Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog by Kitty Burns Florey

Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences by Kitty Burns Florey, 176 pages

In fifth grade, I learned how to diagram sentences and I fell in love. Combining two of my favorite things - reading and drawing - it made my schoolwork considerably less dull and helped me understand language in a way I hadn't before.  Kitty Burns Florey had a similar experience, which she outlines in Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog. 

Maybe it's the grammar pedant in me, but this book isn't a dry history of a grammatical fad. It's an engaging essay, an ode to a lost skill, waxing philosophical and poetical in turns.  I really enjoyed it. 

 

How to Build a Story...Or, the Big What If by Frances O'Roark Dowell

 How to Build a Story...Or, the Big What If by Frances O'Roark Dowell - 128 pages, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A middle-grade introduction to writing stories, from brainstorming ideas to publication.

Although this is a middle-grade title, I would recommend it for writers and aspiring writers of all ages.  Frances O'Roark Dowell does an excellent job breaking down each piece of the writing process into small chunks that are easy-to-understand for kids and not as overwhelming for adults as many other writing advice books can be.  I really liked her framing of a story's plot as a combination of big problems, sticks and stones (smaller problems), and the monster (the biggest obstacle yet).  It's a slightly different way of thinking about plot that makes more sense to me than something like a beat sheet or a traditional outline.  A very helpful book.  

Beach Read by Emily Henry

Beach Read by Emily Henry -- 361 pages

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They're polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really. 

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion -- 227 pages

'An act of consummate literary bravery, a writer known for her clarity allowing us to watch her mind as it becomes clouded with grief.'

From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year's Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."

The White Album: Essays by Joan Didion

The White Album: Essays by Joan Didion -- 224 pages

First published in 1979, The White Album records indelibly the upheavals and aftermaths of the 1960s. Examining key events, figures, and trends of the era—including Charles Manson, the Black Panthers, and the shopping mall—through the lens of her own spiritual confusion, Joan Didion helped to define mass culture as we now understand it. Written with a commanding sureness of tone and linguistic precision, The White Album is a central text of American reportage and a classic of American autobiography.

This Would Make a Good Story Someday by Dana Alison Levy

This Would Make a Good Story Someday by Dana Alison Levy - 320 pages

Sarah had big plans for the summer.  She was going to learn to surf and speak Latin.  She was going to rebrand her image with a new look and nickname.  She was going to practice yoga daily for inner peace.

She was not going to take a month-long train trip with her family.
However, that's exactly what she ends up doing when Mimi, one of her mothers, wins a free trip across the country for the whole family as part of a writing program.

Now, Sarah is trapped on the train with her animal-obsessed younger sister Ladybug, her activist older sister Laurel and her boyfriend Root, and her two moms.  To make it worse, there's a second family also in the same program with a Texan dad, too-friendly teen son, and two rambunctious senior citizen aunts.

It's going to be a crazy summer!


I was disappointed in this book.  I've read Levy's first two books about the Fletcher Family and absolutely loved them.  I thought they were some of the best LGBT books for grade school kids that I had read.  While incorporating LGBT characters and themes, those books did it very organically.  This book tended to be entirely too preachy about it.  It also was extremely preachy about social issues -- the environment, race issues, white-washing of history, etc.

Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card

Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card -- 240 pages

If you have read fiction by Orson Scott Card, you know that he puts a lot of work into his characters. They are explained and understood, but not over-explained.

In this book Card gives us some insight as to how he thinks of his characters, constructs them, and then portrays them. If you are a fiction writer or want to be one, this is one book you simply must read. It inspired me and instructed me, and it pulled me along to the finish. After checking out this book at the library, I went online and bought my own copy because it is definitely worth having on your shelf.

No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty

No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty -- 176 pages

This book was specifically written to help you complete the challenge of National Novel Writing Month at nanowrimo.org. It has writing tips and word count boosters to give you the push you need to win with a roar. It is complete with quotes and buttons and is full of laughs.

This book is fun and very helpful and pleasurable to read before and during National Novel Writing Month, but if you are not taking the challenge and are looking for general writing and noveling tips, this won't help you very much.

Why We Write, Edited by Meredith Maran

Why We Write, Edited By Meredith Maran, 229 pages

Twenty authors write on how and why they write.  This was a very interesting book.  If you aspire to be a writer, this book could prove to be quite helpful.  It seems many writers feel they must write to be fulfilled. There are many interesting facts about the authors included in this book. For instance, David Baldacci was a lawyer.  Sue Grafton started out as a screenwriter before she wrote A is for Alibi.  Sara Gruen struggled with writing Water for Elephants.  She spent 4 months in a walk in closet to write, because she needed a dark, quiet room.  Jodi Picoult writes because she has to, that is who she is.  Picoult also wrote a Wonder Woman series from March to June 2007.  At the end of each chapter, the authors give their personal tips for writing.  This was a fun book if you are interested in writing fiction.