Dear Geist,

I'm a fan of your advice to writers to read all kinds of books and periodicals, especially writing that's like ours (we hope!), but isn't there also a case for reading stuff that is radically different, for the shock value?

—Caroly G, Cyberspace

Dear Caroly,

New writers who are working out basic plot, character, theme and meaning always benefit by studying and imitating the work of experts whose work they admire. Writers at any stage can find new insights by physically writing down passages they admire and identifying what works. And yes, quite right—sometimes a shock to the system works when every other writerly strategy fails. The surprise may even be in another medium. In Claudia Dreifus's interview (New York Review of Books, June 2019) with Ira Glass, the writer and producer of the podcast This American Life, Glass talks about his early mentors and influences, and at one point singles out none other than Roland Barthes, in particular the famously unreadable book S/Z, “which,” Glass says, “made me understand what I could do in radio.”

—The Editors