by Jennifer Price Mahoney, Faculty Consultant, University Writing Center

Ah, summer. No classes. Long days. Downtime for some pleasure reading?

If you’re lucky enough to have a few days off during the warm weather, you may find yourself looking for a good book. And if you’re a budding writer, you may want to read a good book about writing and language.

Below are some of our Writing Center consultants’ favorites. Some are more focused on fiction, others on non-fiction; still others are focused more on the history and evolution of the English language. Whatever your specific writing interest, one of these should help you make the most of the long, lazy days of summer!

• On Writing – Stephen King
• The Writing Life – Annie Dillard
• Zen in the Art of Writing – Ray Bradbury
• On Writing Well – William Zinsser
• Good Prose – Tracy Kidder & Richard Todd
• Eats, Shoots, and Leaves – Lynne Truss
• The Language Wars – Henry Hitchings
• Sin and Syntax – Constance Hale