What books can I read to help me become a better writer? Particularly

Don't read books about "how to write." Just read good books, lots of them, relevant to the kind of writing you'd like to do. Annotate and take notes, highlight passages and write down page numbers where you find particularly powerful writing.

In addition, practice writing as much as you feel you can. You will feel pressure, from this board and other places, to "write every day." This is nice if you can do it, but in actuality, only write when you really feel like writing. If you only write once a month, that's ok. You can write like that for a few years if that's what it takes, and once you start a project you feel strongly about, you will begin to write more frequently out of interest in your project.

>>9975718
I disagree with that last paragraph. You need to keep up the practice, even if you're bored as shit. It doesn't have to be much - even just ten minutes free writing is ok on a bad day - but get down something. It keeps you sharp and builds a routine.

>>9975692
The elements of style was what I found most useful, every other book just tells me what I already know with maybe a few pieces of new information. In the end you become better by writing than you would with reading, unless you're really bad and know next to nothing.