Write for Your Life - bookrastinating.com

Hardcover

English language

Published April 12, 2022 by Random House.

ISBN:: 978-0-593-22983-5

(1 review)

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this clarion call to pick up a pen and find yourself from “one of our most astute chroniclers of modern life” (The New York Times Book Review), #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen shows us how anyone can write, and why everyone should.

What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity? In this lyrical new book, the answer is clear: through writing. This is a book for what Quindlen calls “civilians,” those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves.

Write for Your Life argues that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling. Using examples from past, present, and future—from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison, from love letters written after World War II to journal reflections …

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this clarion call to pick up a pen and find yourself from “one of our most astute chroniclers of modern life” (The New York Times Book Review), #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen shows us how anyone can write, and why everyone should.

What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity? In this lyrical new book, the answer is clear: through writing. This is a book for what Quindlen calls “civilians,” those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves.

Write for Your Life argues that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling. Using examples from past, present, and future—from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison, from love letters written after World War II to journal reflections from nurses and doctors today—Write for Your Life vividly illuminates the ways in which writing connects us to ourselves and to those we cherish. Drawing on her personal experiences not just as a writer but as a mother and daughter, Quindlen makes the case that recording our daily lives in writing is essential.

When we write we not only look, we see; we not only react but reflect. Writing gives you something to hold onto in a changing world. “To write the present,” Quindlen says, “is to believe in the future.”

1 edition

Nibsy reviewed Write for Your Life by Anna Quindlen

Read it for the writing

5 stars

It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while a book leaps out of nowhere, takes you by surprise, and changes you. Write For Your Life by Pulitzer Prize winning author Anna Quindlen is one such book. After reading it, I've come to realize that my favourite books are those about writing written masterfully by a literary artist; books like Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, or How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. There are many reasons to read this book. But read it for the writing. The eloquence alone is enough.

In many ways, this is an author's plea for everyday people to pick up their pens and write about their normal, ordinary lives; to preserve a snapshot of the writer in their particular time and place. The simple act of note-taking can offer a glimpse of history that would otherwise be lost …

It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while a book leaps out of nowhere, takes you by surprise, and changes you. Write For Your Life by Pulitzer Prize winning author Anna Quindlen is one such book. After reading it, I've come to realize that my favourite books are those about writing written masterfully by a literary artist; books like Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, or How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. There are many reasons to read this book. But read it for the writing. The eloquence alone is enough.

In many ways, this is an author's plea for everyday people to pick up their pens and write about their normal, ordinary lives; to preserve a snapshot of the writer in their particular time and place. The simple act of note-taking can offer a glimpse of history that would otherwise be lost because of its ordinariness. But that ordinariness is the fabric of life, and it's up to us to preserve it for our future selves and everyone who follows.

Handwriting offers a direct connection between writer and reader. Imperfect handwritten lines betray the emotional state of the writer more faithfully than illuminated pixels on a computer screen. The weight of the pen stroke and the shape of the loops and swirls betrays the writer's mood. Frustration shows in a swift-flicked line struck through a misspelled word. Sweeping arrows and tight marginalia on a handwritten manuscript reveal the progression of an idea. No combination of electrons, copper, and silica can confirm the physical existence of a writer in any time or place like the handwritten word.

But writing is much more than a way to preserve the past. It is as much for the writer as it is for the reader. It offers an emotional outlet for doctors and nurses and anyone else who lives their life in a fast-paced, high-stress environment. It is an expression of creativity and innovation. It is both counselor and friend. Writing is thinking.

This book was a surprise for me because it stumbled into my possession before I knew anything about the author or even what this book was about (beyond writing, of course). I hadn't prepared to be so moved. There are some funny passages, and some deeply personal passages that left me soggy-eyed and reaching for a tissue. Just the visceral responses it induces speaks to the power of the writing. I rank this among one of the best books I've read this year. I would encourage everyone, writers and non-writers alike, to read this book. It is sure to change you, too.