An insightful and inspiring text for anyone who wants to write or, indeed, loves to read. Nicholas Delbanco has plenty to offer whether you are interested in the encoding, or the decoding, of ideas.

With many thanks to both Netgalley and the publisher for letting me see a copy of this title.

A bit disappointing. I did not find this very inspiring at all. I have read much better books on writing.

"Why Writing Matters... is intended both as explanation and an exhortation; the next time you pick up a pencil or pen—or turn on your cellphone or iPad—remember you join in a long-standing practice and a time-honored tradition."

Reading this book is like taking this professor's class--decades of personal experience woven into wide-ranging readings in literature, history, and archaeology. The author had the advantages of a mid-twentieth-century education in prep schools and the Ivy League, followed by a charmed career teaching and writing, but he is happy to share the treasures he learned by being John Updike's student and a friend of John Gardner and James Baldwin, among many other interesting connections. I found myself adding many new names to my to-read list as I read, and feeling more inspired to write.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital ARC for the purpose of an unbiased review.

I decided to read this because I am currently studying an MA in Creative Writing and Well-being. So, I have my own ideas about how writing matters, particularly with regards to therapy and I thought it would be interesting to hear from an expert in the craft. This is mainly memoir, with added analysis across all writing genres and a little bit of literary history thrown in. I felt it focused a lot on our inspiration from other writers. How much is Influence and when does it become imitation. How do we balance the simultaneous needs for originality and the tendency to emulate a favourite writer?
I liked the focus on how our impressions of a piece of writing changes over time as this is something I’ve explored myself with regards to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Our age and life experience changes the meaning of our understand of certain parts of the text. There is also an exploration of how writing becomes so important when compared with oral storytelling - an oral piece is changed both deliberately and accidentally by the teller, it is ever evolving. Writing however has a permanence which possibly explains budding writers fear of putting pen to paper - this will remain, as written, for ever. In light of the current political scene I also enjoyed his look at political rhetoric and the blurring of the permanence of words as things are said then denied again.
All in all this was an enjoyable read, that seemed to confirm a lot of ideas I already had, rather than inspiring new thinking.

This is a really enjoyable introduction to the importance of writing to the modern world. More a literary memoir at places than an out and out the history of writing as is promised. Where analysis and learnings from Delblanco's own course experience were offered, I felt that this could have been better presented.

This book was not quite as accessible as I was expecting - I think it is a book that I will return to once I have a better understanding of myself as a writer. I think it is an important book and it is full of interesting anecdotes and advice. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an eARC.

What a loss for our culture had Nicholas Delbanco not shared this hefty tome Why Writing Matters.This work demands to be read in short stretches and then savored, as it is filled with Delbanco’s years of experience and knowledge of writers and writing. Part memoir, part history, the work is reminiscent of the prose of classical writers. This treasure of and on writing tells us that here we hold the basis of culture and even civilization.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book. Unfortunately, I was disappointed... I wish this book was titled "Why Writing Matters NOW" and included more diverse and current examples. I admire the writers that Delbanco referenced - Hemmingway, Woolf, Joyce, et al, but had hoped this book would address how current writers, from a diversity of backgrounds, are building and expanding on their work now.

I love reading about writing, but this book didn't quite grab me as much as I wanted. It was a bit dull in all honesty...

Not what I was expecting from the title - and that disappointment perhaps affected my reaction to the book. I'm afraid I disliked the tone and was unable to finish it.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The author put together an excellent love story to writing. I love how he provided insight from not only his mentors, but those up and coming writers that he taught. This book emphasizes on why writing is so essential to our society.

Writing, of course, matters. However, Why Writing Matters, doesn’t. At least not to those looking for a writing guidebook.

This book is half memoir and half a literary history lesson. It has a few interesting ideas. But many of the ideas are obvious. Reading your favorite books later in life will give you a new perspective? Duh.

I realize that this book is part of a series of Why x Matters. However, the title here feels misleading. Therefore, Why Writing Matters receives 2 stars from me.

Thanks to Yale University Press and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

I approached Why Writing Matters as a memoir of someone whose work I've admired over the decades, but I found something a bit different, something MORE.

The book, rich with musings about the why of writing, offers even more about the how. It's a kind of master pattern for a self-taught writer (here I imagine a person who is isolated geographically, or economically, or by gender, from the company of other writers, and from the camaraderie and inspiration they offer.)

I loved the many anecdotes about his own teachers and his students (in particular the struggles of Jesmyn Ward, whose work reads - of course - as if it were effortless.) I can see my imaginary recluse chasing down every one of DelBanco's references, from Greek tragedy through the Metaphysical Poets to the white-male-academic-centered novels of 20th-Century renown.

