Welcome back to our monthly feature in which I highlight this month’s best new book releases that are especially beneficial for writers. Some fiction, some non-fiction, some craft-focused — all will be of interest to the writer who needs some more reading material. (Okay, I know all of our TBRs are way too long as it is, but new and shiny books always capture my attention!)
The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
A guidebook for putting your characters into harm’s way! Seems fun to me. Publisher description:
Every story starts with a character who is motivated by a need and has a goal that can resolve it. Whether their objective is to find a life partner, bring a killer to justice, overthrow a cruel regime, or something else, conflict transforms a story premise into something fresh. Physical obstacles, adversaries, moral dilemmas, deep-seated doubts and personal struggles…these not only block a character’s external progress, they become a gateway for internal growth. The right conflict will build tension and high stakes, challenge characters as they traverse their arcs, and most importantly, keep readers emotionally invested from beginning to end.
The Best American Travel Writing 2021 edited by Padma Lakshmi
Entries in “The Best American” series are always worth reading, not just for entertainment but for studying the best of the best in articles and essays. Publisher description:
The essays in this year’s Best American Travel Writing are an antidote to the isolation of the year 2020, giving us views into experiences unlike our own and taking us on journeys we could not take ourselves. From the lively music of West Africa, to the rich culinary traditions of Muslims in Northwest China, to the thrill of a hunt in Alaska, this collection is a treasure trove of diverse places and cultures, providing the comfort, excitement, and joy of feeling elsewhere.
The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft edited by Diane Lockward
Books on poetry craft seem harder to come by with each passing year. This book includes templates, examples, prompts, and everything else you need to keep you busy working on your poems for years. Publisher description:
The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft focuses on the craft of poetry and is based on the belief that craft can be taught and the best teacher of craft is a good poem. This book assumes a knowledgeable reader, that is, one who already knows the language of poetry and already practices the craft. This book is organized into thirteen sections, each one devoted to a specific poetic strategy. While only thirteen strategies are used for organizational purposes, the reader will find many additional strategies referred to and discussed within the sections. There is a progression from one section to the next, but each section also stands alone, so the reader or teacher can follow the order of the Contents or move about freely among the sections.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
October is an insane month for big-name novelists. The best of the bunch, in my opinion, is the creative, inventive, totally original Cloud Cuckoo Land. Highly entertaining and highly teachable—Doerr is a great example of someone who breaks the norms of writing. Publisher description:
Set in Constantinople in the fifteenth century, in a small town in present-day Idaho, and on an interstellar ship decades from now, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness — with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.
Oscar Wilde: A Life by Matthew Sturgis
Biographies of writers are always fascinating. It’s been a long time since Wilde has been written about, so I’m glad to see this long overdue study take flight. Publisher description:
Drawing on material that has come to light in the past thirty years, including newly discovered letters, documents, first draft notebooks, and the full transcript of the libel trial, Matthew Sturgis meticulously portrays the key events and influences that shaped Oscar Wilde’s life, returning the man “to his times, and to the facts,” giving us Wilde’s own experience as he experienced it.
Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane by Paul Auster
Stephen Crane wrote some of my favorite stories and novellas of the Gilded Age. Can’t wait to read this fresh take on his life from Auster, who has previously only published fiction. Publisher description:
With Burning Boy, celebrated novelist Paul Auster tells the extraordinary story of Stephen Crane, best known as the author of The Red Badge of Courage, who transformed American literature through an avalanche of original short stories, novellas, poems, journalism, and war reportage before his life was cut short by tuberculosis at age twenty-eight.
Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer
Few personalities are as dramatic and interesting to read about as Truman Capote. Publisher description:
Bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer delves into the years following the acclaimed publication of Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1958 and In Cold Blood in 1966, when Capote struggled with a crippling case of writer’s block. While enjoying all the fruits of his success, he was struck with an idea for what he was sure would be his most celebrated novel…one based on the remarkable, racy lives of his very, very rich friends.