Book picks similar to
The Kingdom of Books by William Dana Orcutt


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The Easy 9-Step System to Your First Book in 30 Days: The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Become an Authority Author in Weeks!


Nuno Almeida - 2017
     By the way, because he has this delusion that you should always put your money where your mouth is, he actually shows you the video where you can see his 17 Amazon Best Sellers. Bananas! He’s no saint, though! If you get his FREE COURSE he will try to sell you his complete, over-the-shoulder, professional Course down the line! He offers it for a crazy affordable price and he doesn’t even try to upsell you anything. This lunatic believes in transparency and providing real value. These are the worst scumbags! The craziest part is that, even if you don’t buy anything else, this book ALONE will give you EVERYTHING you need to publish your book on Amazon from A to Z! This is what I’ll teach you: - Choosing the Right Topic: The best way to earn a lot of money while having a sense of purpose! - Market Research: Learn how to get inspiration and improve your own book by looking at the right places! - Title Creation: Learn how to get readers bursting with curiosity and lining to get your book first! - Writing Your Book: The fastest way to structure your book all the way to the end! - Outsourcing: If you don't want to write it, learn how to outsource it the right way and end up with a masterpiece! - Cover Creation: Do it yourself easily and for free OR Get a professional graphic designer to do it for $5! - Description, Categories & Keywords: Learn the AIDA Formula for magic descriptions and know all the secrets to stand out! - Formatting and Publishing your Kindle EBook: I will provide you with the same skeleton file I personally use (already formatted! ) and I will show you, step-by-step, how to publish your Kindle book the right way! - Formatting and Publishing your Paperback Book: Learn how to publish the paperback version for FREE! I will teach how to get an already formatted template and show you, step-by-step, how to publish your physical book the right way! - Free Promotions and Getting Reviews: I will teach you how to set up a free promotion so you can get up to thousands of downloads and honest reviews that will make your book stand miles apart from your competitors! - Important Resources: Make your author's page &lt

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them


Francine Prose - 2006
    Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart - to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's Middlemarch. She looks to John Le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail. And, most important, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted.

The Book on the Bookshelf


Henry Petroski - 1999
    And as books became more common, the question of where and how to store them became more pertinent. But how did we come from continuous sheets rolled on spools to the ubiquitous portable item you are holding in your hand? And how did books come to be restored and displayed vertically and spine out on shelves? Henry Petroski answers these and virtually every other question we might have about books as he contemplates the history of the book on bookshelf with his inimitable subtle analysis and intriguing detail."After reading this book, you will not look at a book or a bookshelf in the same way." —The Seattle Times

The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life


Andy Miller - 2012
    Or so he kept telling himself. But, no matter how busy or tired he was, something kept niggling at him. Books. Books he'd always wanted to read. Books he'd said he'd read that he actually hadn't. Books that whispered the promise of escape from the daily grind. And so, with the turn of a page, Andy began a year of reading that was to transform his life completely.This book is Andy's inspirational and very funny account of his expedition through literature: classic, cult, and everything in between. Beginning with a copy of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita that he happens to find one day in a bookstore, he embarks on a literary odyssey. From Middlemarch to Anna Karenina to A Confederacy of Dunces, this is a heartfelt, humorous, and honest examination of what it means to be a reader, and a witty and insightful journey of discovery and soul-searching that celebrates the abiding miracle of the book and the power of reading.

Read This Next: 500 of the Best Books You'll Ever Read


Howard Mittelmark - 2010
    (On average, 481.) After you have read even one of these books, you will be amazed you survived without it this long. Multiply that by 481, and you get a lifetime of value for just $14.99 or even more value if you don’t have long to live.Each book is set among surprising anecdotes, funny discussion questions, and witty commentary by the authors, designed to bring out each book’s best qualities. You’ll find categories that include both old favorites like Love, Work, and Family and the unexpected delights of lists like Death, Drugs, and Apocalypse.Furthermore, Read This Next is itself a book! Not only does that make the total number of great new books you get 482, but it is a neat postmodern trick that not just anyone could pull off. Please note: $14.99 divided by 481 is ONLY 3 CENTS! What else can you buy for three cents nowadays?If you have ever enjoyed reading a book, you will enjoy reading Read This Next and the books it leads you to. If you don’t--this month only!--you can have your 3 cents back! (To people trying to cash in by buying multiple copies for the refund: well, you are too smart for us.)

