book: “Here’s the thing: authors don’t find readers; readers find books . [...] Marketing is not about selling your book to readers. It’s about getting readers to find it.”

31. Everybody Writes by Ann Handley

The full title of Handley’s all-inclusive book on writing is actually Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content — which should tell you something about its broad appeal. Not only does Handley have some great ideas on how to plan and produce a great story, but she also provides tips on general content writing, which comes in handy when it’s time to build your author platform or a mailing list to promote your book . As such, Everybody Writes is nothing like your other books on novel writing — it’ll make you see writing in a whole new light.

From the book: “In our world, many hold a notion that the ability to write, or write well, is a gift bestowed on a chosen few. That leaves us thinking there are two kinds of people: the writing haves — and the hapless, for whom writing well is a hopeless struggle, like trying to carve marble with a butter knife. But I don’t believe that, and neither should you.” 

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Books on writing poetry 

32. madness, rack, and honey by mary ruefle.

With a long history of crafting and lecturing about poetry, Ruefle invites the reader of Madness, Rack, and Honey to immerse themselves into its beauty and magic. In a powerful combination of lectures and musings, she expertly explores the mind and craft of writers while excavating the magical potential of poetry. Often a struggle between giving and taking, poetry is, according to Ruefle, a unique art form that reveals the innermost workings of the human heart.

From the book: “In one sense, reading is a great waste of time. In another sense, it is a great extension of time, a way for one person to live a thousand and one lives in a single lifespan, to watch the great impersonal universe at work again and again”

33. Threads by Sandeep Parmar, Nisha Ramayya, and Bhanu Kapil

If you’re looking for something that explores the philosophical aspects of writing, Threads asks big questions about writing and the position of the writer in an industry that has largely excluded marginalized voices. Where does the writer exist in relation to its text and, particularly in the case of poetry, who is the “I”? Examining the common white, British, male lens, this collection of short essays will make it hard for you not to critically consider your own perceptions and how they affect your writing process.

From the book: “It is impossible to consider the lyric without fully interrogating its inherent promise of universality, its coded whiteness.”

34. The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner

Despite its eye-catching title, this short essay is actually a defense of poetry. Lerner begins with his own hatred of the art form, and then moves on to explore this love-hate dichotomy that actually doesn’t seem to be contradictory. Rather, such a multitude of emotions might be one of the reasons that writers and readers alike turn to it. With its ability to evoke feelings and responses through word-play and meter, poetry has often been misconceived as inaccessible and elitist; this is a call to change that perception. 

From the book: “All I ask the haters — and I, too, am one — is that they strive to perfect their contempt, even consider bringing it to bear on poems, where it will be deepened, not dispelled, and where, by creating a place for possibility and present absences (like unheard melodies), it might come to resemble love.”

35. Poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge

If you’ve ever felt that the mysterious workings of poetry are out of your reach and expressly not for you, Wooldridge is here to tell you that anyone who wants to can write poetry. An experienced workshop leader, she will help you find your inner voice and to express it through the written word . Giving you advice on how to think, use your senses, and practice your writing, Wooldrige will have you putting down rhyme schemes before you know it. 

From the book: “Writing a poem is a form of listening, helping me discover what's wrong or frightening in my world as well as what delights me.”

36. Writing Better Lyrics by Pat Pattison

From the book: “Don't be afraid to write crap — it makes the best fertilizer. The more of it you write, the better your chances are of growing something wonderful.”

Books about writing nonfiction

37. on writing well by william zinsser.

Going strong with its 30th-anniversary edition, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction is an evergreen resource for nonfiction writers which breaks down the fundamental principles of written communication. As a bonus, the insights and guidelines in this book can certainly be applied to most forms of writing, from interviewing to camp-fire storytelling. Beyond giving tips on how to stay consistent in your writing and voice, how to edit, and how to avoid common pitfalls, Zinsser can also help you grow as a professional writer, strengthening your career and taking steps in a new direction. 

From the book: “Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience—every reader is a different person.”

38. Essays by Lydia Davis

Ironically enough, this rather lengthy book is a celebration of brevity. As one of the leading American voices in flash-fiction and short-form writing, Davis traces her literary roots and inspirations in essays on everything, ranging from the mastodonic work of Proust to minimalism. In both her translations and her own writing, she celebrates experimental writing that stretches the boundaries of language. Playing with the contrast between what is said and what is not, this collection of essays is another tool to the writing shed to help you feel and use the power of every word you write.

From the book: “Free yourself of your device, for at least certain hours of the day — or at the very least one hour. Learn to be alone, all alone, without people, and without a device that is turned on. Learn to experience the purity of that kind of concentration. Develop focus, learn to focus intently on one thing, uninterrupted, for a long time.”

39. Essayism by Brian Dillon

In this volume , Dillon explores the often overlooked genre of essay writing and its place in literature’s past, present, and future. He argues that essays are an “experiment in attention” but also highlights how and why certain essays have directly impacted the development of the cultural and political landscape, from the end of the Middle Ages until the present day. At its heart, despite its many forms, subject areas, and purposes, essayism has its root in self-exploration. Dip in and out of Dillon’s short texts to find inspiration for your own nonfiction writing.

From the book: “What exactly do I mean, even, by 'style'? Perhaps it is nothing but an urge, an aspiration, a clumsy access of admiration, a crush.”

40. Naked, Drunk, and Writing by Adair Lara

From the book: “Write it down. Whatever it is, write it down. Chip it into marble. Type it into Microsoft Word. Spell it out in seaweeds on the shore. We are each of us an endangered species, delicate as unicorns.”

With a few of these books in your arsenal, you’ll be penning perfect plots in no time! And if you’re interested in learning more about the editing process, check our post on books on editing next!

ZUrlocker says:

11/03/2019 – 19:46

I'm familiar with several of these books. But for new authors, I urge you caution. It is very tempting to read so many books about writing that you never get around to writing. (I did this successfully for many years!) So I will suggest paring it down to just two books: Stephen King on Writing and Blake Snyder Save the Cat. Snyder's book is mostly about screenwriting, so you could also consider Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. Best of luck!

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10 Best Books on Essay Writing (You Should Read Today)

“I hate writing, I love having written.” – Dorothy Parker

Here are 10 Books That Will Help You With Essay Writing:

1. a professor’s guide to writing essays: the no-nonsense plan for better writing by dr. jacob neumann.

This is the highest-rated book on the subject available on the market right now. It’s written for students at any level of education. The author uses an unorthodox approach, claiming that breaking essays down into different formats is unnecessary. It doesn’t matter if it’s a persuasive or a narrative essay – the difference is not in how you write, but rather in how you build your case . Length: 118 pages Published: 2016

2. College Essay Essentials: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Successful College Admissions Essay – by Ethan Sawyer

3. the only grammar book you’ll ever need: a one-stop source for every writing assignment by susan thurman.

The institution of a grammar school is defunct, but it doesn’t mean you can ignore the basic rules that govern your language. If you’re writing an essay or a college paper , you better keep your grammar tight. Otherwise, your grades will drop dramatically because professors abhor simple grammar mistakes. By reading this little book , you’ll make sure your writing is pristine. Length: 192 pages Published: 2003

4. Escape Essay Hell!: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Narrative College Application Essays by Janine W. Robinson

A well-written essay has immense power. Not only that, it is the prerequisite to getting admitted to colleges and universities, but you also have to tackle a few essay questions in most, if not all exams you will ever take for career or academic advancement. For instance, when taking the LSAT to qualify for law school , the MCAT to get into med school , the DAT to pursue a degree in dentistry, or even the GRE or GMAT as the first step in earning a master’s degree. That is why this book is highly recommended to anyone navigating through the sea of higher learning. In this amusing book, Janine Robinson focuses mostly on writing narrative essays . She’s been helping college-bound students to tell unique stories for over a decade and you’ll benefit from her expert advice. The book contains 10 easy steps that you can follow as a blueprint for writing the best “slice of life” story ever told. Length: 76 pages Published: 2013

5. The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present by Phillip Lopate

This large volume is a necessary diversion from the subject of formal, highly constrained types of writing. It focuses only on the genre of the personal essay which is much more free-spirited, creative, and tongue-and-cheek-like. Phillip Lopate, himself an acclaimed essayist, gathers seventy of the best essays of this type and lets you draw timeless lessons from them. Length: 777 pages Published: 1995

6. The Best American Essays of the Century by Joyce Carol Oates

7. on writing well: the classic guide to writing nonfiction by william zinsser.

