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I had a sudden short-lived interest in reading books about writing itself. Here is what I found to be useful and interesting (or not).

Jack Bickham
Bickham is polar opposite from Stephen King's "just start writing and see where it goes" approach. He has forms to fill out for each character, specific rules about the structure of novels, scenes, and sequels (the bits that link scenes).

• Scene and Structure
  
• Writing Novels that Sell
  

Renni Browne and Dave King

• Self-Editing for Fiction Writers
  These two editors share the techniques they use to edit fiction. They stress conciseness and clarity. I thought they had a number of very good points on beats, dialog, and various other things.

Orson Scott Card

• How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy
  Card is very active in supporting new fiction and sci-fi talent. I read his general advice on sci-fi novels. He talks about creating worlds, languages, systems of magic, etc. And he has an instructive chapter on how to go about publishing your first works.

Annie Dillard

• The Writing Life
  This is typically abstract, aspiring almost to poetry. It is largely a collection of random observations and stories of her own writing career. I think it would be mostly useful as inspiration to perseverance and hard work.

James Frey

• How to Write a Damn Good Novel
  This is in two volumes, parts 1 and 2. He covers most of the basics pretty concisely and with a subtle humor. It is probably one of the best to read first.

Stephen King

• On Writing
  The first half is essentially an autobiography; the second is a collection of observations and opinionated discourses on several aspects of technique. There is an interesting exercize where he presents a situation and asks you to write several pages, letting the story grow on its own, then asks you to email him the result of your effort. King's style is essentially to wait until a neat story pops into his head, apparently mostly pre-formed, then he starts writing. If he likes the result, then he'll keep it. If there's fancy metaphors, themes, or symbolism in it, why all the better: he'll work to bring those out even more in the second (and usually final) draft.

Strunk and White

• The Elements of Style
  I think everyone will agree this is required reading by anyone who writes anything -- fiction, non-fiction, essays, text books, journalism, etc. I'd read bits and pieces in high school, but was surprised to find on reading it all the way through that it was stuffed full of invaluable information cover to cover: everything from the difference between "which" and "that", and comma splice, to proper mechanics of dialog, and general advice on writing. Strunk is arguably the polar extreme of brevity, a virtual nazi on some esoteric points.