Write Your Heart Out… Great Books About Writing

Published on by theorangutanlibrarian

Hello all! I figured since I’ve been talking about writing, it might be fun to list some fiction that features writing! This was actually a surprisingly hard list to come up with books for though. Either I don’t read enough books starring writers or there aren’t many of them (which is weird cos there’s a cliché about a lot of authors writing about writers)

The Angel’s Game– you guys know I love Shadow of the Wind and this sequel is almost as good. Where the first Cemetery of Forgotten Books focused on reading, this one focuses on writing! And man, Zafon clearly knows what he’s doing there!

angels-game

I Capture the Castle– this begins with the best opening line of all time: “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” So yeah, it’s about writing- but also SO MUCH MORE!

i capture the castle.jpg

Fangirl– one of my favourite things about this book (apart from the romance, obviously) was how well Rowell managed to capture that feeling of writing. Though everyone has a different style, this managed to capture something universal about the process.

FangirlWIP

Shosha– Ahh Bashevis Singer- everything he writes is lyrical and fairytale-esque. I can’t gush enough about his writing! This is a little different to other books on this list though, since it’s only partly about the journey of the author, and more about a lost world, an enduring love and the shadow of a future that threatens to overwhelm it all.

shosha

Keep the Aspidistra Flying– this was an excellent book about a struggling poet- but obviously being by Orwell it’s not as simple as that. It’s also about conformity, “the money-world” and the question of whether we should follow our dreams at all…

keep the aspidistra flying

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. Do you know any good books about writing? Let me know in the comments!

58 thoughts on “Write Your Heart Out… Great Books About Writing”

  1. The only one of these I’ve read is Fangirl but oh I loved that book. Cath’s passion for writing is the same way I feel about writing, though I feel she’s more dedicated to her writing than I have been to mine in the past. Cath is just one of those characters so many people can identify with, and the romance in Fangirl was amazing as well, definitely my favourite part of the story too. 😀
    Great post. 🙂 ❤

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  4. Good choices! Fangirl is a good example for all of us amateurs. I’ve owned I Capture the Castle for like ten years, I had no idea it was about writing! I’ve been planning on reading it next year 🙂

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  5. Only thing that comes to mind for me is Sandra Brown’s Envy which features a writer who ghost writes as himself basically but it’s also a romantic thriller twined into the book he’s writing.

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  6. When I started blogging and reviewing books, Shadow of the Wind is one the first book that caught my attention and that I quickly went on a hunt to get my hands on it. I… still haven’t read it and… still remember all the praise you gave to each of the books in that series. I think I’ll make it a 2018 goal to read it. Enough stalling! It needs to be read! 😀
    The only book about writing that always pops into my mind is the one that Stephen King wrote about writing… I think everyone in the world has heard about it already and I think it holds a lot of valuable info. Oh.. in fact.. didn’t Neil Gaiman write something recently that touches on writing? Or maybe it has nothing to do on writing too.. I haven’t seen it being read and reviewed a lot.. It’s called The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction. Honestly, I got no clue what it is really about, but I did come across some random article that talked about writing and quoted parts of that book.. Might be something worth discovering.. It is Neil himself, after all, right? 😛

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    1. Oh I really think you’ll enjoy that!!! hehehe I think it’s worth reading next year for sure 😉 You can thank/blame me later 😉
      Ahh yes I’m hearing King is a good writer for this (confession: I don’t read much of his work, so I wouldn’t know) Oh I didn’t know that about Gaiman’s book- I’ve read so much of his other work, I’ll admit I’m now really curious about that! hahaha yes!!

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      1. Oh, I’ll definitely remember who to blame/thank (I don’t know anyone else who’s read the trilogy) 😂 The book by King I speak of is the Memoir of the Craft or something. I didn’t know about till I started blogging and a writer mentioned it having great tips for fellow writers. Hahah yeh, it’s one of Gaiman’s recent and I never looked into cause I think it’s classified as non-fiction and.. well.. it would have been a huge mistake to make his non-fiction my first book by him! 😂 Hope you enjoy it if you ever try it out, I’d be curious to know what it’s actually abouy hahah

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  7. Fangirl looks interesting. I can’t think of any stories about authors right off the bat. Quite a few with journalists and I even remember one Nora Roberts (mystery) which featured a writer… Hmm… will think a bit more on that.

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  8. Like Lashaan, I also thought about Stephen King’s On Writing as I am reading this post- this is one of the books that I go back and reread once in a while! Nothing like learning from one of the grand masters himself 🙂
    The Shining (also by Stephen King) comes to mind as well! To be honest I am always too scared to read this book (even the movie trailer gives me nightmares) :’)

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  9. Yes Fangirl really did focus well on writing and the feeling of writing! And it is strangely hard to think of books featuring writers and writing… I feel like there are a lot of movies featuring writers but I haven’t come across many books. Maybe Strange the Dreamer? Though the character is more of reader and researcher than a writer. Actually I can think of a lot of books featuring bookworm characters and library-dwellers, but not necessarily writers!

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    1. I know right!! I really liked how Rowell captured that! And yes, it’s really strange. I think you’re right about it being in a lot of movies. Ah I’ve not read that yet- but I’m seriously looking forward to it (more and more now you mention that!!!)

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  12. Ahh I love the idea of this post! Fangirl and I Capture the Castle are both fantastic, two of my favourite books! I agree it does seem hard to think of books about writing – the only two I can think of are Misery by Stephen King, and Sofia Khan is Not Obliged by Aisha Malik, both of which I would highly recommend!

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            1. Ooh yes Oryx and Crake is good, but very weird! But I like weird stuff. I would also really recommend Cat’s Eye, and The Edible Woman. And as I know you are a Shakespeare lover, definitely pick up Hag Seed, which is a retelling of The Tempest! I thought it was excellent.

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  14. Such a cool post!! I loved Fangirl so much… A Room of One’s Own by Viginia Woolf is a really great non-fiction on writing, and it’s an amazing book! I didn’t know that Orwell book at all.

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  15. Some great picks here! I have only read I Capture the Castle and Fangirl but I absolutely loved both of them. Will have to have a look at the rest 🙂

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  16. I swear I add more books into my tbr pile every time reading your posts… Found another couple here that I haven’t read and wondered to myself why I haven’t done so yet 😀 Shosha has got me proper intrigued!

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  20. Pingback: One Lovely Blog Award | Naty's Bookshelf

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