On Writing Well is a classic writing guide that will open your eyes to the art of producing clear-cut copy. Zinsser approached the subject of writing with a warm, cheerful attitude that seeps through the pages of his masterpiece. Whether you want to describe places, communicate with editors, self-edit your copy, or avoid verbosity, this book will have the right answer for you. Length: 336 pages Published: 2016 (reprint edition)

8. How To Write Any High School Essay: The Essential Guide by Jesse Liebman

The previous titles I mentioned were mostly for “grown-up” writers, but the list wouldn’t be complete without a book for ambitious high-school students. Its length is appropriate, making it possible even for the most ADHD among us to get through it. It contains expert advice, easy-to-implement essay outlines , and tips on finding the best topics and supporting them with strong arguments. Length: 124 pages Published: 2017

9. Essential Writing Skills for College and Beyond by C.M. Gill

On average, after finishing high school or college, Americans read only around twelve books per year. This is a pity because books contain a wealth of information. People at the top of the socio-economic ladder read between forty and sixty books per year – and you should too! But reading is just one skill that gets neglected after college. Writing is the other one. By reading the “Essential Writing Skills” you’ll be able to crush all of your college writing assignments and use them throughout your life to sharpen your prose. Length: 250 Published: 2014

10. The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing by Margot Livesey

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Nonfiction Books » Essays

The best essays: the 2021 pen/diamonstein-spielvogel award, recommended by adam gopnik.

WINNER OF the 2021 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

Had I Known: Collected Essays by Barbara Ehrenreich

Every year, the judges of the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay search out the best book of essays written in the past year and draw attention to the author's entire body of work. Here, Adam Gopnik , writer, journalist and PEN essay prize judge, emphasizes the role of the essay in bearing witness and explains why the five collections that reached the 2021 shortlist are, in their different ways, so important.

Interview by Benedict King

Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader by Vivian Gornick

Nature Matrix: New and Selected Essays by Robert Michael Pyle

Terroir: Love, Out of Place by Natasha Sajé

Maybe the People Would be the Times by Luc Sante

1 Had I Known: Collected Essays by Barbara Ehrenreich

2 unfinished business: notes of a chronic re-reader by vivian gornick, 3 nature matrix: new and selected essays by robert michael pyle, 4 terroir: love, out of place by natasha sajé, 5 maybe the people would be the times by luc sante.

W e’re talking about the books shortlisted for the 2021 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay . As an essayist yourself, or as a reader of essays, what are you looking for? What’s the key to a good essay ?

Let’s turn to the books that made the shortlist of the 2021 PEN Award for the Art of the Essay. The winning book was Had I Known: Collected Essays by Barbara Ehrenreich , whose books have been recommended a number of times on Five Books. Tell me more. 

One of the criteria for this particular prize is that it should be not just for a single book, but for a body of work. One of the things we wanted to honour about Barbara Ehrenreich is that she has produced a remarkable body of work. Although it’s offered in a more specifically political register than some essayists, or that a great many past prize winners have practised, the quiddity of her work is that it remains rooted in personal experience, in the act of bearing witness. She has a passionate political point to make, certainly, a series of them, many seeming all the more relevant now than when she began writing. Nonetheless, her writing still always depends on the intimacy of first-hand knowledge, what people in post-incarceration work call ‘lived experience’ (a term with a distinguished philosophical history). Her book Nickel and Dimed is the classic example of that. She never writes from a distance about working-class life in America. She bears witness to the nature and real texture of working-class life in America.

“One point of giving awards…is to keep passing the small torches of literary tradition”

Next up of the books on the 2021 PEN essay prize shortlist is Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader by Vivian Gornick.

Vivian Gornick is a writer who’s been around for a very long time. Although longevity is not in itself a criterion for excellence—or for this prize, or in the writing life generally—persistence and perseverance are. Writers who keep coming back at us, again and again, with a consistent vision, are surely to be saluted. For her admirers, her appetite to re-read things already read is one of the most attractive parts of her oeuvre , if I can call it that; her appetite not just to read but to read deeply and personally. One of the things that people who love her work love about it is that her readings are never academic, or touched by scholarly hobbyhorsing. They’re readings that involve the fullness of her experience, then applied to literature. Although she reads as a critic, she reads as an essayist reads, rather than as a reviewer reads. And I think that was one of the things that was there to honour in her body of work, as well.

Is she a novelist or journalist, as well?

Let’s move on to the next book which made the 2021 PEN essay shortlist. This is Nature Matrix: New and Selected Essays by Robert Michael Pyle.

I have a special reason for liking this book in particular, and that is that it corresponds to one of the richest and oldest of American genres, now often overlooked, and that’s the naturalist essay. You can track it back to Henry David Thoreau , if not to Ralph Waldo Emerson , this American engagement with nature , the wilderness, not from a narrowly scientific point of view, nor from a purely ecological or environmental point of view—though those things are part of it—but again, from the point of view of lived experience, of personal testimony.

Let’s look at the next book on the shortlist of the 2021 PEN Awards, which is Terroir: Love, Out of Place by Natasha Sajé. Why did these essays appeal?

One of the things that was appealing about this book is that’s it very much about, in every sense, the issues of the day: the idea of place, of where we are, how we are located on any map as individuals by ethnic identity, class, gender—all of those things. But rather than being carried forward in a narrowly argumentative way, again, in the classic manner of the essay, Sajé’s work is ruminative. It walks around these issues from the point of view of someone who’s an expatriate, someone who’s an émigré, someone who’s a world citizen, but who’s also concerned with the idea of ‘terroir’, the one place in the world where we belong. And I think the dialogue in her work between a kind of cosmopolitanism that she has along with her self-critical examination of the problem of localism and where we sit on the world, was inspiring to us.

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Last of the books on the shortlist for the 2021 Pen essay award is Maybe the People Would Be the Times by Luc Sante.

Again, here’s a writer who’s had a distinguished generalised career, writing about lots of places and about lots of subjects. In the past, he’s made his special preoccupation what he calls ‘low life’, but I think more broadly can be called the marginalized or the repressed and abject. He’s also written acute introductions to the literature of ‘low life’, the works of Asbury and David Maurer, for instance.

But I think one of the things that was appealing about what he’s done is the sheer range of his enterprise. He writes about countless subjects. He can write about A-sides and B-sides of popular records—singles—then go on to write about Jacques Rivette’s cinema. He writes from a kind of private inspection of public experience. He has a lovely piece about tabloid headlines and their evolution. And I think that omnivorous range of enthusiasms and passions is a stirring reminder in a time of specialization and compartmentalization of the essayist’s freedom to roam. If Pyle is in the tradition of Thoreau, I suspect Luc Sante would be proud to be put in the tradition of Baudelaire—the flaneur who walks the streets, sees everything, broods on it all and writes about it well.

One point of giving awards, with all their built-in absurdity and inevitable injustice, is to keep alive, or at least to keep passing, the small torches of literary tradition. And just as much as we’re honoring the great tradition of the naturalist essay in the one case, I think we’re honoring the tradition of the Baudelairean flaneur in this one.

April 18, 2021

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Adam Gopnik

Adam Gopnik has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1986. His many books include A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism . He is a three time winner of the National Magazine Award for Essays & Criticism, and in 2021 was made a chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur by the French Republic.

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18 of the Best Books on Writing (Updated for 2023)

Table of contents

Ashley R. Cummings

The need for writers isn’t going away. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the employment of writers and authors will continue to grow by 4% from 2021 to 2031 . And it’s projected that there will be an average of 15,000 job openings for writers and authors each year.

While there’s a huge need for writers, it’s also projected future writers will invest anywhere from $7000 to $40,000 to learn the craft. Gasp!

But there’s good news. You don’t necessarily need to invest $40K into a degree to learn how to write. There are countless books that will help you become the writer you’ve always dreamed of becoming and will help you earn money straight out of the gate.

Here’s a list of the top eighteen books that will prepare you for your writing career. ‍

“Read, read, read. Read everything  —  trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.” — William Faulkner

Best books on writing for business and marketing

Marketing is so important the U.S. spent more than $17 billion in 2021 on marketing data. A large part of marketing is knowing how to write marketing materials that engage audiences. Marketing is also one of the most lucrative freelance writing niches.

When marketing and selling anything, the words you choose to represent your products and brand are critical—these books will help you find the right ones.

1. Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin

Best for : Entrepreneurs and marketers in the SaaS space

In his book Lost and Founder, Fishkin walks readers through the process of creating a startup. He’s very transparent and doesn’t leave anything out—the roses and the warts are on full display. Lost and Founder is a wealth of first-hand experience that any new startup can learn from.

Most of this book is about all the steps involved in creating a startup, but he also goes through how to write pitches and marketing strategies that worked for him.

Furthermore, if you want to write for startups, it’s important to understand everything that goes into creating a startup. This will help you meet the writing needs of a startup, regardless of what stage it may be in.

2. Killing Marketing by Joe Pulizzi & Robert Rose

Best for : Modern marketing strategies/techniques

Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose are founders and partners who love content marketing. In their book Killing Marketing, they say content isn’t just marketing; it’s an essential business strategy. 

This book focuses mostly on modern digital marketing techniques. It addresses how marketing has gone from creating ‘sale’ posters to being an essential part of adding value to a brand or company. Pulizzi and Rose use anecdotes and data from their own experiences to illustrate content writing and marketing techniques.

3. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

Best for : Experienced marketers looking to fine-tune writing/strategies

Predictably Irrational isn’t so much a book about writing as a book that can help writers understand what motivates us humans—which is essential for any great writer to understand.

Dan Ariely is an expert in behavioral economics, which studies how people behave when they perform any sort of action (e.g.,. shop, get married, apply for jobs, etc.).

Ariely and his team used experiments to see how suggestion, context, and even subliminal messaging can affect people’s behavior. To illustrate this point, Ariely uses an example where his team created a test that was easy to cheat on. 

Then, his team had respondents take the test again, but reminded them of any sort of moral code (like the ten commandments or even a fake ‘honor code’) right before taking the test to see if people cheated less after the reminder. You’ll have to read to find out the results, but I bet you can guess what happened.

This book is most beneficial for experienced writers and marketers looking to understand their audience on a deeper level.

Best books for copywriting

The biggest issue for copywriting (especially digital copywriting) is people don’t really read things all the way through anymore. 

According to a 20+ year study done by the Nielsen Norman Group , eye tracking research confirms that most internet users only skim and skip around a webpage for relevant info. That means copywriters must understand how to capture the attention of these skimmers and skippers. Here are books that will teach you the ins and outs of successful copywriting.

4. Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

Best for : Learning the fundamentals of advertising

Ogilvy on Advertising is admittedly an older book that was first published in 1983. But it’s still considered one of the foremost texts for beginner copywriters and even marketers. It goes over all the fundamentals of advertising and how to write compelling copy.

If you’re new to copywriting and marketing in general, this book uses real life examples to illustrate advertising concepts. And although some of the advice about getting jobs and how to market in foreign markets may be out of date, Ogilvy’s lessons on things like research and brand image are still relevant today.

5. Hey Whipple, Squeeze This by Luke Sullivan

Best for : Creating visual stories

Luke Sullivan has been a successful advertiser for over 30 years. He’s worked at elite agencies, taught, consulted and trained. His book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This , uses real life examples like Charmin’s advertising campaign of the 1960s and 1970’s (the namesake of the book) to illustrate all aspects of advertising. 

Sullivan goes through everything from how to protect your work to how to write for social media. The book is snarky and witty and gives you a glimpse of what it feels like to work in the creative department at an ad agency. 

6. Finding the Right Message by Jennifer Havice

Best for : How to research your audience

Finding the Right Message is all about delving deeper into understanding what makes your customers tick. It offers step-by-step guides on things like:

• How to craft customer-centric messages
• The types of questions to ask when conducting interviews and surveys
• How to research your customers and the market

Havice offers insight into how to study your audience. She then goes through how you can create messages that will pique your audience’s interest. Using her expertise as a messaging strategist and copywriter, she goes over all the things a copywriter needs to reach their audience.

Best books for longform writing

The average time spent on any webpage is 54 seconds. So, it’s important for longform articles to really engage readers in order to keep them reading for more than 54 seconds. Learning how to write engaging longform articles and books may not come naturally, but here are some books to lead you in the right direction.

7. Writing Feature Stories by Matthew Ricketson & Caroline Graham

Best fo r: Comprehensive writing fundamentals

Matthew Ricketson and Caroline Graham go over the fundamentals of writing engaging and informative longform writing in their book, Writing Feature Stories . They help both journalists and blog writers go beyond the basic who, why, what, where, and when. 

This book will help you generate new ideas, teach you how to do research for your stories, how to edit your work, and how to find the best platform for your work. Using all the information Ricketson and Graham provide, it’ll also help you get over any fear of longform writing.

8. Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies by Sol Stein

Best for : Novelists

Sol Stein is a well known editor and teacher that uses practical and his own real-world experiences to help writers write better. Stein on Writing gives writers practical ways to improve their writing instead of relying on theory. 

A lot of this book is focused on helping novelists with creating more interesting characters, more realistic dialogue, and structure. But it also goes over things like how to trim the fat away from your writing and more efficient ways to edit and revise your drafts.

9. How to Write a Lot by Paul Silvia

Best for : Motivation and practical strategies

The title says it all. Paul Silvia uses his book, How to Write a Lot to help you become a more efficient and effective longform writer. He uses practical strategies that even go through how to make a schedule, how to get over writer’s block, and ultimately how to write like a professional.

Best books for essay writing and academic writing

Whether you’re trying to write OpEds for the New Yorker or just finishing your term paper, you can use these books to learn how to write effective essays for the world of academia.

10. A Professor’s Guide to Writing Essays: The No-Nonsense Plan for Better Writing by Dr. Jacob Newman

Best for : Straightforward and practical writing

If you feel intimidated by academic writing, A Professor’s Guide to Writing Essays is a great book to help you overcome that. Dr. Jacob Newman has been a professor for a long time and uses his experiences to help writers navigate the world of academia. 

Giving useful tips and real world examples, Dr. Newman helps to dispel the idea that academic writing is any different from other kinds of writing. His book is straightforward and practical and focuses on helping students, professors, and anyone else looking to conquer writing academic papers.

11. Stylish Academic Writing by Helen Sword

Best for : Analysis of real articles and essays

Helen Sword believes that data deserves to be presented in an elegant way. Her book Stylish Academic Writing , presents her analyses of over a thousand peer-reviewed articles (on all subjects) that show how important it is for academic writers to know how to write well.

She shows readers the skills they can learn through the examples in her book. Sword will make you a believer that compelling data should be presented with compelling writing. Slapping data onto a page just isn’t good enough anymore. 

12. Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers by Jacques Barzun

Best for : Exercises that help readers learn concepts

Jacques Barzun was a noted teacher, historian and author. His book Simple & Direct, is just that. He uses a no-nonsense style to help writers improve their technique.

Simple & Direct may have been published in the 70s, but the writing exercises, model passages, and examples provided in the book are a treasure trove for any writer looking to better their craft.

Books that relate to writing in 2022

If you’ve ever watched an episode of Mad Men, you know that advertising must change with the times. Not only does the medium change (e.g., newspapers, radio, TV, internet, etc.) but so does your audience. 

For example, Baby Boomers were concerned with security, Gen Xers were concerned with buying things, millennials cared about buying experiences, and Gen Zers care about supporting companies that have the same beliefs as them. 

So while you can keep the same foundational concepts, there are things writers must learn as they write for the 21st century.

13. The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker

Best for : Relating to all types of writing

Steven Pinker is a Harvard psychology professor who has used his own research and experience to write, The Sense of Style . In this book, writers will learn writing techniques to create compelling prose and Pinker gives real-world examples to help illustrate his points.

If you’re looking to infuse more style into your writing and interested in making your writing stand out in today’s day and age, then this is the book for you.

14. You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins

Best for : Bloggers, content creators, indie authors

“Dress for the job you want” and “fake it ‘till you make it.” The idea that you should start acting like the writer you want to be is exactly what Jeff Goins addresses in his book, You are a Writer .

This book is a guide that will help writers in their craft, work ethic, and in marketing their material. It’s perfect for bloggers, content creators, and anyone who has been waiting to fulfill their dream of becoming a full-time writer.

15. The End of Marketing : Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media and AI by Carlos Gil

Best for : focus on engagement

Carlos Gil breaks down the science of modern marketing in his book The End of Marketing . He breaks down essential topics like:

• What modern audiences want
• Storytelling
• How to get attention on social media and how to use social media as feedback
• How to be genuine
• How to find your customers

The End of Marketing unravels the mysteries of influencers, social media algorithms, and staying on trend. It’s a must read for any writer today.

