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Title: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Author: Anne Lamott
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 5/5
Why I Read It: I read this book a few years ago, and I thought it would make a good re-read.

Summary: A writer reflects on the writing life. Hint: It must include writing.

Review: If you are a writer—published or not—and you haven’t read this book, get thee to a bookery forthwith! Or, to put it another way: go get this book and read it NOW.

It’ll crack you up, it’ll be the flint that sparks your next great burst of inspiration, it’ll warm the cockles of your poor heart made bitter by all the self-doubt and the rejection and the hard work.

I almost had a breakdown trying to choose a quote to post with this review. Because it’s all so good. I would quote the whole book here if I could. But I had to pick one, so here you go:

Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

As I work on revising my most recent NaNoWriMo draft, I have to keep reminding myself of this. To really drive the message home, I think I’m going to tattoo one letter on each knuckle: B-I-R-D-B-Y-B-I-R-D.

Your Turn: What’s your favorite writing advice book?

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Did You Like This Book? Try:

• Writing Down the Bones
• Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

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Title: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Author: Mary E. Pearson
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 5/5
Why I Read It: My Goodreads buddy Lenore liked this book AND it’s a dystopia, so it was only a matter of time, really.

Summary: 17-year-old Jenna has been in a coma for over a year. Now she’s awake, but her parents have moved her to the other side of the country, her body doesn’t feel quite right, and her grandmother hates her.

Review: This book was one of my top 10 favorites of 2009. Why?

• Unnerving story revealed a little at a time? Check.
• Forbidden romantic interest? Check.
• Hints at the direction our society could be heading without coming out and making a “speech”? Yes!

This is an early scene from the book, with Jenna, her mom, and her grandmother Lily:

I push my empty glass away and announce, “I’m going to school today.”

Mother drops her pencil and stares at me. Lily stops beating her eggs.

“I assume I didn’t graduate during the year I was in a coma, so I still need to finish, right?”

Mother hasn’t spoken. Her mouth is open and her head shakes slightly, like my words are ricocheting around inside. Somehow, I find it amusing.

“There’s two village charters within walking distance—I checked the directory on the Net—and the Central Academy is just a short drive.”

“You can’t drive!” The words shoot out of Mother, and then she says more calmly, “School is out of the question. You’re still recovering—”

“I’m fine—”

Mother stands. “I said school is out of the question. Period.”

I hesitate, but then stand, too. “And I say it isn’t.”

Mother is shocked into a marble stance. Neither of us speaks. Finally she looks away. She sits back down. She picks up her pencil. She is calm, smooth, practiced, the mother who seems to know where we are going before I do. “Go to your room, Jenna. You need to rest. Go. Now.”

I am seething. Outraged. Incensed. The words. They’re finally bubbling up in torrents just when I need them.

But the will. It is waning. Mother says I should go to my room. Go to your room, Jenna. Go to your room.

I do.

This is the first book by Pearson I’ve read, and you can bet I’ll be reading more. Have you read any others by her?

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Did You Like This Book? Try:

• Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks—My rating: 5/5
• Sweethearts—My rating: 3.5/5
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

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Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 5/5
Why I Read It: I loved Green’s other novels, so I had a hunch I’d like this one too.

Summary: 16-year-old Miles leaves his comfortable but friendless life in Florida to go to boarding school in Alabama. His roommate Chip quickly adopts Miles as a friend and introduces him to a girl who lives down the hall—Alaska. Beautiful and brilliant, Alaska flirts with Miles and he falls for her. But it could never work, and they both know it.

Review: This is my favorite novel from Green.

On the surface, the book offered up plenty to make me laugh. Here, Miles just found out his new school, Culver Creek, has a basketball team:

I hated sports. I hated sports, and I hated people who played them, and I hated people who watched them, and I hated people who didn’t hate people who watched or played them. In third grade—the very last year that one could play T-ball—my mother wanted me to make friends, so she forced me onto the Orlando Pirates. I made friends all right—with a bunch of kindergartners, which didn’t really bolster my social standing with my peers. Primarily because I towered over the rest of the players, I nearly made it onto the T-ball all-star team that year. The kid who beat me, Clay Wurtzel, had one arm. I was an unusually tall third grader with two arms, and I got beat out by kindergartner Clay Wurtzel. And it wasn’t some pity-the-one-armed-kid thing, either. Clay Wurtzel could flat-out hit, whereas I sometimes struck out even with the ball sitting on the tee. One of the things that appealed to me most about Culver Creek was that my dad assured me there was no PE requirement.

