There's a wide belief or assumption that one can't apply "pure reason" to art, creativity, morality, the mind... But then here comes Ayn Rand, just laying it all out to whoever might be listening.

Contrast "The Art of Nonfiction" with Steven Pressfield's famous "The War of Art"--an engaging and encouraging book on writing, discipline, and motivation--but when Pressfield talks about inspiration he must resort to "angels" and the mystical muse. It's read it with a straight face and considered a valiant attempt to explain the unexplainable, as we don't know any better.

Thankfully someone knows better. Ayn Rand understood the absolute value and utility of reason to illuminate reality, and as a result she was able to see what others could not.

A ton of excellent advice, especially in the first half of the book. Will need to read this a couple more times before I can hope to glean all the gems buried in here.

比 The Art of Fiction 差一點，也或許是我先讀了那一本的緣故。不過依然得到了很多啓發，比如如何找到一個恰當的標題。同時也強化了「抽象與具體」之間轉換的重要性，事實上我之前一直在無意識地這麼做，這件事被她點透，成爲一個明文的行動指導，實在太好了。

Whether you agree with her or not, Ayn Rand is a master of the written word. Both The Art of Fiction and The Art of Nonfiction are excellent resources for any writer of both genres.

After reading this book, I would like to meet Ayn Rand for coffee where she could convince me that I am already capable of everything without ever letting me forget that I am also a complete moron.

After reading this book, I would be first to register for her writing class and would find a way to live with wetting myself out of fear during her lectures.

After reading this book, I can’t wait to read everything else written by Ayn Rand.

A lot of very solid advice, but particularly targeted to article-writing and other very specific forms that might limit the value to a general audience. That said, I learned quite a bit.

While I was never a fan of Rand’s philosophy I was always impressed with the quality of her writing so when I bumped into this book I was curious enough to pick it. While it wasn’t the most riveting read, it did have a refreshingly pragmatic take on writing: it is dependent on effort not on inspiration. Rand advises to build a “scaffold” for one’s writing so as to better determine from the outset the work that is needed to complete the project. Although I found her list of “don’ts” not quite as useful the book in its entire does seem like a useful reference to aspiring writers.

I found this little gem for only USD2.95, so it is certainly well worth my money and time. Not many books deal with the "philosophy" behind non-fiction and I appreciate Rand's honesty and transparency, although this could be unintentional as her series of lectures was probably never intended to be committed to book form. Her writing / lecture is clear and detailed and although some readers have called her out for being repetitive, I actually found the repetition helpful because it leaves little doubt as to what she means. The book is well-structured (credit goes to Robert Mayhew who had to arrange her lecture notes) and it's hard to disagree with the philosophy she espouses. The fact that she talks about the "art" of writing non-fiction also means that a lot of her points may extend to other forms of art (e.g. painting, photography, etc.) so the book is not necessarily exclusive to non-fiction writers or readers. Some have called her arrogant - e.g. she compares what is considered good writing (articles written by her) and what is bad (articles written by others) - but it is always fun to read Rand when she is not gentle with criticism, as long as one remembers that these are cherry-picked examples and probably self-serving.

Is the book flawless? My answer is no. Whilst I agree for the most part with her philosophy, I am not always convinced. For instance, she says a reviewer must never tell the author what he should have done. But she goes on to say that "it is permissible to say that the author has stated such and such, but he has not touched on these aspects." Maybe I am alone in thinking such distinction artificial but I struggle to see what is or isn't permissible. Her writing sometimes contradicts her philosophy (e.g. she says write simply, but her writing can be quite convoluted - just look at Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged and you'll know what I mean) and her philosophy is sometimes easier said than done (e.g. how exactly does one forget writing rules and allow the subconscious to run free to generate style?). Nonetheless, all things considered, there are plenty of nuggets of wisdom to take away and I think it is a good companion piece to Zinsser and Strunk.

I knew the slim 182 page book would be weighty and I was right. The photo on the front cover shows Rand, with her arms folded, in front of a city landscape, and squinting into the sun in a stare-down. A fair reflection of her approach to writing, the photo shows a determined, focused and laser intelligence.
tAt the end I felt proud of having made it through a sober and intense reading lesson of gathering ideas, deciding on a plan, outlining, writing and rewriting. If you are ready in your writing to seriously confront the flaws of your thinking, or defend them against a paragon of argument and reason, this book is a match. Compare your strength to this advice. “Sometimes an author becomes too abstract because he has not quite decided what details he will use to illustrate something, and so he begins to assert the arbitrary.” It is a rare author who would recognize a personal fall into asserting the arbitrary.
tIt sometimes felt weighted down by the use of ideas that required words like absolute, relativism, contextual, epistemology and her personal philosophy of objectivism. I’m a generation more accustomed to the friendly, breezy, sisterly advice of Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird and Janet Evanovich’s easily absorbed, open-formatted How I Write. Yet, maybe because she is older, Rand came across as the older, crabbier sister who only later turns out to be a best friend. Because of her prickly exterior, it was a surprise to review the notes I kept while reading Rand’s book, to discover she has her cuddly moments.
tOn the first page is, “If you have difficulty with writing, do not conclude that there is something wrong with you.” Or “Trust your subconscious by writing as if everything that comes out of it is right.” And more cuddly is, “But while you are writing, you must be God’s perfect creature (if there were a God).” I think that’s downright sweet for an Ayn Rand quote.
tShe gives strong advice to writers that involves deep thinking, liberal editing, showing versus telling, and grammar. Clarity and the necessity of every scene are among her mantras, which is surprising considering the length of her books.
tShe seems almost easy to have lunch with (and I wish I could) during her description of finally settling on the titles for The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Rand is not a fuzzy-wuzzy person and her politics sometimes got in the way (like so many of us she just never got over that childhood of hers), but I learned from her. I admire the way she thinks on an individual, personal level, though we don’t always come to the same political conclusion. Now that I’ve read more of of her I doubt she’d mind as long as I could state why I thought a certain way and could grammatically defend it.

This is one of the most helpful guides to nonfiction writing I've read. It's better than the textbook in my editing and publishing Masters level course... If there's only one guide on nonfiction you read, it should be this one!

I am afraid I consider this book "unreadable".

“Americans do not know English grammar. It is all the more ridiculous coming from someone like me with a Russian accent.”