Reading Like a Writer A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose Published by Harper Perennial 2007 $13.95 ISBN-13: 9780060777050 ISBN-10: 0060777052

In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart -- to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; to look to John le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail. And, most important, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted.

About the Author
Francine Prose is the author of sixteen books, including, most recently, A Changed Man and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, GQ, and The Paris Review. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships. She was recently made president of the PEN American Center. She lives in New York City.