A Spectator Best Book of the Year ‘There are three rules for writing a novel,’ Somerset Maugham once said. ‘Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.’

In November 1910, Count Lev Tolstoy died at a remote Russian railway station attended by the world's media. He was eighty-two years old and had lived a remarkab

In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools a

The bad news is: You have to learn to write. The good news is: Learning to write just became easier. In this book, writers learn to write like they were born th

This critical analysis of the two great masters of the Russian novel provides detailed plot summaries of the authors' works and draws on references to Homer, Sh