re-re-reading King's ON WRITING

A good book is still good on the second reading. A great book remains great on the third, fourth, and more!

--DLSmith, MD


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Okay, it's a vanity to make up my own quote and then cite it as if it were innately wise and inchoately profound. Guilty.

That said, great books are ones that I reread, by choice, repeatedly. What's on your list of such books?

My list will be posted later this week.

I'm reading Stephen King's ON WRITING yet again. Always both amusing and inspiring. Makes me want to write more, and more vividly. No boredom when the King is at the keyboard...can't say that my writing is always scintillating, but Stephen would be the first to agree. At least, about the first draft. I love the quote from his early boss, a newspaper editor:
   The first time you write the story, you write it for yourself.
   When you rewrite it, you are writing for others. Your task now is to cut out everything that isn't the story.

   Or, as the old-fashioned saying about editing goes, "You need to be able to kill your darlings." That refers to loverly words and well-turned phrases as well as to your characters.

Okay, let me know what books you'll be bringing to your desert isle that'll be good to read and re-re-read!