Books on writing for social media

There are over 4.7 billion active social media users worldwide. In a global survey done by Statista in 2022, 61% of marketers said they would increase their usage of Instagram and 37% said they’re increasing usage of TikTok advertising. Social media isn’t going away, and it always needs content, which means, it needs good writers.

16. Everybody Writes : Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley

Best for : Bloggers and content creators

Everybody Writes teaches readers not only how to write, but also how to engage audiences with truthful storytelling. She offers practical how-tos for writing technique, publishing, and even how to find content ideas. 

Ann Handley’s Everybody Writes is one of the most highly rated overall writing books, and is especially helpful for those looking to write for social media. She also recently released an updated version with new examples.

17. Brand Storytelling: Put Customers at the Heart of Your Brand Story by: Miri Rodriguez

Best for : Step-by-step guide on how to build a brand story

Miri Rodriguez is an award winning storyteller and creative journalist at Microsoft. In her book Brand Storytelling she shows readers the importance of creating an emotional connection with your audience.

She uses case studies and interviews to show readers how, in this world of digital screens and AI, human connection will always win out. 

18. Faster, Smarter, Louder: Master Attention in a Noisy Digital Market by Aaron Agius and Gián Clancey

Best for : How to grow business from start to multimillion global company

Aaron Agius and Gián Clancey are the founders of the successful global marketing firm Louder.online. But they weren’t always successful, they actually first went into business together in 2008, but that business didn’t work out and forced them to move back home to Australia. But their experiences made them write Faster, Smarter, [and] Louder. 

This book gives writers technical and practical tips on how to gain credibility, increase online traffic, and engage with audiences. 

Read to become a better writer!

This list is just a start. If you want to be a writer, you don’t have to spend a lot of money, all you need is a library card or a connection to the internet.

In fact, even if you don't have time to learn how to write, that’s no longer an obstacle either. There are several AI and editing tools that will write content for you and help you fine-tune your sentences to stand out from other writers. There are also blogs that will give you all the resources and info you need to become a stellar writer. 

So stop sitting around thinking “one day” you’ll be a writer. As Stephen King said in On Writing , “You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”

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College Essay Essentials: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Successful College Admissions Essay Paperback – July 1, 2016

The #1 resource for writing an amazing college essay to help get into your dream school!

Unlock the key to college admission success with College Essay Essentials , a comprehensive and invaluable resource designed to empower students in their essay-writing journey. Packed with expert guidance and practical tips, this must-have book is tailored specifically for high school seniors, transfer students, and aspiring college applicants.

In College Essay Essentials , Ethan Sawyer, a renowned college essay advisor and expert, shares his proven strategies and insider knowledge to help you navigate the daunting task of crafting compelling essays that stand out from the competition. With an unwavering focus on authenticity, creativity, and effective storytelling, Sawyer empowers you to create impactful narratives that captivate admissions officers.

Writing a college admission essay doesn't have to be stressful. Sawyer (aka The College Essay Guy) will show you that there are only four (really, four!) types of college admission essays. And all you have to do to figure out which type is best for you is answer two simple questions:

1. Have you experienced significant challenges in your life?

2. Do you know what you want to be or do in the future?

With these questions providing the building blocks for your essay, Sawyer guides you through the rest of the process, from choosing a structure to revising your essay, and answers the big questions that have probably been keeping you up at night: How do I brag in a way that doesn't sound like bragging? and How do I make my essay, like, deep?

College Essay Essentials will help you with:

• The best brainstorming exercises
• Choosing an essay structure
• The all-important editing and revisions
• Exercises and tools to help you get started or get unstuck
• College admission essay examples

Don't let the essay-writing process intimidate you. Grab your copy of College Essay Essentials today and embark on a transformative journey toward college admission success!

• Print length 256 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Sourcebooks
• Publication date July 1, 2016
• Grade level 10 - 12
• Dimensions 5.5 x 0.64 x 8.25 inches
• ISBN-10 149263512X
• ISBN-13 978-1492635123
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

About the author.

Ethan Sawyer is a nationally recognized college essay expert and sought-after speaker. Each year he helps thousands of students and counselors through his online courses, workshops, articles, products, and books, and works privately with a small number of students.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sourcebooks; 1st edition (July 1, 2016)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 149263512X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1492635123
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ 10 - 12
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.5 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.64 x 8.25 inches
• #5 in College Guides (Books)
• #22 in College Entrance Test Guides (Books)

About the author

Ethan sawyer.

Ethan Sawyer is a nationally recognized college essay expert and sought-after speaker. Each year he helps thousands of students and counselors through his online courses, workshops, articles, and books, and works privately with a small number of students.

Raised in Spain, Ecuador, and Colombia, Ethan has studied at seventeen different schools and has worked as a teacher, curriculum writer, voice actor, motivational speaker, community organizer, and truck driver. He is a certified Myers-Briggs® specialist, and his type (ENFJ) will tell you that he will show up on time, that he'll be excited to meet you, and that, more than anything, he is committed to—and an expert in—helping you realize your potential.

A graduate of Northwestern University, Ethan holds an MFA from UC Irvine and two counseling certificates. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife and their amazing daughter.

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Customers say

Customers find the book's content great as a reference, with tips and resources that alleviate stress. They also say the writing style is easy to understand and the brainstorming exercises uncover lots of material to help students of all ages write essays.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the book's content great, useful, and motivational. They also say the tips and resources help alleviate stress and make the essay approachable and fun.

"...am thrilled to highly recommend it - - the cohesive format, additional source material and nuanced guidance from Ethan will help me give my students..." Read more

"This is one terrific college essay book . Read it cover to cover and you're almost assured of getting into the college of your choice." Read more

"...These were to be some of the best brainstorming exercises I ever used for essay writing!..." Read more

"This author helps to pull inner thoughts of an experience and express one’s personality in an intriguing way...." Read more

Customers find the writing style easy to understand, detailed, and well organized. They also say the book breaks down the process into manageable pieces. Readers also appreciate the brainstorming exercises and the perfect mix of show and tell.

"...it - - the cohesive format, additional source material and nuanced guidance from Ethan will help me give my students even greater insight to writing..." Read more

"...The book adds even more structure and suggestions ...." Read more

"My son loved this book. Very detail-oriented ." Read more

"...He was very anxious, not knowing where to begin. This book is so clear , is full of great exercises to help college applicants from all backgrounds..." Read more

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Summer Boarding Courses

10 Books for Essay Writing You Need To Know About

Do you have an essay writing task? Are you looking for an example of essay writing which is the absolute best? We understand how essay writing can feel very daunting at first. It can take time to research, understand the material, plan what you want to write and have the creativity and confidence to produce the work. There are some great books for essay writing to help you out!

At Summer Boarding Courses, we recommend you take the time to work through the format for essay writing step-by-step. Many of our courses, including our Creative Writing Course at  Oxford College , can help you with this.

We advise you to keep practicing. Listen to feedback from your friends and teachers. Most of all, do not give up! Soon enough you will be able to deliver excellent work.

To help you become a better writer, it’s essential to have the best instruction too. Whilst you’re waiting for our Summer Boarding Courses to start in Oxford, why not read up on our favourite books on essay writing?

Here are our Top 10 Books for Essay Writing that will have you creating unique and captivating essays for your school assignments!

Academic Writing: A Handbook for International Students  – Stephen Bailey

If you’re one of our ESL international students wanting help for essay writing at University, this is a great book to start with! We recommend reading this before you attend University in the UK as there are many an example of how to write an excellent piece inside. Many exercises are included that you can try, which is perfect for self-study in your own time.

College Essay Essentials: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Successful College Admissions Essay  – Ethan Sawyer

Are you applying to a College or University? Do you need to write a personal statement ( check out our personal statement guide here )?

Writing your application to enter the school you’re dreaming of may be making you feel very anxious, but college counsellor Ethan Sawyer has written a fantastic guide to help you through it. He will help you bring your personal experiences to life and show you that this application is not too scary after all.

We particularly love his advice in answering these two very important questions:

Have you experienced significant challenges in your life?

Do you know what you want to be or do in the future?

College Essay Essentials has lots of essay writing tips, tricks, exercises and real-life examples to reassure you. Good luck! You can do it!

