Depending on your proximity to the writing life, what section of the book
you're reading and what percentage of your daily writing quota you've
completed, "The Writer's Quotebook" will either fill you with hilarity,
dread or inspiration.

Quoting 500 different authors - everyone from Margaret Atwood to Emile Zola
- on subjects as diverse as the talent, dialogue and Hollywood, "The
Writer's Quotebook" is divided into three main sections: "The Creative
Process," "Craft," and "The Writing Life." These sections are further
divided into chapters, each very appropriately prefaced by compiler and
editor Jim Fisher.

What provides much of the humor found in "Quotebook" is the oftentimes
jarring juxtaposition of different writers' thoughts on a particular
subject. For instance, in the chapter entitled "Description," Rebecca
McClanahan offers a very helpful quote which reads in part: "When we
describe, we make impressions, attempting through language to represent
reality. Description is in effect, word painting." A few quotes later,
Ruth Engelken has this to say: "Beginning writers generally find the nose
more difficult to describe than the eyes, the lashes and brows."

Although entire sections and many random quotes could be legitimately
considered potentially discouraging reading for aspiring writers (including
a footnote in the introduction to the chapter titled "Despair" citing a
plethora of the writers who have committed suicide), there are actually
many helpful nuggets of information contained within the covers of
"Quotebook."

But to rate the book merely by the educational value it possesses would be
to miss the point entirely; it is definitely not a "how-to" book. Rather,
reading it is like standing in the center of a circle of great writers and
asking each of them, one at a time, to opine on a particular literary
subject. The writers quoted in Fisher's book rarely agree on anything, but
the compilation of their thoughts have a single purpose: a very interesting
and entertaining read.