I loved his Strategies in Prose syllabus, with its seemingly endless supply of writing exercises, and with his revision and further revision and yet-further revision of his own long-abandoned novel Blumenberg the Elder.

I wish I could have read Why Writing Matters 50 years ago. Thanks to NetGalley and Yale University Press for an advance readers copy.

Based on the title, I was interested in reading this, but it was not what I was expected. I was hoping for more of a "how-to" but the information was too dry for me to be engaged in it. I had a friend read it and love it though!

It is a generally well written book, however, I found it trivia and does not match the title "Why Writing Matters". I like when the author explains about mimicking, imitation in writing, fine text and so on, however, starting the book with "teachers" did fail me as a reader to illustrate or simply try to answer the question raised in the title. They are plenty of books and authors mentioned, such as Updike, James Baldwin etc., but again, the text and the flow does not appeal to me.

At this time, this is not the book for me. I would say that the way the book presented its ideas does not resonate with me yet.

Nevertheless, some people may enjoy it and I would be happy happy for them.

I found this book over-complicated. I had high hopes and expectations, and was looking forward to reading it, but it started off so slowly that I was not engaged with the content. I am a MA Creative Writing student, but I still didn’t enjoy the book or benefit from it. There was some useful content though, which could have been better presented.

Writing - the art, craft, mechanics, necessity, satisfaction, and relevance - are brilliantly explored in Why Writing Matters by Nicholas Delbanco. He says it best early on, "It’s one of the ways we preserve our shared culture, a signal to the future and a record of the past."

While writing feels timeless and universal today, Delbanco reminds us that it wasn't always this way, as the possession of books and the ability to read were once reserved for the privileged class. The privilege is now classless.

Page by page the reader is taken on a narrative journey that weaves in characters such as John Updike and John Gardner, as well as James Baldwin, from whom he learned that prose "must stand in the service of faith: a faith that writing, in times of trouble, might count." Sage wisdom for our current state of global discontent.

We're also treated to a glimpse into Nicholas Delbanco's rich and varied personal experiences and relationships within the writing and publishing world - a charmed life to be sure - and hear his take on the nature of imitation as a powerful (and necessary) learning tool. Something to leverage, not avoid.

Numerous examples exemplify the sorcery of word choice, heir order, and requisite punctuation - the art and mechanics of prose which can clarify meaning or miss the mark entirely.

The literary juxtaposition of communism (Karl Marx), slavery (Harriet Beecher Stowe) and evolution (Charles Darwin) underscore how writing can challenge and enhance our view of what it means to be human. We see the world differently when uncommon perspectives are thoughtfully expressed.

Without question, Why Writing Matters serves up an insightful and reflective regalement that every writer, and reader for that matter, will enjoy.

I am going to hold my hands up and say that I couldn't finish this book. I gave up around page 78 as it had the overwhelming feeling of someone who started every conversation with phrases such as "I'm not sexist but..."

Nicholas Delbanco opens the novel by discussing writing as the almost natural progression of recording language and speech. Stories such as the epic poems of Homer were originally passed on orally. Now the ability to read and write is seen as a marker of education, something that many of us take for granted. I am aware that my own grandfather was practically illiterate and have been told that this was a source of much embarrassment for him as it is for people who struggle to read and write today.

Delbanco alludes to the different interpretations that a text can have by the simple exhortation: Read it again. This is a sentiment that I can get behind as often a text is seen in a totally different light upon a second reading, occasionally turning a book you once loved into one you are ambivalent about and vice versa. This message seems to have been buried in a section about teachers who helped foster his own love of writing though.

I am not sure that the reader gains much from the autobiographical section full of name dropping. He says that he's 'aware that all this smacks of "the old boy's club" on page seven but be prepared for a further roughly 26 pages in the same vein. Hidden in this section there is also a hint about better writing, namely avoiding purple prose and overwriting by using an example of his own early work where he used the phrase "small little beds". This echoes a comment made by my tutor in my feedback from the first assignment not to overwrite when less is more. The vast majority of the rest unfortunately makes the writer appear smug as he relishes in telling us of praise received from the famous names teaching him for even first drafts. Perhaps he is a natural writing genius but he certainly doesn't have humility. If a reader is looking for a story of hard work, revision and sticking at something despite struggling, this certainly isn't the book for them. The author even sounds arrogant as he recounts a tale of giving a lecture on Virginia Woolf without doing any preparation as he spent the previous night drinking with John Gardener. I have somewhat lost the thread by this point as to what this has to do with why writing matters rather than to plump the author's ego.