The Whole Five Feet: What the Great Books Taught Me about Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everything Else


Christopher R. Beha - 2009
    Inspired by her example, Beha vows to read the entire Five-Foot Shelf, one volume a week, over the course of the next year. As he passes from St. Augustine's Confessions to Don Quixote, from Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast to essays by Cicero, Emerson, and Thoreau, he takes solace in the realization that many of the authors are grappling with the same questions he faces: What is the purpose of life? How do we live a good life? What can the wisdom of the past teach us about our own challenges? Beha's chronicle is a smart, big-hearted, and inspirational mix of memoir and intellectual excursion—and a powerful testament to what great books can teach us about how to live our own lives.

1001 Books for Every Mood


Hallie Ephron - 2007
    However you feel (or want to feel), let 1001 Books for Every Mood be your guide. Acclaimed critic and novelist Hallie Ephron serves up a literary feast, sure to satisfy your emotional appetite. Whether you want to cry or laugh, remember or forget, behave or misbehave-it's all here. It's your must-have guide to hours and hours of reading pleasure, now and forever-no matter what your mood!Want even more?

The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time


Keith Houston - 2016
    And everybody who has read it will agree that reports of the book’s death have been greatly exaggerated.”―Erik Spiekermann, typographerWe may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue, and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages―of civilizations, empires, human ingenuity, and madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations, and binding to show how we have moved from cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls to the hardcovers and paperbacks of today. Sure to delight book lovers of all stripes with its lush, full-color illustrations, The Book gives us the momentous and surprising history behind humanity’s most important―and universal―information technology.71 color illustrations

Bizarre Books


Russell Ash - 1985
    From double entendres and astonishingly specialized subjects to weird books on horticulture, science and medical matters, the authors have left no catalogue page unturned in their quest, uncovering gems written by such luminaries as A. Clot, Richard Daft, Cecil Nutter, Maurice Rat and Solomon Slack.

The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time


David L. Ulin - 2010
    In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions - why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen - it doesn't matter. The key is the act of reading, and it's seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book, and the accompanying focus required to let the mind run free in a world that is not one's own. Are we willing to risk our collective interest in contemplation, nuanced thinking, and empathy? Far from preaching to the choir, The Lost Art of Reading is a call to arms, or rather, to pages.

Twenty-five Books That Shaped America: How White Whales, Green Lights, and Restless Spirits Forged Our National Identity


Thomas C. Foster - 2011
    Foster applies his much-loved combination of wit, know-how, and analysis to explain how each work has shaped our very existence as readers, students, teachers, and Americans.Foster illuminates how books such as The Last of the Mohicans, Moby-Dick, My Ántonia, The Great Gatsby, The Maltese Falcon, Their Eyes Were Watching God, On the Road, The Crying of Lot 49, and others captured an American moment, how they influenced our perception of nationhood and citizenship, and what about them endures in the American character. Twenty-five Books That Shaped America is a fun and enriching guide to America through its literature.

Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise


Katherine Rundell - 2019
    This delightful and persuasive essay is for adult readers.

The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians, and Other Remarkable People


Bethanne Patrick - 2016
    Regan Arts has teamed up with the literary charity 826National, which will receive a portion of the book’s proceeds to provide students ages 6–18 with opportunities to explore their creativity and improve their writing skills.Contributors include Al Roker, Carl Hiaasen, Dave Eggers, Emma Straub, Eric Idle, Fay Weldon, Fran Lebowitz, Gillian Flynn, Gregory Maguire, Jeff Kinney, Jim Shepard, Laura Lippmann, Lev Grossman, Liev Schreiber, Margaret Atwood, Mayim Bialik, Nelson DeMille, Rosanne Cash, Susan Orlean, Tim Gunn, and Tommy Hilfiger, among others.

Phantoms on the Bookshelves


Jacques Bonnet - 2008
    The author, a lifelong accumulator of books both ancient and modern, lives in a house large enough to accommodate his many thousands of books, as well as overspill from the libraries of his friends. While his musings on the habits of collectors past and present are learned, witty and instructive, his advice on cataloguing may even save the lives of those whose books are so prodigiously piled as to be a hazard... The Phantoms on the Bookshelves ranges from classical Greece to contemporary Iceland, from Balzac and Moby Dick to Google, offering up delicious anecdotes along the way. This elegantly produced volume will be a lasting delight to specialist collectors, librarians, bibliophiles and all those who treasure books.

Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters


John Steinbeck - 1969
    It was his way, he said, of "getting my mental arm in shape to pitch a good game."Steinbeck's letters were written on the left-handed pages of a notebook in which the facing pages would be filled with the text of East of Eden. They touched on many subjects - story arguements, trial flights of workmanship, concern for his sons.Part autobiography, part writer's workshop, these letters offer an illuminating perspective on Steinbeck's creative process, and a fascinating glimpse of Steinbeck, the private man.