Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos . . . do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries–if any–do you have in your library?In elementary school, my favorite subject, that I earned consistently good grades in, was English, which really meant Grammar. But as I teach my own children how to write properly, and as I write in this public forum regularly, I come to realize just how lousy my early education was in this area.
I cannot say that I read writing and grammar manuals but I have been collecting them for the last year. Besides the dictionary which I use monthly, not to mention Dictionary.com which is a weekly stop, I have glanced through only one manual so far but I keep picking them up and setting them in my reading area for the right moment. I hope to participate in the NaNoWriMo again this year but this time I'm going to complete the challenge so I need to prepare as much as I can. Maybe I will make it my summer reading goal to get through 2-3 of these books while lounging by the pool. These are the titles that I found on my shelves:
- The Elements of Style, 3rd ed.
- The Art of Creative Writing
- Woe is I
- Building Fiction
- Writing about Literature
- Writing Without the Muse
- The Lively Art of Writing
- The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus
- Encyclopedia Britannica Dictionary
8 comments:
I have Elements of Style and Woe is I on my shelf as well. Another one I have is The Dictionary of Disagreeable English--kind of a guide of the proper usage of words. For a while I had a ton of English usage books on my wishlist, but that ship has sailed (for now).
The only thing I could find was a dictionary. I haven't read anything on writing in years.
I think the only book I have read in this category would be East, Shoots & Leaves which was fun.
Completing NaNoWriMo is such a big goal to have - I wish you the very best in doing that this year! I've signed up for it a couple of years, only to decide that I didn't have the time it would require.
I hope you'll share your novel with us when it is available! :)
Trish-I'm curious about words but I'm bored too. It's not a passion for me.
Bookgal-Probably two years ago I could have said the same thing.
Rhinoa-I want to read that one. It sounds entertaining.
Susie-I only got 10% done last year. Writing novels is not easy. But when I'm a published author I'll be sure to send you an ARC. =)
You'll have to remind me that you're doing NaNo a little closer to November and I'll add you as a friend. It will be my fifth year and I've finished three of the previous four tries.
And your reference library seems terrific!
cjh
I actually have a lot of writing books since grammar is my passion and copywriting my job.
Elements of Style
Lapsing into a Comma by Walsh
The Copyeditor's Handbook by Einsohn
AP Stylebook and Libel Manual
Artful Sentences: Syntax as style by Tufte
Words that work by Luntz
Plus a ton of books on advertising copywriting, a ton of books about writing children's picture books, and a ton about writing fiction (favorites being Stephen King's On Writing and Reading like a Writer by Francine Prose).
I guess I need to get these all up on LibraryThing soon!
Thanks for the inspiring post!
CJ-Cool! I hope to feel the elation of completing the challenge and writing an actual novel this year. It must be exhilarating.
Lenore-thanks for the suggestions. I've read a little of the Prose book but then I had to return it to the library. I'll have to give it a second go about.
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