READING LIKE A WRITER 8D

‘Close reading’ explained and made clear with a wide array of examples from the international literature. In the meantime the author gives advice to folks, who want to write a book themselves. The way the author reads a book, is not the way I read or enjoy a book. And the literary examples, she uses, were seldom from books I would read either. I would not want to deny, that close reading can make reading to another kind of experience. For me it takes the flow out of the story. Besides sometimes the author's presumptions feel like, what in the German language is called ‘hineininterpretieren’ (interpret it as one wishes). I would like to compare it with the love for a car. Some people don’t care about cruising with a 1957 Mercedes Cabriolet through Europe. They are happy as long as they can optimize the car’s technical performance in their garage, either mechanical or considering its interior and/or exterior. There’s other folks as well, though. They don’t care so much about the mechanics, they just want to drive the automobile through rural France and Spain. Okay, they stop in time to take in gasoline and check the oil, but that’s about it. Is any of them wrong? No, it is just what you prefer. You like close reading? Give the book a try. You want to learn to write or get better at it? My advice would be to take time to read ‘First you write a sentence’ by Joe Moran, for example.