My Favorite Book: An Advanced Writing Guide

The book is the best friend that we all can have. A book is a friend that is always there for you. Books make our life easy to lead as they inform us about various ways of leading life. Books are informative as well as instructive. A person is never going to feel alone in the presence of books.

In the company of books, a person is never going to feel the boredom of daily routine if s/he has nothing else to do. Books have many wonders on their pages, and they make a person absorbed in their interesting content.

The best example of being a friend of books can be seen when you’re on long journeys and have nothing to do except to sit and wait for the arrival to the point of destination. The reading of an interesting book shortens the distance and time that is in between.

Books are of many kinds and for many subjects such as psychology, philosophy, English, finance, business, computers, biology, zoology, botany, international relations, history, science, accounting, mathematics, sociology, economics, communication, networking, designing, management, political science, geography, education, astrology, astronomy, administration, marketing, pharmacy, etc. Teachers assign students to write essays on books as the main exercise that they should do.

The fact is that a lot of students face problems while writing an essay on a book. In our guide, we have covered the key issues related to the process of writing and blended them into blocks with easy-to-follow tips and recommendations.

Choosing the Topic for an Essay on a Book

The first step on your way to an A+ essay about a book is to pick an appropriate topic. There are numerous topics to write about when it comes to Literature. That is why the process of choosing one can become quite troublesome.

The easiest way to go is to pick a certain literature style as the essay topic. Classifying this or that work of literature, trying to reveal common features that prove that the piece belongs to a particular style and discussing these features might be a tough task, especially if a student can’t boast of solid knowledge of various styles. Nonetheless, if the subject of your research is your true passion, the work can be rewarding.

The other most common topics are related to the authors and their written works. In this case, you have to ensure your essay doesn’t look like a biography. Instead, focus on the author’s literary heritage, the impact that various life events have on them and their writing. Feel free to explore and compare the ideas that the chosen author discusses in written works created at dawn and the end of a literary career. Then, analyze what exactly has changed and why.

As an option, you may choose to write an essay on a single book. Your tutor will appreciate it as well since a lot of books do deserve some exclusive in-depth research. Just be ready that you’ll find it difficult to add something brand new to the loads of researched performed on all classy literature works. The research part is usually one of the toughest in the process of writing. With all the materials available on the web, most undergrads tend to get lost. But you’re welcome to find professional help andd get a custom essay tailored to your writing needs. The process is not easy, that’s true.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to contribute to the existing set of investigations. If you decide to work on a not so well-known book instead, you should illustrate the major essay points with the text quotes to help the readers unfamiliar with the piece to get the idea of both – the work of literature and your essay.

You are welcome to use the topics that we have collected for you to get inspired for your essay:

• The Key Message of Ernest Hemingway’s the Old and the Sea
• Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil and Its Influence on the Current Society
• Oscar Wilde’s Canterville Ghost: From Initial Fun to Drama Issues
• The Death of Hamlet’s Father and Claudius’s Involvement
• Sex and Romance in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
• Metaphorical Senses of Edgar Allan Poe’s Buried Alive
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank: The Changes of the Outlook on Love during Anne’s Life in the Annexe

We’re sure you will write an excellent essay with one of those!

Researching and Outlining

To get ready for research, make sure to clarify all the details of your project. It is important that you know the formatting features, deadline, and the word count required. Take into account the citation formats preferred by your tutor.

First, read the whole book and take notes as you turn page after page. Find a quiet place to be able to completely zone out and read. Note catchy details about the main characters and how the plot evolves. Take short breaks to let your brain “reload” and be able to absorb new portions of info. The more time you have for the reading part, the more details you’re going to detect and use in your writing later.

Pin all details that get you curious or confused in the book. Mark useful quotations that you will use as solid evidence in your essay. Take note of the main setting of the plot.
When you have all the necessary info at hand, start working on your outline. This is your plan of how your essay is going to look like. You have to sketch the main paragraphs and locate them in a logical order. Ensure the paragraphs will be logically connected. This, in turn, will guarantee your thoughts will flow naturally.

Writing an outline requires some time, but you’ll be happy once you get your hands on the writing process. Plus, you can modify your outline at any point in the future.

• Do not overuse your quotes. Each should be related to the issues that you discuss, brief, and provide only additional info, no more and no less.
• Don’t try to write about everything that you read in the chosen book. You may be required to read a huge book like ‘The Decameron’ by Giovanni Boccaccio that one cannot discuss in detail in a short essay. Choose the most important and vivid things. In order to do so, you have to narrow the topic of the essay. For instance, you might want to dedicate your paper to ‘Sexuality in ‘The Decameron,’ ‘The Decameron’ as the Best Example of the Modern Novel,” or ‘Female Power and Liberation in ‘The Decameron’ by Giovanni Boccaccio’ as the examples of narrowed topics.

