How to Write [Paperback]

Gertrude Stein (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0486231445 | ISBN-13: 978-0486231440 | Publication Date: June 1, 1975

Not so much a "how-to" guide as an inspirational journey into the craft of writing by one of the 20th-century's most influential and unconventional literary figures. Also valuable as an entry into Stein's own writings. New preface and introduction by Patricia Meyerowitz.

Product Details

• Paperback: 414 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (June 1, 1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486231445
• ISBN-13: 978-0486231440
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 4.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reading How to Write, September 29, 2000

By 

Philip Keith (St. Cloud, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Write (Paperback)

Gertrude Stein's How to Write, as much about how to read as about how to write, is one of the great "unreadable" modernist classics. As a student of the psychologist/philosopher William James, she could predictably want to approach the task of explaining how to write from an observational/laboratory perspective rather than as a problem of providing discursive information. The reflexive style of the book has made it something of an underground favorite (thought the fact that Amazon.com lists it on the "available in 24 hours category suggests that it is considerably more above ground) for people of a post-structuralist bent. Its value is both philosophical and mental/calisthenic. Her fragmented sentences force one back on all one's language-processing resources, providing a kind of linguistic stress-test, while reminding one of the philosophical depths of language experience. One finds many crossed wires as one traverses the field of her writing: psychology and society, orality and writing, image and discursion, grammar as form and grammar as experience-just for starters. It is one amazing textual trip whether you bus in for a segment or sign on for the whole course. And as a small cheap book it can be lived with forever.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wash you brain.. or . Wash you brain, February 7, 2009

By 

Pavel Ryjakov "Pavel Ryzhakov" (Saint-Petersburg, Russia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Write (Paperback)

For anybody who intents to write this is a valuable book. Stein breaks the stereotypes and makes you completely shattered. You really dont understand what this is all about. Dont give up.. Read again. Read what is written. Words and sentences start becoming virgin, not "secondary" as in expressing something, some sense.
A tough book, but really useful and interesting. Even amusing it is.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World, November 17, 2011

By 

Arlene Bassett (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Write (Paperback)

IF YOU HAD JUST THREE THINGS TO TAKE WITH YOU IF YOU HAD TO LEAVE YOUR HOME IN AN EMERGENCY, HARVEY MACKAY'S BOOK, "The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World" SHOULD BE ON THAT SHORT LIST! If you can sell you will never be without in your life in any circumstance!!!! Buy this book for whomever in your life you want to succeed big time. They will have the tools to last a lifetime!!!! An absolute MUST have!!!!!!