Reading to become a better writer, or, An Ode To My Nightstand

When I was in college, I asked a writer who was at SI what he read to help him write and he said Hemingway. He also said, "Every now and then I'll read a book of Red Smith's writings and Dan Jenkins' writings to remind me that I suck..." I thought that was funny...

 

Any of you who has an IPad or Kindle Fire or any other tablet that supports Aps should get a copy of Pocket (which used be called Read It Later). When you set it up on your iPhone and laptop or desktop, you can save any story in a readable format with just a click, and it will be available on all your devices. I read a ton of longform this way. I see links on Twitter, click my "Pocket" button and then read them at night. It eliminates some nightstand clutter and let's me catch up on stuff I would otherwise forget about. Plus, it's all synced up so that if you stop reading Galway through a 8,000-word piece, you pick it up and can read it on your iPhone (while standing in line at the bank or whatever) or computer at work or in bed that night.

I try to keep two fiction books on my Kindle at all times, one light, one literary. And I have copies of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and The Things They Carried on my desk in my office for inspiration.

 

And again we see that converts become the most rabid believers.

 

When I get the advance to write my book, "Kobe: One Apologist's Tale" and I use some of the money to have a Kindle Fire delivered to your house preloaded with "Sacred Hoops" and Sid Hartman's memoirs, it's going to be like giving you a free crack vial and watching you inch toward the Dark Side.

 

If that book of yours is "Stalking Jack: How Tiger Woods overcame sexual addiction and swing changes and broke golf's most sacred record" then feel free to send to me on whatever device you want.

Dick, with your original list, I'll actually echo some of what ChB wrote. Steve Jobs bio is something I would just read for entertainment. But with Unbroken, which I did read, I would use that more for learning about writing. What was the structure and technique? Could I do something similar? What choices did she make? What about the writing itself? I could see myself - when I dream - writing a book like that more than a massive bio. Still, I was also able to just disappear into the story, which was of course remarkable.

When I read the Times it's usually just to get the news, but when it's a longer feature - or especially something in the magazine -- I do dissect it more from a writing standpoint to try to learn. But with stories out of Washington, I'm not analyzing it for how the stories could make me a better writer although maybe I should do that, to learn more about reporting details, being concise, etc.

Similar story with the New Yorker. Sometimes I'll just read the features straight through and disappear into the story. Then I'll go back a second time and figure out how it worked or if it didn't (that's right, I'll question Remnick's editing choices). I'll think about the reporting or structure and wonder why the magazine insists on using dates in the ledes on every story, and why it usually seems to work, even though they might be deathly boring and would be the death of so many other stories in so many other publications.

And that's the same mix with SI and Esquire and Vanity Fair and NY Magazine and the 19 other magazines and newspapers I'll read. Reading for enjoyment but also craft. Same with nonfiction books.

Fiction I read a ton of thrillers/mysteries and can go through one a week while reading more serious books for culture or just wanting the chance to read incredible writing. With someone like Chabon, I love the stories in his books but it's the writing that drives me wild. Each sentence has something that leaves me in awe, and suddenly when I write something I'll want to throw in a simile in every line, and of course that always works out well...

But Chabon or Russo or other more literary writers do teach me about language, which isn't what I'm looking for when reading Lee Child or John Sandford. There I just want a kick-ass story, and they deliver. And I do like occasionally thinking about how they do it because who wouldn't like to write a best-selling thriller, but those are more daydreams than thinking about it from a pure writing perspective.