Don’t tell anyone, but I still haven’t finished Faulkner’s famous short story, “The Bear,” which was assigned during English lit class my first semester of college. Just the kind of negligence that happens when a person who delights in reading nevertheless limits himself to sports pages and magazines for far too long.

It was not the ideal approach to wider knowledge, especially for someone aspiring to be a journalist—a wordsmith of sorts. But I am here to report that there can be redemption. Over time, surrounded by Renaissance women and men—wife, friends, daughter, colleagues—becoming more well-read has rubbed off.

So while there remain literally scores of tomes on the multiple bookshelves around the house that have not yet been cracked by this reader, the perusal of literary works—joining a program already in progress among the cognoscenti—now continues apace. And boosted by this interesting new stimulus: Joining a monthly book discussion group at the local library.

It’s a bit like being back in school, in the sense of realizing there is no faking one’s way through the session just by reading the inside dust cover. The difference, though, is that the too-prevalent expectation among so many students—a good grade rather than more knowledge—is not the point in this gathering of committed bookworms.

On my own, I tend to marvel at authors’ skills to produce word pictures for scene-setting or to create realistic dialogue—how do they do that?—but the exchanges in a book discussion assemblage bring out musings on character development, relationships, plot twists and takes on the past beyond the dull recitation of historical dates and names. To hear the impressions of the others, prompting a hadn’t-thought-of-that insight, is like reading a good book review.

How did the setting figure into the story? Was there a significance to the protagonist’s name? What about some of the subtle literary references? Was the tale dramatic? Realistic? Humorous? Schmaltzy?

During my half-century as what we in the world of newspaper print called an ink-stained wretch, it regularly was made clear that reading—reading anything—is what leads to writing well. It’s a conviction that was embraced by no less an expert than the late novelist Larry McMurtry, who also was a rare-book scout and book store owner. In “Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen,” one of three memoirs penned by McMurtry, he offered the delightful metaphor that the ranch life of his Texas youth, cowboys tending cattle, resembled the mission of a writer.

“What is [writing],” he asked, “but a way of herding words? First I try to herd a few desirable words into a sentence, and then I corral them into small pastures called paragraphs, before spreading them across the spacious ranges of a novel.”

A member of our discussion group had tipped “Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen” to me. Probably would have missed it, otherwise. And my wife, leader of the library’s book discussion gatherings, zeroes in on volumes beyond my usual lighthearted fare and sticking with favorite authors.

We were assigned a book—a series of books, actually—about septuagenarians in a retirement complex who solved murders; another about siblings, their broken family, nostalgia and…a house; another with residents of an English Channel island relating their days under Nazi occupation during World War II—with their book club in a starring role; and one that is a collection of short stories loosely linked to travel situations.

In bygone days, when I traveled a lot for work, I occasionally would stop into out-of-town bookstores and check out the first page or two of the latest best sellers on display. Not taking time to get especially involved in the story; just another stab at examining the writing craft—what seemed to work and what didn’t. Maybe I could learn something.

There is a difference, as we journalists regularly and snarkily would remind each other, between writing and just typing. So, for anyone interested in the art of composition, to keep studying how the pros do prose—to get a glimpse into their bag of tricks—can never hurt. And the more minds to help sift through some notable scrivener’s yarn, the better.