Acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humour and wisdom, will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; to look to John le Carr for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery OConnor for the cunning use of the telling detail; to be inspired by Emily Bronts structural nuance and Charles Dickenss deceptively simple narrative techniques. Most importantly, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted, and reminds us that good writing comes out of good reading.