Oxford A-Z of Grammar and Punctuation  – John Seely

If you want to produce good essay writing, you need your English Grammar to be clear and correct. At Summer Boarding Courses, we understand that English Grammar can sometimes be very confusing and unintuitive.

For a clear, simple and easy-to-understand pocket grammar book, John Seely’s Oxford A-Z of Grammar and Punctuation is extremely helpful.

Whether you are writing a professional piece, a school paper or a fun personal letter to a friend, this book will give you straightforward advice – and it’s small enough to easily fit in your rucksack!

Study with us in the UK!

Take your English writing to the next level.

How to Write an Essay in Five Easy Steps  – Inklyo

Do you need a short and easy introduction to essay writing? We recommend you start with this. It is 58 pages long, not a difficult read and covers all the basics that you need to know. The authors take you through your essay writing step-by-step and help you minimise your anxiety, even if it is the night before your project is due!

We love their recommendation about how to make your instructor happy:

‘Demonstrate that you have understood the course material and write intelligently about your subject’.

A Professor’s Guide to Writing Essays: The No-Nonsense Plan for Better Writing  – Dr. Jacob Neumann

Dr. Neumann is straight-talking. He believes that the plan for any type of essay is the same but how you approach essay writing is critical. The only thing that changes for each essay is the length and complexity of the project.

This book covers every aspect of academic writing for College, University and Secondary (High School) students. We love how simple, honest and clear his instructions are and believe you will complete your writing task much more confidently with his advice.

100 Ways to Improve Your Writing  – Gary Provost

This book may have been written in 1985, but it still a fantastic resource for the best essay writing! It does not matter if you are a student or an established successful writer. This easy-to-use guidebook will inspire you to write even better than before.

100 Ways to Improve Your Writing includes many writing examples and plenty of straightforward writing tips. It’s also easy to dip in and out of. Read through it all in one go or pick a chapter or two when you are feeling inspired!

GCSE English Writing Skills Study Guide  – CGP Books

For our younger learners aged 14 to 16, this is an excellent guide for students to refine their writing skills in essays, non-fiction, creative writing and more. There are clear, helpful exercises throughout the book for students to complete and understand the best English topics for essay writing.

The content is also written for students studying GCSE English: if you are taking this exam, you’ll have a much better chance of passing!

How to Write Better Essays (Palgrave Study Skills)  – Bryan Greetham

We all want to be confident when we are writing our essays. This step-by-step guide will help you analyse concepts, consider different arguments about a subject, and argue your ideas well. The chapters are easy to read and digest and will show you how to research ideas, take notes, write productively in exams and be engaging in your writing.

The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present  – Phillip Lopate

It is by reading other writers, that we develop our own ideas and unique style. Discover how your own writing can progress and grow through gaining an insight into other writers’ minds and lives.

The Art of the Personal Essay is an excellent collection of essays, from old to new, that are highly entertaining, creative and reflective. Make sure to have this text on your bookshelf or in your bag, so that you can take it out whenever you are seeking inspiration for your next essay. Enjoy!

The Oxford Book of Essays  – John Gross

For the ultimate essay writing book, this is the collection of work that you need to read. There are 140 essays in here by 120 writers. You will find every kind of style; from poetry and fantasy to serious arguments. Some pieces are old, others are incredibly modern. Read through the essays at your own leisure, so that your ideas about how to write gently expand alongside your imagination and creativity.

For more tips on key writing techniques, explore our selection of 100 writing prompts to give your work a persuasive flourish.

Do you feel ready to write with our recommended books for essay writing?

Essay writing is an essential skill for English students but just getting started can be difficult! You will need to think about what type of essay you are being asked to write. You will have to plan your outline in essay writing – considering the introduction, the main body of the essay, an excellent conclusion and references.

Having excellent research skills, avoiding plagiarism, and making your essay stand out from the rest of the students in your class are key things you need to know.

We hope our recommendations have inspired you and lead you to writing excellent essays in the future. Good luck and get started. We look forward to seeing you at Summer Boarding Courses in Summer, where you can receive the best writing tips from our teachers in the UK!

6 Best Essay Writing Books of All Time

Our goal : Find the best Essay Writing books according to the internet (not just one random person's opinion).

• Type "best essay writing books" into our search engine and study the top 5+ pages.
• Add only the books mentioned 2+ times.
• Rank the results neatly for you here! 😊 (It was a lot of work. But hey! That's why we're here, right?)

(Updated 2024)

As an Amazon Associate, we earn money from purchases made through links in this page.

Last Updated: Monday 1 Jan, 2024

• Best Essay Writing Books

College Essay Essentials

A step-by-step guide to writing a successful college admissions essay.

Ethan Sawyer

A Professor's Guide to Writing Essays

The no-nonsense plan for better writing.

Dr. Jacob Neumann

On Writing Well

An informal guide to writing nonfiction.

William Zinsser

The Elements of Style

William Strunk Jr.

100 Ways to Improve Your Writing

Proven professional techniques for writing with style and power.

Gary Provost

The Art of the Personal Essay

An anthology from the classical era to the present.

Phillip Lopate

• Top 5 Books To Improve Essay Writing Skills www.therwandan.com
• 7 Books I Use to Write Personal Essays – Commonplace Book Blog commonplacebookblog.com
• 4 Books for Essay Writing You Need to Know About - CampusBooks Blog www.campusbooks.com
• 10 Best Books on Essay Writing (You Should Read Today) rafalreyzer.com
• 10 Books for Essay Writing You Need To Know About | SBC summerboardingcourses.com

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The Best Books On Writing—From A Writer

I can’t tell you how many books and blogs I’ve read on writing and the creative process. Since knowing I wanted to pursue writing more seriously in my 20s, I’ve devoured (okay, skimmed) too many books that go over all the ins and outs of how to write a story—from craft and story structure to the best writing platforms and how to revise your drafts. Some advice says to write every day no matter what; others recommend to take breaks. Some authors suggest fancy writing software; others swear by pen and paper. At a certain pont, all the advice blurs together and it’s impossible to retain let alone practice every single recommendation. Eventually, you have to figure out what works best for you and—yes, the hardest part—sit down and write your story.

That said, there are a few wonderful writing books out there that I swear by for my own practice. While this list isn’t comprehensive, it includes a few gems I believe are fresh, unique, and short or small enough to carry with you. Most importantly, these books are more concerned with examining the writer’s life than the writing itself (something I’ve come to learn must be figured out at the individual level). Hopefully they offer you a bit of wisdom as well.

For more writing recommendations, check out these 99 creative writing prompts and these writing classes you can take online .

1. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

This is one of my all-time favorite essay collections for creative inspiration or for whenever I feel like I’m in a writing rut. I first read it during grad school in a single afternoon (it’s only 111 pages) and was captivated by Dillard’s ability to articulate the joys and pains of life as a working writer. Each micro essay includes metaphors, anecdotes from her experiences, and probing questions for the reader to examine their own writing life. It’s a quick and breathless read, but one that stays with you forever. Here is one of my favorite passages:

“Who will teach me to write? A reader wanted to know.

The page, the page, the eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch but nevertheless, because acting is better than being here in mere opacity…” (Dillard, 58-59)

2. My Trade Is Mystery by Carl Phillips

This little writing book is such a gem! I first started reading it this past winter and had to force myself to slow down so that I could savor every single word from the accomplished writer, poet, and teacher Carl Phillips. The book jacket describes this as the “ultimate companion for writers at every stage of their journey,” and it truly is such. It’s also a fresh take on writing advice in a market saturated by how-to writing books and instruction manuals. Here is a passage I continue to revisit:

“To write poems that make a meaningful difference, that do the transformative work of showing readers (and myself as the writer) the world in a new way—this is difficult, yes. But the chance for surprise makes the work inviting. Difficulty, surprise—maybe that’s all a career comes down to. Difficulty meets surprise, and—without having thought to choose to—they mate for life.” (Phillips, 27)

3. Body Work by Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos has long been one of my favorite authors and essayists. Her work is raw and profoundly human. When I learned she was publishing her own book on writing, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it, knowing it would offer a fresh and intimate take on personal narrative. It has, of course, exceeded my expectations and become a regular companion to my own writing practice. In a little more than 150 pages, Febos transforms the way writers consider the page and how we use it to explore our truest and most personal stories—which often include desires and physical bodies. Author Alexander Chee calls it “one of the most liberating books on the subject of writing.” I suggest every writer snag a copy to keep on their desk.

4. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Is a writing book roundup complete if it doesn’t include Bird by Bird? While an older book on the market (first published in 1994), there’s a reason Anne Lamott’s work continues to be praised and quoted by writers everywhere—my own copy is dog-eared, weathered, and hardly decipherable from highlighter and margin notes.

Lamott has long been known for her honest writing and ability to put things plainly for readers, and she does just that in this instruction manual, too. If I’ve taken anything from my reading (and re-readings) of her words, it’s that there is nothing more sacred than finding your inner voice and allowing it to live on the page. “Train yourself to hear that small inner voice,” she writes. (113, Lamott)

5. Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum

If you’re writing a book (or want to), this is essentially the bible you’ll want to memorize and reference again and again. Courtney Maum offers insider advice from the book publishing world, whether you’re trying to finish your novel, find an agent, or navigate the terrifying waters—and jargon—of the pub industry. I reference my copy weekly, if not more, and recommend it to anyone who tells me they are writing a book. You can also subscribe to Maum’s substack newsletter for regular writing advice delivered to your inbox.

Forthcoming: How We Do It by Jericho Brown and Darlene Taylor

This one isn’t out in the world until summer, so while I can’t give my personal recommendation just yet, I can say I think it’s going to be very, very good . It includes experiences and expertise from more than 30 acclaimed writers and celebrates the Black creative spirit. Preorders are super important for authors and the success of books, so consider ordering a copy before pub date to express your interest. (Plus, it’s always fun to get a book in the mail that you purchased months ago!)

Kayti Christian (she/her) is the Managing Editor at The Good Trade. She has a Master’s in Nonfiction Writing from the University of London and is the creator of Feelings Not Aside , a newsletter for sensitive people.

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Essay Papers Writing Online

A comprehensive guide to essay writing.

Essay writing is a crucial skill that students need to master in order to succeed academically. Whether you’re a high school student working on a history paper or a college student tackling a critical analysis essay, having a solid understanding of the essay writing process is essential.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the essential tips and tricks that will help you improve your essay writing skills. From generating ideas and organizing your thoughts to crafting a strong thesis statement and polishing your final draft, we’ve got you covered.

Not only that, but we’ll also provide you with useful templates that you can use as a framework for your essays. These templates will help you structure your writing, stay focused on your main argument, and ensure that your essay flows smoothly from one point to the next.

The Ultimate Essay Writing Guides

Essay writing can be a challenging task for many students, but with the right guidance and tips, you can improve your writing skills and produce high-quality essays. In this ultimate guide, we will provide you with valuable advice, tricks, and templates to help you excel in your essay writing endeavors.

1. Understand the Prompt: Before you start writing your essay, make sure you fully understand the prompt or question. Analyze the requirements and key points that need to be addressed in your essay.

2. Create an Outline: Organize your ideas and thoughts by creating a detailed outline for your essay. This will help you structure your arguments and ensure a logical flow of information.

3. Research Thoroughly: Conduct extensive research on your topic to gather relevant information and evidence to support your arguments. Use credible sources and cite them properly in your essay.

4. Write Clearly and Concisely: Avoid using jargon or complex language in your essay. Write in a clear and concise manner to convey your ideas effectively to the reader.

5. Proofread and Edit: Before submitting your essay, make sure to proofread and edit it carefully. Check for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and ensure that your essay flows cohesively.

By following these ultimate essay writing guides, you can enhance your writing skills and produce outstanding essays that will impress your instructors and peers. Practice regularly and seek feedback to continuously improve your writing abilities.

Tips for Crafting an A+ Essay

1. Understand the Assignment: Before you start writing, make sure you fully understand the assignment guidelines and requirements. If you have any doubts, clarify them with your instructor.

2. Conduct Thorough Research: Gather relevant sources and information to support your arguments. Make sure to cite your sources properly and use credible sources.

3. Create a Strong Thesis Statement: Your thesis statement should clearly outline the main point of your essay and guide your readers on what to expect.

4. Organize Your Ideas: Create an outline to organize your thoughts and ensure a logical flow of ideas in your essay.

5. Write Clearly and Concisely: Use clear, concise language and avoid unnecessary jargon or complex sentences. Be direct and to the point.

6. Revise and Edit: Always proofread your essay for grammar and spelling errors. Revise your work to ensure coherence and clarity.

7. Seek Feedback: Ask a peer or instructor to review your essay and provide constructive feedback for improvement.

8. Use Proper Formatting: Follow the formatting guidelines provided by your instructor, such as font size, margins, and citation style.

9. Stay Focused: Keep your essay focused on the main topic and avoid going off on tangents. Stick to your thesis statement.

10. Practice, Practice, Practice: The more you practice writing essays, the better you will get at it. Keep practicing and refining your writing skills.

Tricks to Improve Your Writing Skills

Improving your writing skills can be a challenging but rewarding process. Here are some tricks to help you become a better writer:

1. Read widely: Reading a variety of genres and styles can help you develop your own voice and writing style.

2. Practice regularly: The more you write, the better you will become. Set aside time each day to practice writing.

3. Get feedback: Share your writing with others and ask for constructive criticism. Feedback can help you identify areas for improvement.

4. Study grammar and punctuation: Good writing requires a solid understanding of grammar and punctuation rules. Take the time to study and practice these essential skills.

5. Edit and revise: Writing is a process, and editing is an important part of that process. Take the time to edit and revise your work to improve clarity and coherence.

6. Experiment with different writing techniques: Try experimenting with different writing techniques, such as using metaphors, similes, or descriptive language, to enhance your writing.

7. Stay inspired: Find inspiration in the world around you. Whether it’s nature, art, or literature, draw inspiration from your surroundings to fuel your writing.

By following these tricks and practicing regularly, you can improve your writing skills and become a more confident and effective writer.

Step-by-Step Essay Writing Templates

When it comes to writing an essay, having a clear and structured template can be incredibly helpful. Here are some step-by-step essay writing templates that you can use to guide you through the process:

• Introduction: Start your essay with a hook to grab the reader’s attention. Provide some background information on the topic and end with a thesis statement that outlines the main argument of your essay.
• Body Paragraphs: Each body paragraph should focus on a single point that supports your thesis. Start with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea of the paragraph, provide evidence to support your point, and then analyze the evidence to show how it relates back to your thesis.
• Conclusion: Summarize the main points of your essay and restate your thesis in a new way. Avoid introducing new information in the conclusion and instead focus on tying together all the points you have made throughout the essay.

Expert Advice for Writing Top-Notch Essays

When it comes to writing a top-notch essay, it’s essential to follow expert advice to ensure your work stands out. Here are some key tips to help you elevate your writing:

1. Start with a strong thesis statement that clearly outlines your main argument.

2. Conduct thorough research to support your points with credible sources.

3. Organize your thoughts logically and ensure your essay flows smoothly from one point to the next.

4. Use a variety of sentence structures and vocabulary to keep your writing engaging.

5. Proofread and edit your essay carefully to eliminate errors and refine your arguments.

By following these expert tips, you can take your essay writing skills to the next level and produce work that is both informative and compelling.

Resources to Enhance Your Essay Writing Process

When it comes to improving your essay writing skills, there are a variety of resources available to help you enhance your process. Here are some valuable resources that can aid you in becoming a more effective and efficient writer:

• Writing Guides: There are countless writing guides and books that offer tips, tricks, and strategies for improving your writing skills. Whether you’re looking to enhance your grammar, structure, or argumentation, these guides can provide valuable insights.
• Online Writing Communities: Joining online writing communities can be a great way to connect with other writers, receive feedback on your work, and engage in writing challenges and prompts. Websites like Writing.com and Wattpad are popular platforms for writers to share their work and receive critiques.
• Writing Workshops and Courses: Participating in writing workshops and courses can help you hone your craft and develop your writing skills. Whether you prefer in-person workshops or online courses, there are many options available to suit your needs and schedule.
• Writing Apps and Tools: Utilizing writing apps and tools can streamline your writing process and help you stay organized. Tools like Grammarly can assist with grammar and spelling checks, while apps like Scrivener can help you organize your research and ideas.
• Libraries and Writing Centers: Visiting your local library or university writing center can provide access to valuable resources, such as writing guides, research materials, and writing tutors who can offer personalized feedback and support.

By taking advantage of these resources, you can enhance your essay writing process and become a more skilled and confident writer.

