{"product_id":"every-day-i-write-the-book-9781478005827","title":"Every Day I Write the Book","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA writing manual as well as a manifesto, Every Day I Write the Book combines Amitava Kumar's practical writing advice with interviews with prominent writers, offering guidance and inspiration for academic writers at all levels.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eEvery Day I Write the Book\u003c\/i\u003e 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\u003cbr\u003e“Amitava Kumar's \u003ci\u003eEvery Day I Write the Book\u003c\/i\u003e 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\u003cbr\u003e\"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 *\u003cbr\u003e\"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 *\u003cbr\u003e\"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 *\u003cbr\u003e\"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 *\u003cbr\u003e\"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 *\u003cbr\u003e\"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 *\u003cbr\u003e\"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 \u003ci\u003eEvery Day I Write the Book\u003c\/i\u003e, 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 *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction. The 90-Day Book  1\u003cbr\u003e Part I. Self-Help\u003cbr\u003e Misery  5\u003cbr\u003e Good Sentences  6\u003cbr\u003e Read No Secondary Literature  7\u003cbr\u003e Read Junk  9\u003cbr\u003e Failure  10\u003cbr\u003e Running  12\u003cbr\u003e Sleep  15\u003cbr\u003e Kitchen Timer  16\u003cbr\u003e Self-Help  17\u003cbr\u003e Part II. Writing a Book: A Brief History\u003cbr\u003e Rules of Writing  23\u003cbr\u003e In Memory of  24\u003cbr\u003e Out of Place  26\u003cbr\u003e Eyes on the Ground  28\u003cbr\u003e The End of the Line  30\u003cbr\u003e Creative Criticism  31\u003cbr\u003e How to Throw Your Body  36\u003cbr\u003e I'm Feeling Myself  38\u003cbr\u003e Creative Writing  39\u003cbr\u003e Part III. Credos\u003cbr\u003e Declarations of Independence  47\u003cbr\u003e In Praise of Nonfiction  54\u003cbr\u003e There Is No Single Way   56\u003cbr\u003e How Proust Can Ruin Your Life  57\u003cbr\u003e Reality Hunger  58\u003cbr\u003e Depend on Your Dumbness  60\u003cbr\u003e Blackness (Unmitigated)  62\u003cbr\u003e Rage on the Page  63\u003cbr\u003e On Training  68\u003cbr\u003e Part IV. Form\u003cbr\u003e Light Years  71\u003cbr\u003e Neither\/Nor  72\u003cbr\u003e Criticism by Other Means  75\u003cbr\u003e Paranoid Theory  77\u003cbr\u003e Erotic Style  80\u003cbr\u003e I Blame the Topic Sentence  82\u003cbr\u003e The Sound of the Fury  83\u003cbr\u003e In Defense of the Fragment  86\u003cbr\u003e Kids  88 \u003cbr\u003e Part V. Academic Interest\u003cbr\u003e Diana Studies 91\u003cbr\u003e Examined Life  95\u003cbr\u003e Occupy Writing  96\u003cbr\u003e Academic Sentence  98\u003cbr\u003e Dissertation Blah  100\u003cbr\u003e Your Job Is to Know a Lot  102\u003cbr\u003e Terminology  103\u003cbr\u003e Anti-Anti Jargon  104\u003cbr\u003e Monograph  107\u003cbr\u003e Part VI. Style\u003cbr\u003e But Life  111\u003cbr\u003e Sugared Violets  112\u003cbr\u003e Voice  113\u003cbr\u003e Wikileaks Manual of Style  117\u003cbr\u003e Detecting Style  118\u003cbr\u003e Strunk and White  120\u003cbr\u003e A Clean English Sentence  122\u003cbr\u003e Trade  126\u003cbr\u003e Recommendation Letter  128\u003cbr\u003e Part VII. Exercises\u003cbr\u003e Bad Writing  137\u003cbr\u003e Prompt  139\u003cbr\u003e Post-Its  141\u003cbr\u003e Revising  142\u003cbr\u003e Editing  144\u003cbr\u003e Performing It  146\u003cbr\u003e Rituals  149\u003cbr\u003e For Graduate Students  152\u003cbr\u003e Not Writing   161\u003cbr\u003e Part VIII. The Groves of Academe\u003cbr\u003e Academe  165\u003cbr\u003e Stoner  167\u003cbr\u003e Common Sense  169\u003cbr\u003e Titles  170\u003cbr\u003e Campus Criticism  172\u003cbr\u003e Farther Away  176\u003cbr\u003e Accountability  177\u003cbr\u003e Tenure Files  179\u003cbr\u003e Journals  182\u003cbr\u003e Part IX. Materials\u003cbr\u003e Photographs, etc.  187\u003cbr\u003e \"Who's Got the Address?\" (a Collaboration with Teju Cole)  190\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments  197\u003cbr\u003e Appendix A. Ten Rules of Writing  201\u003cbr\u003e Appendix B. PEN Ten Interview  207\u003cbr\u003e Notes  211\u003cbr\u003e Index  231","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49408978092375,"sku":"9781478005827","price":62.25,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781478005827.jpg?v=1730504940","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/every-day-i-write-the-book-9781478005827","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}