Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

This is a good meditation on how to read and how to write. I especially liked her observation that beginning writers are too often advised to show rather than tell, which leads to long scenes enacting dull action that could have been conveyed more economically by just telling. Not everything needs to be played out. She also speaks lovingly of language. The sentence. The word. Her examples are thrilling.
This is what I love about writing, finding the perfect way of telling, the perfect word, the perfect phrase. In short stories, you have the luxury of doing this. Not as much as in poetry but there's time. And that's why I hate writing novels. You simply can't agonize over every word.