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    Recommended Reading List for Authors / Aspiring Authors
The staff at Port Yonder Press has compiled this list of exceptional books to encourage writers to learn how to write well.



Books that have challenged or inspired one or more of us, or in some other way given us a desire to rock our craft. We suggest you choose one book every so often, then read it while observing style, plot, rhythm, flow, word usage.

DISCLAIMER: We've added a rating to these books based on our personal experience with each. Please be advised that those rated M are for mature adult readers.
Unrated books are G or PG. These are in no particular order. More to be added.


Fiction

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - PG14

The Wind in the Door
by Madeleine L'Engle

Modern Classics of Science Fiction ed. Gardner Dozois - SPECIFICALLY "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" by Gene Wolfe (novella) - PG-14 - M

C. S. Lewis - just about anything

The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - SPECIFICALLY The Vor Game (novel), Memory (novel) "The Borders of Infinity" (novella) - PG-14 - M

The Golden Key  by George MacDonald

The Seafort Saga by David Feintuch - PG-14

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - PG-14

The works of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) - PG14

Dangerous Visions ed. Harlan Ellison - M

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin - PG-14

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Penguin Edition - trans. Robin Buss)

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Dubliners by James Joyce

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

The Hollow Man by Dan Simmons - M

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delaney - PG-14

A Star Curiously Singing by Kerry Nietz

Neuromancer by William Gibson - M

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin - M

The Dune Trilogy by Frank Herbert - PG-14

The Russians Series by Michael Phillips & Judith Pella (last four by Judith Pella only)

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy - M

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury (pretty much anything by Ray Bradbury)

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

Courting Morrow Little by Laura Franz

The Bishop by Steven James - PG14

The Cat of Bubastes (or anything by G. A. Henty)

The Universe in Miniature in Miniature by Patrick Somerville - M

Nonfiction

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard [a useful literary look at Dillard and her writing observations]

Story by Robert McKee

Essays - Robert Louis Stevenson

Peter the Great - Robert K. Massie [a biography]

Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Whimsical Christian (or Creed or Chaos) by Dorothy Sayers [how to think logically about faith]

Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle

Living by Fiction by Annie Dillard [Chila's #1 choice for learning the philosophy behind writing fiction]

Introductory Papers on Dante and Further Papers on Dante by Dorothy Sayers [her notes on her translation work are invaluable]

From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun [historical non-fiction]

Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard

Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers [a book on creativity and faith]

Anne Bronte or Emily Bronte by Winifred Gerin [a fascinating look inside the lives of two of the Bronte sisters]

Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard [an experiment in stream of consciousness]

The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War by Michael Shaara


Poetry

Poems of Emily Dickinson

The Wasteland by T.S. Elliot (poetry)

Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (poetry) - PG-14

Collected Poems - Sylvia Plath - PG-14