I was relieved to move on to the chapter on "Imitation" and suggests that as we learn all other things, we learn to write by constantly reading. Delbanco discusses how now everyone is obsessed by the concept of being "original" however no one is formed in a vacuum and to imagine that writers are not influenced by those they read would be naïve. This makes sense of the instruction in our course notes to mention what books we have been reading in the process of completing each section as they will at the very least subconsciously influenced our own thought processes. He proceeds to discuss the opposing notions of there being "nothing new under the sun" and the drive to "[m]ake it new". He emphasises that "[e]verything is interlinked and has some prior resonance; all of us live with the past" (Delbanco 2020:45)

My heart sank when Delbanco opts to choose five texts to examine. He readily admits of those chosen "Each of the texts is Western...Five out of these six authors are male; all of them are white." I am bemused that the author can be so aware of his bias and yet does not make an attempt to step outside of his own comfort zone and analyse texts from other backgrounds.

It was around p78 that I gave up to focus on other recommended books for my studies so I cannot comment further. I only gave one star as I was unable to give none, surely justifiable by the fact I couldn't even finish it.

Why Writing Matters is full of Delbanco's personal experiences with writing, with his mentors, and with his students.

Delbanco begins with one of the most important reasons for writing: "before the invention of writing, spoken discourse could not last." Oral transmission, while wonderful for making use of memory, is "subject to forgetfulness or change." The oral tradition was marvelous, but writing has more permanence.

Writing, words on a page or clay tablet, allows cultures to be shared and provides a way to imagine the future and to keep evidence of the past. Writing enables us to communicate with those who are not physically present--and recorded history and literature allow us to communicate with those from the past.

One important note that Delbanco makes early, and returns to later: Read it again! Our first impressions of a written work can change. The beloved books of our youth can take on new meaning or become obvious in their lack of genuine content or style. When an adolescent Delbanco was spouting the marvels of The Scarlet Pimpernel, one of his teachers advised him to read it again. At fourteen, he did and discovered that while the book had been fun and exciting, it was not the great literature he had imagined. Delbanco's reminiscences of his teachers, mentors, and colleagues reveal how writers learn their trade and inspire each other.

( Delbanco was a privileged and intelligent kid with the added advantage of some marvelous teachers at his prep school. Fieldston is part of the Ivy Preparatory School League and is an elite school with impressive graduates and teachers.)

After Fieldston:
"He was educated at Harvard University, B.A. 1963; Columbia University, M.A. 1966. He taught at Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, 1966–84, and at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, 1984–85. He was a visiting Professor at such institutions also as Trinity College, Williams College, Columbia University and the University of Iowa. He was director of the MFA Program, and the Hopwood Awards Program at the University of Michigan, until his retirement in 2015." (Wikipedia)

The section on imitation is interesting, and Delbanco emphasizes that for many trades apprenticeship has been the preferred way to learn. He adds, "But to imitate is not to be derivative; it's simply to admit that we derive from what was accomplished by others." And "No one seeks to be original when learning scales, or how to use a grindstone, or where the comma belongs in a dependent clause. " We emulate in order to learn skills.

Delbanco also discusses imitation, forgery, plagiarism, and authenticity in an intriguing way with famous examples.

The exploitation and corruption of language is another way of examining both spoken and written words. Think politicians--saying one thing, then saying they didn't say it or that they didn't mean it. Instead of cogent and meaningful discourse, the choosing of hyperbole and boastfulness, repetition "as if asseveration might make a falsehood true" has become more and more common. Do people mean what they say or what they write? I find it difficult to believe political rhetoric, mostly because it lacks sincerity at best and is predominantly ad hominem attack without content or truth at worst. An intentional misuse of language, Delbanco believes is an assault on democracy. I'm not sure anyone would disagree these days.

This wasn't intended to such a long review, but as I skim over all the highlighted passages I marked as I read, there is no way to cover everything. There are sections I would omit. Sometimes a few examples are better than too many and Delbanco, who takes obvious joy in writing, can overdo a good thing at times. :)

The book was a pleasure to read, and I loved the references to writers I've read and to some I've only read about. I enjoyed the plays on words (though maybe some should be cut) and Debanco's pleasure in language is evident throughout, and I loved learning a couple of new-to-me interpretations of quotes from Hamlet.

I want to read the final edited version and have pre-ordered the book. Read in January; blog review scheduled for March 3.

NetGalley/Yale U.P.
Nonfiction. March 17, 2020. Print length: 296 pages (ARC)