Welcome to The Writing Coach. On this podcast, I speak with the instructors, editors, coaches, and mentors who help writers and authors create their art, build their audience, and sell their work.

A client of mine recently asked me what novels I would recommend for the purpose of demonstrating different aspects of writer’s craft.

This episode answers that question by revealing 13 novels every writer should read!

Listen to the podcast now now or read the full transcript below.

Episode Transcript

Hello beloved listeners and welcome back to The Writing Coach podcast. I am your host Kevin T. Johns.

If this is your first time listening to the podcast, welcome. We love new listeners. This is episode … oh boy, I always forget to check before we start recording. It’s probably episode 59 or 60 or something, which means if you enjoy this episode there’s another 58, 59 episodes out there that you can go check out where I chat with all sorts of amazing people. Shawn Coyne, Jenny Blake, Chandler Bolt. Everyone in the world of helping authors. Tons of great interviews in there with people like Jeff Goins. Everyone you want to hear me chat with, I chat with. Go back. Dig into those archives and check out some of those older episodes.

Normally, I interview someone else, but every once in a while, like actually the last few episodes, it’s just me. This is going to be another one of them because of one of my one-on-one coaching clients … I’m a writing coach guys. It’s not just a title of a podcast. It’s something I do professionally. One of my clients asked me a really great question. I gave it a lot of thought. I decided I was going to answer him in podcast format. Reza, you are probably listening to this. Thank you so much for asking such a great question. We are going to get to it in a minute.

Reza is one of my one-on-one clients. I have a couple other one-on-one clients who have come on board as of late. Peter if you are listening to this, and Attila — welcome aboard guys. I can’t wait to work with you to get your books written.

This episode is going to address a very specific question that Reza asked. Reza grew up in Iran and came to Canada, where I live ten, years ago. He’s really been focusing on his English writing for the last ten years. He’s always been very interested in non-fiction. That’s the type of writing he does. He’s writing a nonfiction self-help book. He said, “Kevin, if I did want to start exploring English fiction, what would be some great books  I could read that could help me understand writing better?”

I thought that was such a great question!

That’s what we are going to get into in today’s podcast. We are going to talk about 13 different books that I think every writer should read. Each of these books is going to demonstrate a different aspect of a writer’s craft that I think is really important.

Before we get into that, I do want to say this is not a conversation about overturning the cannon of traditional English literature. This is a podcast episode about writer’s craft. Alright? From the hundreds and hundreds of books I’ve read in my life, these were the books that came to mind as great examples, the best examples in different aspects of the craft of novel writing.

I will warn you, most of the authors I have chosen are white, heterosexual, American men. I’m not going to apologize for my bias. I like what I like, but I will acknowledge my biases. I’m a left-leaning, white, heterosexual, Canadian, male with a masters degree in English literature. All of my book choices are going to be biased by that position of privilege that I’m coming from. I do want to acknowledge that.