To read, or not to read?

If you truly want to write well, you must also want to read well. Reading can help you create new ideas, broaden your vocabulary, and expose you to a vast amount of information. Reading "well," however, means more than just reading the newspaper or a magazine; it means you consciously seek out world-renowned literature that has been analyzed by scholars or other experts and is generally agreed to be "cultured" or "classic." Here's a list of my personal favorites. I have read each of the following books and have purposely chosen a wide variety of topics to include. The more you read, the more you know. The more you know, the more you can write about.

• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
• The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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• White Fang by Jack London
• Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery
• The Giver by Lois Lowery
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Princess Bride by William Goldman

I'm sorry to say that after reading these books you most likely won't suddenly turn into a fabulous writer. But you will have gained perspective of numerous types of characters, settings, and time periods and your writing will improve because of it. Every little bit helps.