36 Essential Books for Every Writer

In my office, I have my computer table, an oak rolltop desk close enough my left elbow bumps it when I really get going on the keyboard and behind me, about two feet away, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf of reference books. Those books are constantly in motion. I pull them out by piles, stack them on my desk and riffle through them to augment particular parts of my stories. Sometimes, I’m looking for facts on nature, animals, buildings. Other times, I’m working through some prickly syntax. Either way, there are those books I can’t write without.

Every writer I know has a bookshelf like this, full of books to inspire the writing process. A reader asked what books I thought most important, so I pulled out my short list of words I can’t write without.

That’s when I realized I’d added some in the last few years. These five are my new favorites and reflect my growth as a writer and the-times-they-are-a-changing for authors:

Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker

“Every crime is a mystery with a motive at its heart.” Read how to make that happen in your thriller and mystery novels.

Breakout Novelist by Donald Maass

How to make your writing vibrant, engaging, and marketable-the type that ‘breaks out’ of the crowd and makes you stand out

Comic Toolbox: How to be Funny Even if You’re Not by John Vorhaus

Humor always catches a readers attention–well, effective humor. Find out how to do this and then try it in some of your blogs, tweets, FB posts. Experiment before putting it into your novel.

My Evernote by Katherine Murray

Evernote is the most popular on-line note-taking program, used by adults and students alike. And it’s free. If you aren’t using this to collect your writing research, you eed to read this book.

We are not Alone: The Writer’s Guide to Social Media by Kristen Lamb

Basic social media–what all writers must do whether you have a publisher or not.

My must-have writing books have blossomed to 36, thanks to these new additions:

1. Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker
2. Bill Bryson’s Dictionary for Writers and Editors, by Bill Bryson
3. Blockbuster Plots: Pure and Simple, by Martha Alderson
4. Breakout Novelist by Donald Maass
5. Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage, by Theodore Bernstein
6. Comic Toolbox: How to be Funny Even if You’re Not by John Vorhaus
7. Creating Character Emotions: Writing compelling fresh approaches that express your characters’ true feelings, by Ann Hood
8. Elements of Style by EB White
9. First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile, by Noah Lukeman
10. Garner’s Modern American Usage, by Bryon Garner
11. How to Write A D*** Good Novel, by James Frey
12. Lexicon, by William F. Buckley Jr.
13. Marshall Plan for Novel Writing: A 16-step program guaranteed to take you from idea to completed manuscript, by Evan Marshall
14. My Evernote by Katherine Murray
15. National Audubon Society Field Guide
16. New York Times Practical Guide to Practically Everything
17. New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge
18. Novel Writer’s Toolkit: A guide to writing great fiction and getting it published, by Bob Mayer
19. Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus
20. Oxford Book of Aphorisms, by John Gross
21. Oxford Concise Dictionary of English Etymology
22. Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words
23. Penguin Dictionary of Epigrams, by MJ Cohen
24. Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence, by David Keirsey
25. Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus
26. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne
27. Synonym Finder, by J. I. Rodale
28. We are not Alone: The Writer’s Guide to Social Media by Kristen Lamb
29. Webster Dictionary–or any excellent dictionary, even online is fine
    
30. Writer’s Coach: An Editor’s Guide to Words That Work, by Jack Hart
31. Writer’s Guide to Character Traits, by Linda Edelstein
32. Writing from A to Z, by Sally Ebest
33. Writing the Blockbuster Novel, by Albert Zuckerman
34. Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, by Janet Burroway
35. Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider advice for taking your fiction to the next level, by Donald Maass
36. Writing the Novel from Plot to Print, by Lawrence Block

The links are to book reviews I’ve done. It’ll be a while before I complete the entire list.

I’d love to hear your list.

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. In her free time, she is  editor of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.

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