ARCHIVE FOR Chip Cheek

Every few weeks, a member of the Grub community recommends a book they find helpful or inspirational from a craft perspective. This week, instructor Chip Cheek recommends one of his favorite craft books. 

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them, by Francine Prose: The title says it all. This is a fantastic book, a bestseller, published in 2006, by a wonderful novelist. The single best way to learn how to write is to read widely and deeply and closely, and Prose is excellent at teaching the craft …

Every other week, a member of the Grub community recommends a book they find helpful or inspirational from a craft perspective. This week, Grub's Head Instructor Chip Cheek recommends his favorite novel. 

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson is possibly my single favorite novel; I read it for the language—beautiful, lyric—and her extended metaphors and images; it’s about two orphaned sisters raised by an eccentric aunt near a glacial lake. Gilead is also wonderful, won the Pulitzer a few years ago. (There’s a follow-up to that book, Home, which is less good, but still good.) And she’s a phenomenal essayist, …