On Writing

On Writing, by Stephen King, is a fabulous half-memoir, half writing manual. He manages to capture his essence on the pages of this book and easily relay his message across.
The first section is a vivid retelling of his life, and mostly how it's been influenced by being a writer. He tells about the stories he wrote as a high schooler that he sold to his friends (and got in trouble for) and the many newspapers he was involved with. He wasn't afraid to delve into the darker side of his adult life, where he was an alcoholic and abused drugs at the cost of not remembering writing some of his books.
The second part of the book goes into his ideas of what's important to budding authors. He can be a little harsh when it comes to adverbs, and believes one shouldn't plot excessively to oneself. He gives many good tips on how he thinks the mindset should be when sitting down to pound out a novel, for instance, he thinks a plot loses life if its been laying around for more than three or four months. He gives strict rules for how long to let your finished novel sit away once it's done, and who to let read it first.
In some places he deviates a little too much, but altogether it's a good book for someone truly interested in writing.