13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley - 2005 - 569 Pages

 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley is a marvelous account of the history of the novel as an art form and a very instructive account of how novelists make the form work.  She includes at the conclusion detailed comments on 100 novels.  I have read about half of them and have now added several to my Amazon Wish List,

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres comes an essential guide for writers and readers alike: an exhilarating tour through one hundred novels that "inspires wicked delight.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

From classics such as the thousand-year-old Tale of Genji to fiction by Zadie Smith and Alice Munro, Jane Smiley explores the power of the form, looking at its history and variety, its cultural impact, and just how it works its magic. She invites us behind the scenes of novel-writing, sharing her own habits and spilling the secrets of her craft, and offering priceless advice to aspiring authors. Every page infects us anew with the passion for reading that is the governing spirit of this gift to book lovers everywhere." From the publisher 

Smiley employs wide ranging literary history, insightful criticism and autobiographical details of her own career in a book anyone who reads novels with more than just passing time in mind will be very glad they read.

Jane Smiley is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of more than ten novels as well as four works of nonfiction, including a critically acclaimed biography of Charles Dickens. She is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for her novel A Thousand Acres, and in 2001 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in northern California.

Mel Ulm