Write the Intro of the Essay about a Book

Start your essay with the intro paragraph that must comprise the name of the author and the title of the book. Your task here is to catch your reader’s’ attention with a striking fact or an interesting quote that represents the central idea of the book.

Don’t make the introduction too long. This presents a risk that your readers might lose their interest in your story at the very start. The opening paragraph must occupy from two to ten sentences.

Use your intro to set the tone for the essay. Make sure to keep your text clear and observational. If you’re stuck and don’t know which way to good at the very beginning, ensure to follow the structure we’ve given here:

• Universal statement. Introduce the novel/story/poetry that you read with the basic facts about one. ‘Rabbit, Run’ is a postwar American novel written by John Updike.”
• Body sentences. This is when you have to keep your context in mind all the time. Keep this section right – from three to five sentences would do. Here, you have to set the scene and provide support for your thesis statement. ‘Using the form of the grotesque allegory of American life, John Updike disappointed young man dreams of running from a workaday routine in a way that is still familiar practically sixty years on…’
• Thesis statement. A thesis statement is the core argument of the paper and the most important part of it. Just choose a certain characteristic about the book that is available for interpretation and that you can support and develop your position about it. Your thesis statement must have a clear counter-argument and be insightful. For instance, if you think that the protagonist divorced his wife because of his tragic childhood and not his wife’s unfaithfulness, and you’re 100% sure that your argument will stand up the entire essay, feel free to state your thesis in the intro. Above all, make your thesis statement an argument – something that might be false or true and that you state is true. ‘While in ‘Rabbit, Run’ John Updike disappointed young man dreams of running from a workaday routine, the book has brought mid-20th century US middle-class life closer to the readers all over the globe.’

Usually, the thesis statement is located in the final sentence of the intro.

The Body with the Key Aspect of the Book

Consider this – you might break this section down with universe-building, character, plot, and themes. However, this technique may vary between genres, books, and your own preferences.
Provide a paragraph to every aspect mentioned above, discussing how successfully the author of the book arranged it, together with what you did and didn’t like.
Make sure to use brief quotes in the text as examples for your arguments. It is always a good idea to provide quotes because, thus, you attach everything that you say with solid support. If you state that Sherlock is elegantly erudite, give some relevant line from this character in order to let your readers see that you’re right. However, you have to be particularly careful here, because lengthy quotes can occupy much of the essay space and overpower your project. Give preference to the brief quotes that will do both – get your points of view across while letting your ideas shine through.

Conclusion

Let your readers know your conclusions. What do you think they might enjoy about the book? Did you personally enjoy the book because of the incredible and heart-warming love theme? Do you believe that folks who like time travel issues are not going to have fun with it? No matter what conclusions you come up with, do not be mean. This book is the brainchild of another human. Give your honest point of view about the piece of literature.

Search for Similar Books

An excellent way to conclude your essay about a book is to find similar books to the subject of your research. By doing so, you will be able to say that “if you liked N book, you would definitely like the one written by X author.”

If you have time to be more specific, you can also look at some of the exact things that make these books similar. Thus, you will suggest, ‘if the protagonist of N book appealed to you, then you will find the protagonist of this book a real kick-ass hero!’

Extra Tips from Our Essay Writing Professionals

The secret of clear writing of essays on books is clear thinking. So, be perfectly clear about what you say, and then say it as directly, as simply, as concisely in your custom essay on book as possible. For writing essays on books, follow some of the simplest rules:

• Be direct. Use short sentences in preference to long and involved periods.
• Be simple. Do not attempt an oratory or flowery language but use simple words and constructions, and avoid elaborate metaphors.
• Be concise. Avoid unnecessary repetitions and superfluous words; say what you want to say as tersely as is consistent with making your meaning clear in your essays on books. Never use two words where one will do.
• Be natural. Do not try to imitate any author’s style, however eloquent, but be yourself while writing an essay on a book. You can also get free essays on books from various internet sites as a sample for writing.

As you can see, when it comes to writing an essay about a book, things are the same as they are in Math. In other words, there is a certain formula that one has to follow to accomplish an essay that really works. Mastering the formula discussed above can take you from a non-writer to a know-it-all. And the steps discussed in this guide are simple and applicable to any literary genre.