Reddit mentions of How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One

I would love for you to message me when it's out.

As for books you should read, I would start with the three most commonly recomended books for writing. Believe me, these are gold printed on paper.

How To Write a Sentence

The Elements of Style

On Writing

and here's a great reference book: The Little, Brown Compact Handbook. Don't be turned off by the price, just search for a much cheaper older addition, it will have the same information.

A few more come to mind, less literature but more about stylistic and analytic skills you'll require in your advanced years in the Humanities.

People say to read a good style guide like Strunk & White, which is just okay. But I'd highly recommend Pinker's A Sense of Style--he also unpacks some of the problems with Strunk & White's core edicts.

Stanley Fish is just a great person to read in general. From his op-ed stuff in the NY Times to his class How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One. I'd also highly recommend reading the full introduction of the Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism or the introduction to Rifkin & Ryan's Literary Theory: An Anthology. When it comes to the lit theory stuff there are some good torrents with a lot of anthologies and canonical texts lumped together as PDFs. I also find a lot of good stuff with my Scribd membership.

No so but this book is incredible.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Sentence-Read-One/dp/006184053X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501842758&sr=8-1&keywords=How+to+write+a+sentence

One of my favorite books on sentence structure is Stanley Fish's "How to Write a Sentence." He's a lively writer and there are a lot of good examples.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Sentence-And-Read/dp/006184053X

Another sentence master is Nabokov. Check out sentences in Lolita. So many of them are amazing.

But really, I think both paragraphs read fine. I wouldn't worry about varying structure for the sake of making each one different. Just try to make everything simple and clear. Meanwhile read a lot, copy down sentences you like to get ideas, and keep writing. You'll get better.

I don't usually do writing exercises because it feels like carving out time away from my WIP. But there are two things I do. I use the process in How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One by Stanley Fish. Save great sentences and write your own using the same constructs. I publish them on Medium with an anonymous account so they are out there, but not really.

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The other thing I do is get the fingers moving before a writing session by typing a great work out, I like typing out an epic poem by Coleridge because it is so meta to do so. He relates in his biography that in school he would copy out his favorite poet's books to give to friends because he could not afford to purchase them.