One of my goals this year is a bit more non-fiction reading. Â What the heck…good non-fiction is free education, right? Â Anyway, Thinking Fast and Slow turned out to be a surprisingly good book for the writer in me…as it discusses interesting topics like how readers (and writers) might think. Â Not directly, not really. Â But one of the smartest things any of my writing teachers ever told me was that a good author knows how his prose affects the reader…and controls that. Â A good writer knows how and when to make his reader anxious, to surprise his reader, and to delight them (This advice came from Dean Wesley Smith).
I felt like I learned something.
Note that this is a dense and rich read. Â I found myself reading a chapter and then thinking about it, and then reading another one. Â The book works well that way. Â But don’t expect to finish it quickly!
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