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10 of the Best Books on Writing and Publishing

Laura Sackton

Laura Sackton is a queer book nerd and freelance writer, known on the internet for loving winter, despising summer, and going overboard with extravagant baking projects. In addition to her work at Book Riot, she reviews for BookPage and AudioFile, and writes a weekly newsletter, Books & Bakes , celebrating queer lit and tasty treats. You can catch her on Instagram shouting about the queer books she loves and sharing photos of the walks she takes in the hills of Western Mass (while listening to audiobooks, of course).

View All posts by Laura Sackton

Aspiring authors, meet your new best friends: Liz Morrow and Ariel Curry. These seasoned pros provide an engaging and effective resource that includes a practical roadmap for planning, writing, and publishing your book, plus insider tips on capturing the attention of agents and publishers—even without a massive following. Writers at any stage will thrive with this comprehensive guide and ready access to  HungryAuthors.com  for additional support.

I know I’m not the only writer who loves reading about writing and publishing, so I’ve collected some of my favorite books on the subject. I veered away from the more popular how-to guides, and you’ll notice some classic writing books missing from the list as well. Instead, I’ve included books that approach writing and publishing from unique perspectives, books that blend craft lessons with memoir, and books that have changed the way I think about writing, revising, publishing, and the creative process more broadly. I reach for many of these books when I’m stuck—and I can’t think of a better endorsement than that.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee

This is my all-time favorite book about writing. It’s a memoir-in-essays, and Chee doesn’t exclusively focus on writing: there are essays on his childhood in Maine, growing roses, AIDS activism, and more. But even the essays that are ostensibly about something else are full of Chee’s wisdom and insight into what it means to be a writer. This book is vulnerable, generous, challenging, and moving. It’s the first recommendation out of my mouth whenever anyone asks me for a book to hand to new and aspiring writers.

1000 Words by Jami Attenberg

This book grew out of Jami Attenberg’s wonderful 1000 Words of Summer community initiative. Every June, thousands of writers from all over the world cheer each other on as they attempt to write 1000 words every day for two weeks. Each day during the event, Attenberg sends out an email with a letter from a different writer; this book collects many of those letters, along with Attenberg’s own advice and encouragement. You’ll find wisdom and inspiration from Carmen Maria Machado, Roxane Gay, Celeste Ng, and many more. Anyone who’s ever felt alone with their pen will appreciate this vibrant collection.

Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses

This book is a blend of craft lessons and a critique of the concept of “craft” itself. Salesses explores how definitions of craft, as well as the ways most writing workshops function, are set up to serve white men and no one else. So many of the craft ideas we’re taught are based in Western understandings of storytelling and rarely serve writers from marginalized communities. In this invigorating and inviting book, Salesses offers a different approach to workshopping that honors and celebrates diverse storytelling traditions.

Black Women Writers At Work edited by Claudia Tate

This seminal collection, first published in 1983, has long been out of print. Rereleased in 2023, with a new forward, it’s just as illuminating and important as it was 40 years ago. It includes interviews with luminaries such as Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Nikki Giovanni, among others. These poets, novelists, essayists, and playwrights discuss how and why they write, who they write for, the connections between their lives and work, and much more.

A People’s Guide to Publishing by Joe Biel

Book publishing can be a daunting field, and some of the books about it are equally daunting—long, dense, and full of details. This accessible, informal, and highly informative guide is a great place to start if you’re curious about the publishing industry. Joe Biel, founder of Microcosm Publishing, draws on 20+ years in the industry and shares everything you need to know to get started. His style is forthright and direct, and he’s great at explaining industry concepts in ways that make sense.

Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum

This is a fantastic, inviting guide to all aspects of the writing and publishing process. Author Courtney Maum answers loads of common questions about writing and publishing your first book. She also includes the words and wisdom of dozens of other authors and book professionals, including translators, editors, agents, film producers, activists, and others. It’s a lot of fun to read this cover to cover, but it’s also a great resource to refer to as needed.

Body Work by Melissa Febos

Febos is one of my favorite writers who writes about writing. In this slim book, Febos asks big questions about writing memoir: how and why do we tell intimate stories about our lives? How does the act of writing affect our non-writing lives and relationships? How are art, trauma, and experience connected? This is one of those rare craft books that has something for both writers and readers. Whoever you are, I promise you won’t look at memoir the same way again.

Book Wars by John Brookshire Thompson

If you’re looking for a book to help you understand the current state of publishing and how we got here, Book Wars is a must-read. Thompson offers an in-depth look at how technology has changed (and not changed) publishing over the last several decades. This is definitely history and analysis, rather than how-to, but it provides a lot of essential context for anyone interested in writing and publishing (and, of course, for readers).

How We Do It edited by Jericho Brown

There’s truly nothing better than learning from the masters. In this vibrant collection, Black writers working in diverse mediums reflect on their creative lives. A combination of interviews and essays, this book offers a beautiful, complicated tapestry of perspectives on the intersections of Blackness, art-making, language, history, and more. Contributors include Natasha Trethewey, Jamaica Kincaid, Carl Phillips, Jacqueline Woodson, and many others.

Never Say You Can’t Survive by Charlie Jane Anders

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When the Best Possible Story is Right Outside Your Door

Nathan deuel on (trying) to teach travel writing in the middle of the ucla student protests.

It was supposed to be easy: Teaching travel writing. After all, I’d been teaching for more than a decade, with essays picked for Best American Travel Writing , a decently regarded book of essays about the Middle East, and even a New York Times Magazine piece about the time I walked from New York to New Orleans. I’d been to Yemen, had a favorite restaurant in Baghdad, and could tell you the best place to eat North Korean food in Riyadh.

But in ten years at UCLA, I had mostly been teaching outside my expertise—a composition class about Los Angeles, a creative writing class for pre-meds, and a general journalism course for English majors—and what a strange feeling it was to at last preach the genre I supposedly knew best. I was scared.

Sometimes you get what you want and it’s harder than what you didn’t. Then protests came to my campus—the same quarter I was teaching travel writing—and suddenly the most interesting story was located, in fact, about 100 feet from the classroom. Would I be able to get students excited about the idea of going somewhere? (I myself rarely went anywhere.) What would it feel like to teach about travel when the best advice I could give was to go nowhere and stand up for something?

I left Miami in 1997 to attend college in California and when I was 19 I hitchhiked to Alaska and worked on a fishing boat and then in a cannery and then I transferred to a college back east and almost immediately dropped out to work at a newspaper in Cambodia. There I met the woman I’d marry and we moved to Indonesia and started dabbling in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

In 2008 we moved to Saudi Arabia, two of the first American journalists to be based there. We had a child and my wife was offered an exciting job—in Baghdad. Plenty of families lived in that city of 10 million. Instead, the child and I moved to Istanbul and we’d all meet up in Kurdistan or Beirut, which we soon made home, just in time for some of the most dangerous and violent years of unrest in neighboring Syria.

Those years, my wife put on battle gear and snuck over the border while I changed diapers and wrote essays—about going to Sanaa with a tiny baby, who got German measles, probably from children in the old city who tried to share food. Or that time we rented a house on an island in Turkey but my wife kept fighting with her editor and the seagulls never stopped screaming. Or a Christmas in Kurdistan, featuring the most grim and insane Chinese food of my life. There were a lot of protests.

Then in 2013 we moved to Los Angeles and I tried to write more of what I guess you could call travel essays: About taking the bus to my book launch in Los Feliz and walking the length of the South Bay bike path and a trip to Joshua Tree to think about the legacy of Edward Abbey. Gradually, my desire to write this kind of essay dried up as my life became less mobile. Instead I raised a kid and learned how to surf and got good at teaching classes that had little to do with the person I’d once been and the places I’d once called home. I wrote about opera for The Paris Review and about parenting for The Los Angeles Times and I also reviewed a lot of books. I gradually became someone else, somewhere else.

Suddenly it was the spring of 2024, and I was entering a classroom in LA that I’d lectured from for years, except this time I came bearing the brand new syllabus for a class I’d written and designed and conjured into existence: English 131E: “Travel Writing.”

The plan was to read David Foster Wallace on the fair and the ship but also Agnes Callard’s essay about why travel sucks. We’d consider how queer African-American writers like Bryan Washington, obsessed with Japan, could reorient which stories we were telling and why and how Crying in H Mart was helping a new generation of young writers look in the mirror and care about their experience too. You could just go to the grocery store and write a beautiful essay. I could just walk into a room and try to teach students how to write about travel.

