Every Day I Write the Book: Notes on Style

Amitava Kumar

Paperback

Regular price$24.95With free membership trial$12.4850% off your first book+ Free shipping

In Stock– Ships within one business day

Do you recommend this book?

Yes!

Amitava Kumar's Every Day I Write the Book is for academic writers what Annie Dillard's The Writing Life and Stephen King's On Writing are for creative writers. Alongside Kumar's interviews with an array of scholars whose distinct writing offers inspiring examples for students and academics alike, the book's pages are full of practical advice about everything from how to write criticism to making use of a kitchen timer. Communication, engagement, honesty: these are the aims and sources of good writing. Storytelling, attention to organization, solid work habits: these are its tools. Kumar's own voice is present in his essays about the writing process and in his perceptive and witty observations on the academic world. A writing manual as well as a manifesto, Every Day I Write the Book will interest and guide aspiring writers everywhere.

Book Details

Publisher: Duke University Press
Publish Date: Mar 27th, 2020
Pages: 256
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 8.90in - 6.00in - 0.80in - 0.80lb
EAN: 9781478006275
Categories: • Writing - General

About the Author

Amitava Kumar is Helen D. Lockwood Professor of English at Vassar College and the author of numerous books, including Lunch with a Bigot; A Matter of Rats; and Nobody Does the Right Thing, all also published by Duke University Press; and most recently, Immigrant, Montana: A Novel.

Praise for this book

"An entertaining ramble through his years of analyzing his own writing process and that of many, many other authors. . . . The most amazing feature of this book is the sheer number of authors and ideas on writing that are collected in what Kumar calls, 'The 90-Day Book.'"--Gretchen Webster "Publishing Research Quarterly" (2/1/2021 12:00:00 AM)

"Too often lively writing is taken as a sign of dilettantism. Things don't have to be this way, and Kumar, who is himself both a critic and a novelist, insists that scholarship should argue and inform but also surprise and delight. . . . The best way to argue that academic books can be formally inventive is to write a formally inventive academic book. That's what Kumar does here."--Anthony Domestico "Commonweal" (6/12/2020 12:00:00 AM)

"Every Day I Write the Book is a persuasive instance of the sort of rare nonfiction performance Amitava Kumar invokes within its pages; he at once defines and exemplifies a vital modern nonfiction tradition. Full of pragmatic analyses and recommendations, this enthralling, important book will prove to be compelling and useful across many audiences."--Robert Polito

"Amitava Kumar's Every Day I Write the Book compels a cluster of adjectives--eclectic, ruminative, associative, probing, and personal--all of which, taken together, only begin to describe this unique writing sensibility. Turning the pages we find ourselves riding shotgun through the reading and writing life of a true cosmopolitan intellectual. Kumar instructs and inspires, running on all cylinders."--Sven Birkerts

"Kumar's writing guide/commonplace book is a salve. Reading his newest is like having office hours--no, better; a drink and bookish conversation, in a bar--with your smartest, kindest teacher, or friend."--John Francisconi "Grandlife" (8/10/2020 12:00:00 AM)

"A guide for academic writers that is also relevant to anyone who cares about fine prose. . . . An engaging, perceptive companion for all writers."-- "Kirkus Reviews" (11/5/2019 12:00:00 AM)

"An inventive essay collection . . . a celebration of 'the value, the ease, and also the excitement of crafting writing that hasn't been produced to please a committee.' Grad students and tenure seekers will appreciate the support Kumar's insightful and intellectually nimble book offers, even as they buckle down to the task at hand--satisfying that committee of readers." -- "Publishers Weekly" (11/11/2019 12:00:00 AM)

"Kumar sets out to do for the academic writer what writers like Annie Dillard, Ursula Le Guin, Anne Lamott, and Stephen King do for the creative writer in their accounts of their own writing lives. . . . This book will interest scholars in search of alternative models for presenting their ideas and those seeking insight into an academic's writing life. Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty."--A. M. Laflen "Choice" (3/1/2021 12:00:00 AM)

"Kumar's work effuses creative associations. Ostensibly a how-to writing guide for scholars, this book is from a different mould, one aligned with the daring and the bold: that is, with the creative. . . . In Every Day I Write the Book, you see a writer and thinker in communion with other writers and thinkers: that is, in communion with the world of ideas."--Steven E. Gumb "Journal of Scholarly Publishing" (7/1/2021 12:00:00 AM)