Several Short Sentences about Writing..., Verlyn Klinkenborg
Several Short Sentences about Writing..., Verlyn Klinkenborg
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Several Short Sentences about Writing

Author: Verlyn Klinkenborg

Narrator: Verlyn Klinkenborg

Unabridged: 4 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/14/2017

Synopsis

Most of what you think you know about writing is useless. It’s the harmful debris of your education—a mixture of half-truths, myths, and false assumptions that prevents you from writing well. Drawing on years of experience as a writer and teacher of writing, Verlyn Klinkenborg offers an approach to writing that will change the way you work and think. There is no gospel, no orthodoxy, no dogma in this book. What you’ll find here isn’t the way to write. Instead, you’ll find a way to clear your mind of illusions about writing and discover how you write. Several Short Sentences about Writing is a book of first steps and experiments. They will revolutionize the way you think and perceive, and they will change forever the sense of your own authority as a writer. This is a book full of learning, but it’s also a book full of unlearning—a way to recover the vivid, rhythmic, poetic sense of language you once possessed.An indispensable and unique book that will give you a clear understanding of how to think about what you do when you write and how to improve the quality of your writing.

About Verlyn Klinkenborg

Ted Williams writes full-time on fish and wildlife issues in a monthly “Recovery” column for The Nature Conservancy’s Cool Green Science and in various other publications. A longtime contributor to Audubon magazine, Williams was recognized by the Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA) as the nation’s best outdoor columnist and has received numerous other national writing and conservation awards. He serves as national chair of the Native Fish Coalition and lives in Grafton, Massachusetts.Verlyn Klinkenborg is the author of The Last Fine Time, Making Hay, and The Rural Life. His articles have appeared in many magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper's, Audubon, Smithsonian, and The New Republic. He teaches creative writing at Harvard University.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jason on June 13, 2013

This book is nearly impossible to rate. It's good. It's really good. But it reads like theoretical slam poetry On the topic of writing. An essay that could be in verse, But isn't in verse. And that might be off-putting to some readers. Every sentence in this book is valuable. I have visions of myself sitting......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on May 19, 2022

As someone who reads books on writing for pleasure, this offered something new. The author is funny and arrogant, the way you’d expect a Yale professor could be. He targets the world of US academics as the butt of his jokes, highlighting how it makes us bad writers. This is helpful and clear. He pro......more

Goodreads review by Lee on January 19, 2017

I'd recommend this to newer writers since I think it's aimed at them. The tone rankled me, so did the direct address, second-person POV (also occasional first-person plural), particularly when it addressed someone I was not -- that is, someone lacking an apparently excellent education when it comes......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on September 20, 2013

I'm loving this book, here is my favorite qoute, from page 12 " The longer the sentence, the less it's able to imply, and writing by implication should be one of your goals. Implication is almost nonexistent in the prose that surrounds you, the prose of law, science, business, journalism, and most a......more

Goodreads review by Kate on March 21, 2019

Hugely useful book. First of all, his name is Verlyn Klinkenborg. While you read it, you get to say things like "What in Verlyn Klinkenborg's name is going on here?!" Secondly, he likes sentences. He never says he likes them. He instead asserts some authoritative all-knowledge about sentences. Like......more

Quotes

“A slim book for aspiring writers, offering saws and sense, wisdom and waggery, biases and biting sarcasm…A careful craftsman urges with Thoreauvian conviction that writers should simplify, simplify, simplify.” Kirkus Reviews

“This is a very interesting little book about writing. Modest. Learned. Good-natured. Direct and sympathetic to its readers. You don’t even have to read it front to back (probably you couldn’t, anyway). You can just open it anywhere—as I did—and take away something useful.” Richard Ford, New York Times bestselling author

“No other book, old or new, is as well reasoned as this, as entertaining or as wise…Best book on writing. Ever.” New York Journal of Books

“Powerful…Each sentence miraculously contains an idea or insight that lesser writers would have milked for several pages.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“A fresh perspective on writing that goes against conventional classroom theory.” Shelf Awareness

“Expertise and zeal are required for an established writer to offer genuinely useful guidance to aspiring writers. It also helps if the writer teaches writing, as Klinkenborg has for many years…The result is a unique anatomy of the sentence and the writing mind and a clarifying and invigorating ‘book of first steps.’” Booklist

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