Books That Make You Wanna Write

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Tell me about books that make you want to write. Books that, when you finish them, make you grab your notebook and pen, and feel all juicily inspired.

I felt very inspired by A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.

― Caenis (Caenis), Thursday, 22 July 2004 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

definitely If On a Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino.

― emilyjoy, Thursday, 22 July 2004 21:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm sure this isn't what you were going for, but Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. It is about writing, with chapters on character, plot, dialogue, etc., but unlike most writing books it's actually deeply hopeful and inspiring. There's some moralistic stuff that I have to look past (she thinks that all books are duty-bound to convey at least a bit of hope), but it's usually the first book I reach for when I'm feeling as if I may never write another word. Basically, reading it is like receiving the world's greatest pep talk.

― David Elinsky (David Elinsky), Thursday, 22 July 2004 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

"Wonder Boys" -- Michael Chabon

"Motherless Brooklyn" -- Jonathan Letham

and of course... "On The Road" -- Jack Kerouac

― Jordan Scrivner, Friday, 23 July 2004 05:57 (twenty-one years ago)

On the Black Hill, Bruce Chatwin.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 23 July 2004 07:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Pretty much any chunky poetry anthology will inspire me somewhere.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 23 July 2004 08:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Virginia Woolf's Orlando. Reading her sentences get me high.

― Brotherman, Friday, 23 July 2004 08:37 (twenty-one years ago)

The Catcher in the Rye.

― Fred (Fred), Friday, 23 July 2004 12:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Anything by Charles Bukowski

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Friday, 23 July 2004 15:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Just about everything I read makes me want to write! I loved "Bird By Bird" too, also "Wild Mind" and "Writing Down the Bones" by Natalie Goldberg are wonderful!

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 24 July 2004 14:18 (twenty-one years ago)

anything by Borges, and Ursula LeGuin. ooo and Alexander Pope.

― Kelly Spoer (onefingertoomany), Monday, 26 July 2004 16:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Voltaire, in tandem with the entry for "Satire" in the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms, lights a fire under my ass like you wouldn't believe.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Monday, 26 July 2004 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

The samurai of savannah, by T.C. Boyle.
It´s setting includes some writter-community. It was fun to read :)

― Docolero (Docolero), Tuesday, 27 July 2004 20:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Ted Berrigan's "On The Level Everyday" is good to jumpstart me into writing poetry again.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 27 July 2004 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Most books by Saul Bellow

― Matthew S, Monday, 9 August 2004 11:32 (twenty-one years ago)

What about books that are so badly written, you're like, I might not be Beckett, but I could do better than that. I don't mean this negatively--I'm genuinely inspired by how mockable I consider, dor instance, *Oron*, by David C. Smith, about a barbarian warlord in Atlantis, and yet, the dude not only finished the thing, he found a publisher for it. No matter how hard on myself I am--I can't write, I'm not talented enought, I don't have the right attitude, education, connections, et cetera--I always have that one there, being all like, if I exist, then any crazy bullshit you come up with has a right to to. I'd be interested in hearing other people's.

― henry house, Tuesday, 10 August 2004 03:52 (twenty-one years ago)

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