Book description
How a writer moves perception to image to written world is at the heart of any literary work. Here, celebrated writer and poet Mark Doty closely examines this essential literary technique and how it varies from writer to writer. Drawing on the sensory experience found in the poems of Blake,…
- Coming soon!
- Coming soon!
Why read it?
1 author picked The Art of Description as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
“It sounds like a simple thing, to say what you see.” So begins the poet Doty’s short book on the art of description. The art of something implies subtlety and skill, and Doty explores ideas around uncertainty, figuration, attentiveness, and those habits of conscious observation and specificity that improve description. If this sounds dull it is not, because there’s a subjectivity about Doty’s own prose that draws you in. What’s more (and I’m going to cheat a little here) if it turns out that you love Doty’s prose as I do, there’s another book by him, Still Life With Oysters…
From Harriet's list on by writers on writing.
If you love The Art of Description...
Getting Dressed in the Dark
How do you know the truth after the story you most trust disappears?
Self-betrayal, polyamory, adultery, and an unconventional life in a one-room, rural Maine schoolhouse ends in a crisis mirroring the larger, societal polarization and collapse of meaning. Compass shattered, an artist's wisdom guides a course home, revealing a…
Want books like The Art of Description?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 68 books like The Art of Description.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,277
readers submitted
so far, will you?
