Prose models

by Gerald Levin

Prose models (Sixth Edition)

Genres: Reference, Writing

534 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[PriscillaC · Rating 4 out of 5]

(This review may spoil parts of the book.)

Prose Models was a book of many essays written by famous authors. It was also a book that helped me improve my writing skills. By reading numerous essays, I learned how important achieving the purpose of an essay and engaging the readers were, for some of the essays were extremely long, but extremely enjoyable. It was nice to have a vocabulary section like a glossary because some essays were purposely written in complex language just for the sake of it. It was supposed to be humorous. For example, there was an essay called "Little Red Riding Hood Revisited" written by Russell Baker. Russell Baker introduces the essay as "a modern interpretation of the children's' story, Little Red Riding Hood." The story is extremely complex with large and hard vocabulary everywhere, just to deliver the same message as the story of Little Red Riding Hood that we know. I thought Russell Baker was trying to get to the point that we need to use the appropriate language for our readers, and that these days, people are uselessly using difficult and long vocabulary words just because they look good and "academic." Another humorous story that I liked was "Ben & Jerry's" by Calvin Trillin. Calvin Trillin's essay was a humorous explanation of the origin of Ben & Jerry's and other ice-cream shops. The point that makes the essay more funny is that Calvin Trillin uses dry humor. It sounds like he's being serious, but it ends up being extremely hilarious.

Prose Models is a great book to enjoy reading while being able to learn how to be a better writer at the same time. There are enjoyable and fun essays as well as memoirs and speeches. I would highly recommend this book to people who are looking for fun "short stories" to read, people who want to read a book to realize what you have to do to make your readers enjoy reading your work, or both :)

[Hayat Qaid · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would recommend this book for fun reading, and as a useful reference on how to improve our writing skills. It teaches you to develop your thoughts and emotions effectively and more expressively through writing.

[Alicia Zuto · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is great brain food. I love the challenges after the short essays. Enough to be able to decide how many you want to do when you're doing it for pleasure such as myself. I like the versatility of the essays. I chose to pick and choose where I started and ended and which ones I wanted to pass by. The luxury of this kind of book is you don't have to go in chronological order from page one to the end. It was challenging and interesting but I still feel that I am more interested in questions that are more personally related. This is definitely what it is meant for though. This is meant for college students so this is my opinion as a person that just loves to learn.

[Jimbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting anthology for studying the craft.