Amy Suto's Blog: Writing, Substack Growth & Travel Guides

The 10 best books for writers, rated by a working writer — The War of Art, Big Magic, The Artist’s Way, and the rest of the shelf that survived my purge.

Every Blake Crouch book I’ve read, ranked by my star ratings — Dark Matter, Pines, Wayward, Recursion, and Upgrade, with spoiler-free verdicts.

The Green Witch is a friendly on-ramp to herbalism that kept pointing me toward other books. My honest review, and the meatier book I’d hand you instead.

The YA dystopia wave kept disappointing me, and then Divergent showed up. My review: why the faction concept earns its keep, plus my honest caveat about the prose.

Max Brooks writes the zombie apocalypse like a war historian, and it works. My honest World War Z review: the research that makes it frightening, and the flaw that cost it a star.

I read When during the last week of December 2019, which is either perfect or ridiculous timing for a book about timing. My honest review: 4 stars, and you only need the first half.

I’m publishing this one on Halloween on purpose, even though it’s the least frightened book about death I’ve ever read. Caitlin Doughty travels the world to find the good death — and finds it everywhere.

A note on timing: I read Ashlee Vance’s Elon Musk in the spring of 2019, and the book came out in 2015. This review is about that book — the investigative biography that first mapped how the man behind Tesla and SpaceX got there.

Every crime writer has a research shelf. This is the book on mine I’d rescue first — 400 numbered observations from a veteran patrolman, full of heart and human interest, not just procedure.

Some books you pick up because of a review, and some because the title does all the work. A Burglar’s Guide to the City is the second kind — heists, architecture, and how burglars read buildings.

In 1959, The Sunday Times sent Ian Fleming around the world to write about the planet’s most thrilling cities. What came back is one of the silliest travel books ever printed — and I mean that as roughly 70% compliment.

I co-wrote an episode of a spy thriller back in my Hollywood days, so take it as a professional opinion: the best spy thriller I’ve ever read is a work of nonfiction.

My Goodreads review of Evicted opens with three words I don’t hand out casually: must-read for everyone. Matthew Desmond’s reporting on the machinery of eviction earns every one of its 5 stars.

The third book in my three-week Barbara Ehrenreich binge of April 2020. Had I Known collects four decades of her essays, and my Goodreads review still sums it up: some really great essays in here, highly highly recommend.