Book Reviews

Anyone will tell you that in order to learn a trade, you have to learn from the masters. In the writing world, that means reading lots and lots of books. And thankfully, I love to read. It’s rare to catch me at a time when I’m not engrossed in the middle of a book. Often times, I’m reading more than one at a time.

I like to read a variety of styles of books, from a variety of styles of authors. Ten authors could write the exact same story, and it would come out in ten different ways. Everyone writes with their own style and flare – their personality showing through their words.

So in order to learn from the masters, it’s necessary to read different styles to determine my own voice. Sometimes I read books and the story gets lost because the writing style is too distracting. Sometimes, a great story is missed by unenthusiastic, scattered writing. 

Sometimes, great writing covers up a not-so-interesting story. So, it’s important to read different authors and see what flows and what doesn’t – what strikes your fancy and what drives you up the wall. Once you have some styles ideas in mind, it makes it much easier to form your own voice in writing because you know what to use and what to avoid.

As a part of this blog, I’m going to highlight some books I’ve been reading. Probably not all will be best-sellers that I recommend you run out and buy, but a few will be. Some will simply be something I randomly grabbed off the shelf at the library, or maybe even something someone recommended to me.

A lot of the books I’m going to review will be from the Baker Books publishing company, as I am becoming a Baker Books Blogger. What that means is they send me books to read, and I write a review about them. Plain and simple – it’s good practice for reading, analyzing, and writing, all things a good author strives to excel in.