My Favorite Books and Recommended Readings

If you'd like nothing better than to settle down with a good book--only you need to know what to read, because you've run out of things by your favorite authors, things recommended by friends, and even things given to you by well-meaning relatives . . . here are some suggestions.
If you know of books that are like these books, or books that you just plain love for no reason at all, would you please e-mail me about the books at shalanna@tx.rr.com? I'd like to hear what you've been reading.


Novels for General Reading


(Classics--The Great American Novel)


Modern Novels for General Reading


(New Classics)


Fantasy Novels (fairy tales for adults and young adults)


(Singletons and series novels alike)


A Writer's Bookshelf


(Buy and keep copies of the reference books!)

Anyone who is serious about becoming or remaining a selling writer has a shelf of reference books within reach of the computer or typewriter. If you think you can't afford these, then start saving up to get the basics. You can get a softcover version of the American Heritage dictionary if you skip one Happy Meal at the golden arches place and eat a salad at home instead, for example; if you are unwilling to do so, you aren't in love with words the way a writer must be, and you're going to have a difficult time with this career. Probably most of you already have many of these books or their equivalents on your basic reference shelf.

You can add your own dream books to this list. The whole BRITANNICA would be lovely, wouldn't it? The Oxford English Dictionary, just to curl up with! And how about an "All About..." volume written for your word processing software, and maybe a couple of general computing references in case something goes wrong?

If you're just getting started, here's a list of some of the most important resources you'll ever have. How many of them do you already have?

  • A good hardcover dictionary, like Webster's New Collegiate or the new American Heritage; a portable softcover edition is nice, but shouldn't be your only reference. Think of all the new words we're assimilating and coining every year.
  • A good thesaurus, preferably arranged like the old Roget's. This is not for use when "looking for a neat word to plug in," but for use when you are willing to pick a couple of possibilities and then look them up to check connotation and denotation in the aforementioned dictionary. I come to it when there's a word on the tip of my tongue, but all I can think of is the meaning and maybe the first letter.
  • The Elements of Style by E. B. White with William Strunk (commonly referred to as "Strunk and White")
    This is not the ONLY style manual you need -- you'll use WORDS INTO TYPE or HARBRACE or whatever style manual you like, also -- but it's the one you should read and consider carefully every time you get ready to write or revise. (Omit needless words, but _only_ the needless ones. )
  • THE ART OF STYLING SENTENCES. This little gem is now a yellow trade softcover out from Barron's. Read it. Read the part about the semicolon, especially. It will dispel all those myths you may have heard about "archaic" punctuation, and will explain the real reasons for punctuation (traffic signs for the reader, etc.) Great to curl up with, just like the dictionary. Use it for ear training and learning about cadence, variation, eloquence, et al.
  • HARBRACE COLLEGE HANDBOOK.
    Grammar and punctuation authority. (There are other fine works, such as the DELUXE TRANSITIVE VAMPIRE and WELL-TEMPERED SENTENCE by Karen Elizabeth Gordon -- see below -- but this is a Textbook With Authority, and has all the things you're going to need to know.)
  • THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE or WORDS INTO TYPE as a general style handbook to supplement HARBRACE.
  • Either a WRITER'S MARKET (WM) or LITERARY MARKET PLACE (LMP) or other reference with basic information about markets and manuscript format.
    A new reference by Jeff Herman, THE INSIDER'S GUIDE TO BOOK EDITORS, PUBLISHERS, AND LITERARY AGENTS, is also very useful because of the level of detail it gives about agents and houses.

    • Tip: many used bookstores have last year's WM, which won't have every last detail right, but which will give you phone numbers for getting the latest editors' names. (Don't ask for editorial; simply ask "To whom should I direct a YA novel query?" and the long- suffering telephone-answering wage slave will either tell you or ring a suitable peon. ) You can also choose markets and then hit the library to check for updated information on only the pertinent listings in either the newest WM or LMP.

  • THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY DESK REFERENCE. (I needed to know which Muse was which just the other day. Now I know who to thank for all this wit.)
  • TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER by Dwight V. Swain.
    Read. Study. Refer to it. It's not linear (it's like hypertext, sort of, or more like a Job Jar or cornucopia in which everything relates to the big task of writing ficiton), and you'll dip into it again and again. This is the source of the terms "scene and sequel" as used in relation to storycrafting.
  • A book on self-editing. A few to try: LINE BY LINE out from the Modern Language Association; WRITE TIGHT! by William Brohaugh; SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS, by Renni Browne and Dave King. The last one seems to me the most useful for fiction writers, but take everything with a grain of salt (for example, you don't have to eschew passive voice and -ing verbs when they're appropriate!) Be sure you get proofreaders' marks.
  • Fiction First Aid (scenarios for repairing specific problems in your works)
  • COLUMBIA or NEW AMERICAN DESK ENCYCLOPEDIA. A one-volume reference for those times you need to know just a little bit about something, and more than just the dictionary definition of a word. Like, where's the thymus gland, and what's its function/which body system is it in? (It's in your chest under your breastbone near the middle, where you put your hand over your heart; it's part of the endocrine system of ductless glands, those which secrete directly into the bloodstream; it sends out the "mobilize! panic! have anxiety attack!" message when fight-or-flight is called for, and helps notify the adrenal glands to do their stuff -- but only when told to by its boss, the pituitary or hypophysis. Whew!)
  • Fowler's MODERN ENGLISH USAGE and Partridge's SLANG, for people who care about nuance and history of words and phrases.
  • A dictionary of quotations, modern or ancient (I mean proverbs, aphorisms, famous sayings, etc.) SIMPSON'S CONTEMPORARY QUOTATIONS and BARTLETT'S for traditional wisdom come to mind. I almost hesitate to list it, but the King James Bible is another great source of titles, proverbs, and famous passages.
  • A grammar reference that's a bit more broad in scope than a style manual. Any textbook will do, from the Princeton Review's GRAMMAR SMART on down to your seventh-grader's KEYS TO GOOD ENGLISH.

    • You don't =have= to collect them the way I do. But let me say this about that....

    Most of us punctuate and compose grammatical sentences by instinct. Yet there are always those gray areas, aren't there? Everyone's got her little bugaboos, it seems -- you know, like when "none" is singular and when it's plural , or when to use "me," "myself," and "I" in the predicate. Still, most people's instincts are pretty good when it comes to finding what needs fixing in their work. A book or two can be just the ticket to finding out the "right way" to do it, and then making it second nature.

    There are some really fun new grammar books out, BTW. Well, not so =new=, I suppose, but not like the old-fashioned, no-nonsense school texts. You may already have them or know about them.

    The first set I'd like to recommend is Karen Elizabeth Gordon's THE DELUXE TRANSITIVE VAMPIRE and THE NEW WELL-TEMPERED SENTENCE. The former is a fun treatment of grammar and usage, and the latter deals with punctuation and sentence structure. These are gift-sized hardcovers for about $12 apiece, although I wish they would come out in softcover so more people could own them.

    I liked the title of a book I saw recently -- GRAMMAR FOR SMART PEOPLE (!), by Barry Tarshis. I picked it up because I collect pedantic stuff like that; it seems pretty useful. THE WORDWATCHER'S GUIDE TO GOOD WRITING AND GRAMMAR is fun, too. Need I mention I also own THE ONE-MINUTE GRAMMARIAN? These are all by Morton S. Freeman, who puts other grammar-book writers to shame. (At least in terms of prolific output!) If you aren't quite ready for Curme's GRAMMAR, check one of these out.

    As you fill in this shelf of essentials, you can also start amassing fiction textbooks and craft of fiction references. Start with THE ART OF FICTION by John Gardner -- a textbook in most college creative writing curricula -- and the Writer's Digest ELEMENTS OF FICTION WRITING series. ELEMENTS is that series of books with white glossy covers that includes Dibell's PLOT, Card's CHARACTERS AND VIEWPOINT, Edelman's MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION, Kress's BEGINNINGS, MIDDLES, and ENDINGS, Tobias's THEME AND STRATEGY, Bickham's SCENE AND STRUCTURE, and several others. This can run into some money, since I paid around $12-16 for each book, depending on where I ran across it. That's why I say to build this portion of your library slowly.

    It is too easy for beginning writers to spend lots of money on writing-related books. Makes you insecure when you get that first rejection, doesn't it? So you go out looking for The Answer, and there are hundreds of books out there (most of them by people you believe you've never heard of, right?) aimed at the novice who's trying to break into print. There are so many good (and not so good) ones out there that the cost can be prohibitive if a writer doesn't have a plan for book selections.

    Don't forget that you can probably check many of the Writer's Digest how-to books out of the library to try before you buy. Remember to scour used book stores and the local college bookstores, which often have gently used textbooks for resale.

    I'd recommend that you build your library gradually, starting with the reference books first, and only then with the more esoteric craft-related titles. (Of course, a market book and/or listing of agents and publishers will be among your first purchases, along with the dictionary and thesaurus if you don't already have them, and at least the Swain book will rank high on the craft-of-writing list.)

    You can come up with some good additions to this list on your own. Be sure to let me know when you find a particularly good one. And start building some new bookshelves to hold all your new treasures.

    More to come -- stay tuned! (Check back by returning to this URL later)

    (Clicking heels three times) There's no place like