The Sound on the Page: Great Writers Talk about Style and Voice in Writing - Softcover

Yagoda, Ben

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060938226 ISBN 13: 9780060938222

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2005

Synopsis

In writing, style matters. Our favorite writers often entertain, move, and inspire us less by what they say than by how they say it. In The Sound on the Page, acclaimed author, teacher, and critic Ben Yagoda offers practical and incisive help for writers on developing and discovering their own style and voice. This wonderfully rich and readable book features interviews with more than 40 of our most important authors discussing their literary style, including: Dave BarryHarold BloomSupreme Court Justice Stephen BreyerBill BrysonMichael ChabonAndrei CodrescuJunot DiazAdam GopnikJamaica KincaidMichael KinsleyElmore LeonardElizabeth McCracken Susan OrleanCynthia OzickAnna QuindlenJonathan RabanDavid ThomsonTobias Wolff

About this title

Review:

"A stylish exploration of developing a distinctive voice and writing style."--Chicago Tribune

"A shrewd, welcome meditation on literary style... that rarest of tomes: a splendidly written book about writing."--Philadelphia Inquirer

"This entertaining and instructive book should be part of any writing collection."--Library Journal

"This is an ingenious and memorable exploration of writing's soul..."--Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo

"Ben Yagoda [is] the best kind of close reader, attentive to writerly choices that most of us take for granted."--Wall Street Journal

"[Ben Yagoda] is witty and offhandedly erudite and unafraid to read between the lines..."--Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler and Secret Parts of Fortune

"...the right mix of seriousness and wit, anecdote and insight."--Billy Collins

"...offers not only the author's amazingly informative narrative, but points us toward...the trial and error inherent in creativity."--Ann Beattie

About the Author:

Ben Yagoda is the author of About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Will Rogers. He is coeditor, with Kevin Kerrane, of The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The American Scholar, Esquire, and many other publications. Yagoda directs the journalism department at the University of Delaware, where he teaches nonfiction writing. He lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, with his wife and two daughters.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060938226
• ISBN 13: 9780060938222
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304