But the soul behind Miles’s story, behind his love for Alaska—that’s what made me fall for this book. My heart ached for Alaska right alongside his.

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Did You Like This Book? Try:

• How I Live Now—My rating: 5/5
• An Abundance of Katherines—My rating: 4/5
• I Am the Messenger
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

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Title: Catching Fire
Author: Suzanne Collins
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 5/5
Why I Read It: I read The Hunger Games (the first in the series) earlier this year and loved, loved, loved it.

Summary: After surviving a fight to the death, Katniss Everdeen has to adjust to her new life of privilege while everyone she knows and loves still struggles to put food on the table. Not to mention she’ll have to figure out what to do about the two young men in love with her.

Review: The worst part about this book was coming to the last page and realizing I have to wait a whole freaking YEAR before the next book comes out.

This woman sure do write good. Best love triangle I’ve ever read. How does she make me sway from Team Gale to Team Peeta and back again, over and over?

The suspense of the 75th Hunger Games consumed me. I had about 20 pages to go when I had to leave for work one morning in order to make it to an early meeting. So I stuck it in my bag and brought it to work with me.

That day was absolute TORTURE. I had meetings all morning, with no time to go back to my desk in between. Then at lunch, I had only a couple minutes to read before my afternoon meetings started. And again, no time at my desk between meetings. WHY ME?!?

Finally, FINALLY my last meeting was over and it was time to go home. On the way to the car, I threw the keys to my partner and pulled the book out of my bag. When I got in the car, I propped the book open on my knees and started reading. THEN I put my seatbelt on. It’s all about priorities, people.

Suzanne Collins, if there’s anything I can do to help you focus on writing over the next few months, you just let me know. I can walk dogs, babysit kids, formulate a magical body spray that will make bathing unnecessary. You name it.

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Did You Like This Book? Try:

• Shiver
• Going Bovine
• Graceling—My rating: 5/5
• More Recommendations from LibraryThing

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Title: Revision & Self-Editing: Techniques for Transforming Your First Draft into a Finished Novel
Author: James Scott Bell
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 5/5
Why I Read It: I was looking for a practical guide to editing my first draft.

Summary: A national bestselling author and writing teacher lays out a plan for revising your novel’s first draft.

Review: I wish I could roll up all the tips in this book into some Silly Putty and stick it directly on my brain.

So far, I’ve flipped through about 20 different revision books. Most of those books were too abstract in their advice, and some others (while excellent) were focused on line editing. I needed a book to guide me on the macro edit—pacing, character development, setting, voice, and so on.

This book has all that and more. Including a revision checklist at the back. I am a checklist sort of a girl. (Sometimes in the morning, while I’m in bed waiting for my daughter to wake up next to me, I’ll start composing my checklist for the day in my head and then obsessively repeat the items over and over so I don’t forget them before I get to paper & pen.)

The advice in this book is practical, with writing exercises that aren’t just busy work. It’s clear they’ll get you further along on your revision goals.

As the author suggests, I’m going to expand the checklist to include all the other nuggets throughout the book I want to be sure to check for. But I’m out of the school mindset, so I’ve otherwise drawn a blank on how best to absorb all this wonderful knowledge.

Here’s one tip I plan to use soon:

Then, after some cooling off, produce a summary of the novel. A synopsis, but one’s that subject to change. Because you’re going to try to make it better and deeper. You may even change it significantly.

The summary should be no more than 2,000 to 3,000 words, and you should produce several versions. …If you produce several of these summaries, and finally fine-tune the best version, the method will give you a roadmap for an organic second draft.

You can bet I’m going to read the rest of the Write Great Fiction series.

Your Turn: What tricks do you use to learn and internalize new things from a book you’re reading?

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Did You Like This Book? Try:

• Description & Setting
• Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint
• Plot & Structure
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