Then it was mid-way through the course. Not bad! Students had written half a dozen short essays, a midterm, and they were gearing up to take a “field trip” to write a much longer essay. One student was driving up to the Central Valley to find a songwriting community around the migrant experience. Another had trekked up a mountain in Utah, hoping to escape an ex-fiancee. A third was going to take Ubers at night and chat up garrulous drivers.

Then something pretty remarkable happened: A bunch of UCLA students (some of them my own) started gathering in giant numbers on the main quad. Walking past the encampment on that fateful Tuesday afternoon, I carried my satchel—stuffed with stories about adventures far and wide—and when I ran into a colleague I could barely hear him over the hovering helicopters. I took a final look before heading home, not knowing of course how bad it would get that night but sensing something foreboding.

Moodily, I stood there, listening to the murmur of teens and young people in their early 20s—not unlike gatherings I’d seen or knew about from my time in the Middle East—and my mind went dark, to the concussion of an explosion, bad guys with guns, the scream of sirens. It’s hard to care. It’s easy to get hurt.

Overnight, the worst things did happen. Well, not the worst, but it was astonishing to believe something so bad could happen right there, on my own campus. (The California Highway Patrol recently confirmed firing into the crowd nearly 60 projectiles, including “33 beanbag rounds from 12-gauge shotguns and two dozen 40-millimeter ‘direct impact’ rounds from pistols and shotguns,” a report said.)

That sad next day, and in the days to come, in the wake of a despicable and avoidable tragedy on its own campus, UCLA administrators sent a panicked official memorandum to the faculty. I monitored Twitter. I fielded emails from students, many of whom were shaken up. Then I got concerned emails from friends far away. Finally another note arrived from UCLA, this time telling us all classes were moving online indefinitely.

What a strange time to be teaching! What was my role here? Nothing felt right. Predictably, students started writing essays about what had transpired. Many of them were strident, predictable. I struggled to explain how to take this titanic event and turn it into a good story.

Then I got a good one. And in reading that student essay I realized something new that is actually maybe something basic—something I’d even baked into my own syllabus, even if I’d forgotten about it.

The very good piece started in Orange County, during an early morning grocery run with the student’s father, in the wake of the protests on campus and the arrests and the violence. The student of mine wasn’t speaking to her dad, she wrote, because he was still mad she had risked her life by joining the protest. She, meanwhile, was mad at her dad that he couldn’t see why she’d joined, and so she refused to talk to him.

They angrily stalked the aisles of an empty grocery store in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb, filling a cart, still not understanding each other. What would give? At the cashier, stonily putting stuff on the checkout counter, they startled when an employee noticed the student’s college sweatshirt.

“You go to UCLA, huh? I’ve been hearing about those riots all week. You weren’t at those protests, were you?”

Such tension! The student writes about looking at her dad, then at her sweatshirt, and then back at the cashier. “No,” she says innocently enough, “I wasn’t there. It’s all pretty scary, though.”

This was not true. She had been there. It was scary. But whereas all my other students tended to write at length about that awful night, and to emphasize the days leading up to it, and the days after, attempting to say so much, this student barely wrote at all about the suffocating feeling of being pushed, “White bodies to the frontlines,” or the bricks flying, or the taste of bear spray, or the cops firing weapons at her face, or how very scared she really was. (I mean she wrote about all that but with effective restraint.)

What stands out to me is how she wrote about lying to the cashier, the way she looked at her dad, who started to laugh and then she wrote about how she started to laugh herself.

On the way back to the car, she wrote, her life seemed to be opening back up.

It’s been a couple months now. I guess I knew part of me would enjoy standing in front of a bunch of 20-year-olds, telling them the action was in a faraway place. I knew my syllabus was designed to make that idea more complicated. But I also knew I hadn’t done much traveling myself lately.

It’s probably a good time to point out that this writer I’m so impressed with wasn’t even in my travel class. She’s a premed, taking the other class I taught this spring, which is called Medical Narratives, and is a kind of creative writing boot camp for future doctors.

Here’s the deal: Sometimes the best story is standing right in front of you. Sometimes it’s a future doctor with a light touch, sitting there in a classroom you’ve taken for granted. I guess what I’m saying is you can go to the grocery store, you can forgive your dad, and regardless of how hard or hopeless it seems, how much it might hurt, you can make just about anything in your life huge and beautiful and worthwhile.

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More From Forbes

Summer reading: ultimate guide to the 25 greatest investment books ever written.

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Summer reading

As Benjamin Franklin wisely noted, "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." This timeless advice rings especially true in the world of finance and investing. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's longtime business partner, echoed this sentiment when he observed, "In my whole life, I have known no wise person who didn't read all the time — none, zero."

With these pearls of wisdom in mind, presented here is the definitive guide to the 25 Greatest Investment Books Ever Written. This carefully curated list is the result of extensive research and input from some of the world's most successful investors, including billionaires and legendary fund managers.

From timeless classics like Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" to modern masterpieces such as Morgan Housel's "The Psychology of Money," this collection represents the pinnacle of investment literature. These books have shaped the strategies of Wall Street titans, informed the decisions of retail investors, and continue to influence financial markets worldwide.

Whether you're a seasoned professional looking to refine your approach or a novice eager to learn the ropes, this list offers invaluable insights into the principles of successful investing. Each book has been selected for its enduring relevance, innovative ideas, and potential to transform your financial acumen.

As long the fourth of July weekend approaches, there's no better time to dive into these game-changing works. Remember, in the fast-paced world of finance, continuous learning is not just an advantage – it's a necessity. Let this reading list be a guide to investment excellence.

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024.

1. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

2. Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Philip A. Fisher

3. The Essays of Warren Buffett Lessons for Corporate America by Warren Buffett and Lawrence Cunningham

4. Securities Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd

5. The Most Important Thing, Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor by Howard Marks

6. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John C. Bogle

7. The Dhandho Investor The Low-Risk Value Method to High Returns by Mohnish Pabrai

8. The Outsiders by William N. Thorndike

9. One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch and John Rothchild

10. Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Siegel

11. Dear Chairman Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism by Jeff Gramm

12. Superstocks by Ken Fisher

13. Margin of Safety by Seth A. Klarman

14. You Can Be A Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt

15. The Manual of Ideas by John Mihaljevic

16. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

17. Poor Charlie’s Almanack The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger by Charlie Munger

18. Against the Gods by Peter L. Bernstein

19. A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel

20. Principles Life and Work by Ray Dalio

21. How to Make Money in Stocks by William J. O’Neil

22. Money Master the Game by Tony Robbins

23. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefever

24. Where are the Customer’s Yachts by Fred Schwed

25. Extraordinary Popular Delusions by Charles Mackay

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Paperback Row

6 New Paperbacks to Read This Week

By Shreya Chattopadhyay Aug. 9, 2024

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On the hunt for your next read? Barack Obama’s memoir “A Promised Land” is out in paperback, along with an investigation into cobalt mining in Congo, a philosophical defense of failure and more.

Here are six paperbacks we recommend →

Iris Prince, the conservative Mexican American woman who narrates this novel, is “sardonic and ruthless in her observations,” our reviewer wrote. When she moves to a mostly white suburb after a divorce, a wall inexplicably grows in her front yard, getting taller each night, undermining both her belief in the rules and her relationship with America.

When this first volume of Barack Obama’s presidential memoirs was published, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie praised it, writing that “it is not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read.”

“Few nations are blessed with a more diverse abundance of resource riches than the Congo. No country in the world has been more severely exploited,” Kara writes early in this investigation into the abuses of people and the environment endemic to cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a process that powers the lithium batteries in iPhones.

This prizewinning romance, first published in France, follows Sarah, a poor teenage French expat, and Driss, a wealthy Moroccan, as they navigate Casablanca’s alleys along with barriers of class and nationality.

A year earlier, forest fires claimed the life of a local karaoke legend. Now, the town of Crow Valley is hosting a karaoke competition in his memory, but between a prison break and the conflicting goals of its attendees, all might not go according to plan. Our reviewer called this novel “part antic farce, part character study” and “a thoroughly fun read.”

Analyzing failure in social, spiritual and other spheres of life, a philosopher argues in favor of letting it lead us to humility. Our critic Jennifer Szalai found it absorbing, “even — or especially — when I felt uncomfortable with its implications.”

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