I love books like Richard Cohen’s How to Write Like Tollstoy because of all the great quotes and literary stories Cohen shares. As an editor, Richard Cohen worked on books with Kingsley Amis, Anthony Burgess, Sebastian, Faulks, Jean Auel, Fay Weldon, John Le Carre, A. Alvarez, Victoria Glendinning, Richard Holmes, V. S. Pritchett, Hilary Spurling, Madeleine Albright, Simon Winchester, Vanessa Redgrave, Dian Fossey, studs Terkel, John Keegan, and Jonathan Spence just to name a few. Cohen also taught writing courses at the university level (although he debates whether creative writing can taught). And, on top of all that, Richard Cohen has read widely and well. Every page of How to Write Like Tolstoy features quotes and comments on books of all sorts. Nabokov, Jane Austen, and Stephen King can show up on the same page.
“I feel sorry for novelists when they have to mention women’s eyes: there’s so little choice. … Her eyes are blue: innocence and honesty. Her eyes are black: passion and depth. Her eyes are green: wildness and jealousy. Her eyes are brown: reliability and common sense. Her eyes are violent: the novel is by Raymond Chandler.” Julian Barnes wrote that witty passage. You’ll have dozens of equally cool insights in How to Write Like Tolstoy. Highly recommended! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Preface
1. Grab, Invite, Beguile: Beginnings 3
2. Circular Ruins: Creating Character 25
3. Stolen Words: Three Forms of Plagiarism 55
4. The Trick of It: Points of View 77
5. Says You: The Art and Craft of Dialogue 103
6. Secret Trapdoors: The Power of Irony 125
7. Grabbing Fiction by the Tale 143
8. Waves in the Mind: Rhythm in Prose Writing 159
9. “Just Like Zorro”: Writing about Sex 183
10. Vision and Revision Part 1 209
11. Vision and Revision Part 2 227
12. The Sense of an Ending 241
Acknowledgments 257
Notes 263
Index 295
Photo Credits and Permissions 321
Just Like Zorro Writing About Sex
183
Will be looking for this one!
Patti, you and Phil will love HOW TO WRITE LIKE TOLSTOY! It’s a browser’s delight!
See, this is the kind of book Patti and I depend on you to bring to our attention! I’ll be looking for it too.
Jeff, Richard Cohen’s HOW TO WRITE LIKE TOLSTOY will entertain you. I made of list of some of the books Cohen mentions so I can order them from AMAZON.
Sounds interesting, though I have to admit there doesn’t seem to be a lot of browsing time here these days.
Rick, I read HOW TO WRITE LIKE TOLSTOY while “watching” the Republican National Convention. Multi-tasking is easy!
Easier, no doubt, for some than others. I have trouble concentrating on a book while an audio/visual broadcast (AVB) is going.
Rick, I watch TV with a book in my lap. When the commercials start, I turn to the book.
If there’s one thing I don’t want to write like, it’s a Russian!
Bob, Trump’s Russian hackers have thrown the Democratic National Convention into chaos!
Trumps’s Russian hackers? Well, if it messes up Hitlery I’m all for it! They already got a lot of intelligence from her e-mail server!
But I was talking about Russian novelists! I tried reading one once and couldn’t hack it! Everyone had four or five names and it was more than I could take!
Bob, I was fascinated by the hacked DNC emails that show how the Democrats shake donors down for mucho dinero. I’m with you on the multiple names in Russian literature.