Bound Together 2023: Nonfiction: Reading and Writing
Who better to examine and explain literary life than authors like Jane Smiley, Will Self, and Matt Bell? Their new titles are among this list of books focused on the art of the written word.
HOW TO READ NOW, By Elaine Castillo
VIKING • JULY 2022 • 352 PAGES • $27 HARDCOVER
With this collection of essays, the author of America Is Not the Heart—selected for Alta Journal’s California Book Club in 2021—challenges us to read more deeply and intentionally. Pushing past platitudinal efforts to build empathy through literature and diversify bookshelves, Elaine Castillo implores readers to notice and critically examine the intimacies and histories created by sharing stories. The result, Castillo promises, will be worth the read.
WHY READ: SELECTED WRITINGS 2001–2021, By Will Self
GROVE PRESS • JANUARY 2023 • 336 PAGES • $26 HARDCOVER
Will Self’s humorous and biting collection takes stock of the minutiae of literary life. The merits of reading, the lives and work of writing icons like Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka, bookish lore from decades past, and how human consciousness interacts with literature are among the topics Self examines.
HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN 20 PIES: SWEET AND SAVORY TIPS FOR THE WRITING LIFE, By Amy Wallen • Illustrated by Emil Wilson
ANDREWS MCMEEL PUBLISHING • OCTOBER 2022 • 240 PAGES • $20 HARDCOVER
This writing manual–cookbook lays out step-by-step instructions—from blank page to bookshelf—for getting a novel published. Along the way, author and teacher Amy Wallen shares tips and tricks for success. Wallen sprinkles the book with pie recipes, which invite a delicious break from writing.
REFUSE TO BE DONE: HOW TO WRITE AND REWRITE A NOVEL IN THREE DRAFTS, By Matt Bell
SOHO PRESS • MARCH 2022 • 168 PAGES • $16 PAPERBACK
If you’re going to write a novel, Matt Bell argues, you must follow three essential steps: write it once all the way through, rework and rewrite the draft, and then perfect the manuscript through still further revision. Writers, Bell maintains, often slack on the last two steps, to the detriment of their work. He aims to reinvigorate the writing process with his concrete advice and workable action items.
LATE WORK: A LITERARY AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LOVE, LOSS, AND WHAT I WAS READING, By Joan Frank
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO PRESS • OCTOBER 2022 • 136 PAGES • $19 PAPERBACK
This anthology is a vivid account of some of the struggles that come with writing, and Joan Frank holds nothing back as she discusses them. From confronting a possible lack of ambition to receiving advice that feels dismissive, these meditations on the craft of writing offer hope to new and seasoned writers alike.
THE QUESTIONS THAT MATTER MOST: READING, WRITING, AND THE EXERCISE OF FREEDOM, By Jane Smiley
HEYDAY • JUNE 2023 • 256 PAGES • $28 HARDCOVER
In this collection, Jane Smiley turns inward, contemplating her own journey as an author while looking back at the writing of great literary figures both to examine their work and to inspire her own. Her questions, which come in the form of essays, span the writerly realms of journalism, ancient sagas, verbose narrative, feminine voice, and more as she gives primacy to reading as an act of living.
