40 Books That Might Help You Write Your Novel

For writers, every single book you read helps you write your book. Even if it’s a book you find badly written, you learn what not to do. As writers, reading is our fuel, our education, our most reliable cure for writer’s block. When in doubt how to proceed, read.

That said, I decided to highlight 40 books that most helped me in writing my book, a memoir about non-monogamy and gaslighting titled Open, and books that continued to help me imagine new paths forward. I am not including the many topic-specific books I read as research for Open (you can find many of those in this article). This list is a mix of writing guides, novels, and nonfiction, all of which taught me something about writing a book in general. Obviously, this is by no means exhaustive, and I’d love to hear what you think I’ve missed in the comments.

I hope that if you are trying to figure out how to write a book, or how to write another, some of these books might prove helpful to you as well.