believes instead that a reader should trust his/her reason and intelligence to judge the writing, without necessarily being swayed by the "reputation" of the author. List of rules Myers provides a list of rules at the end of the book, an ironic set of guidelines for writing, corresponding to prose criticized earlier in the book. Myers implies that following the rules will lead to literary success. The listed rules are "Be Writerly", "Sprawl", "Equivocate", "Mystify", "Keep Sentences Long", "Repeat yourself", "Pile on the Imagery", "Archaize", "Bore", and "Play the part". Reception Myers' article attracted criticism from aficionados of American literary fiction, including of the authors Myers mentioned by name. Some critics charged Myers with being selective in his choice of targets, and of cherry picking particularly unreadable passages from the authors' works to make his point, with his methods described as 'clever, efficient and unfair' by The New York Observer journalist Adam Begley. For many critics, Myers was continuing popular comments on postmodernism, of which John Gardner (On Moral Fiction) was the most recent proponent. See also Criticism of postmodernism 2001 in literature 2002 in literature Notes External links The Atlantic | July/August 2001 | A Reader's Manifesto | BR Myers Sentenced to Death, by Laura Miller. Salon, August 16, 2001. Unfair Sentence: The case for difficult books, by Meghan O'Rourke. Slate, July 27, 2001. 2001 documents 2002 non-fiction books Books of literary criticism Essays in literary criticism Works originally published in The Atlantic (magazine) Works about postmodernism 2002 essays