Each year I set aside the month of January to read (and re-read) great books on writing. And each year I discover one or two worthy new titles to add to my bowed shelf of books on the topic.

I suppose the thrill of discovering a new great book on writing is a feeling shared only by fellow wordsmiths. But it is sweet, no? I distinctly remember the bookstore where in 2006 I discovered Virginia Tufte’s magnificent book Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style. I return to her book every year to be inspired in the delicate art of sentence crafting. And I still remember the smell of the bookstore where I discovered Stanley Fish’s, How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One, in 2011. Like I said, finding great books on writing is memorable.

This past year I added four new impressive titles to my shelf, so I guess I’ll call them my favorite books of 2012 on writing:

1. Jack Hart, Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction (University of Chicago)
2. Douglas Wilson, Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life (Canon)
3. Constance Hale, Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing (W. W. Norton)
4. Verlyn Klinkenborg, Several Short Sentences About Writing (Knopf)