Whenever advice to writers is listed, the saying ‘read aandread lots’ is high on the list. What’s important here isn’t copying – slavishly copying another writer is best avoided, though there is no reason not to adopt small elements from elsewhere and merge them with your own writing. The usefulness of wide reading is primarily the process of observing and gradually taking on board what makes for good writing.
I’ve been reading the latest book by Tim Parks, an English writer long resident in Italy and best known for his travel writing about that country, a series starting with Italian Neighbours (though he is a novelist as well). His latest is The Hero’s Way. In 1849, Guiseppe Garibaldi fled Rome leading his army hundreds of miles northwards towards the Venetian Republic on the Adriatic coast. The book tells of a journey taken following the route then undertaken.