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Footnotes from the World's Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers
Bob Eckstein · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorWeird Things Customers Say in Bookshops
Jen Campbell · 128 pages
Customer: Have you read every single book in here? Bookseller: No, I can't say I have. Customer: Well, you're not very good at your job, are you? A simple Twitter question posed by John Cleese-"What is your pet peeve?" -inspired Jen Campbell to start a blog collecting all the ridiculous conversations overheard in her bookstore, everything from "Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about d
More Baths, Less Talking
Nick Hornby · 135 pages
Shares selections from the author's column in "The Believer" that discuss books he has bought and books he has read, and offers suggestions for great reads in every genre.
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
Michael Chabon · 222 pages
A series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing, with subjects running from ghost stories to comic books, Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy. Throughout, Chabon energetically argues for a return to the thrilling, chilling origins of storytelling, rejecting the false walls around "serious" literature in favor of a wide-ranging affection.
Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction
Tom Raabe · 192 pages
The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delight of Not Getting What You Wanted
Mark Forsyth · 32 pages
This is Not the End of the Book
Umberto Eco, Jean-Claude Carriere · 348 pages
This beautifully produced book, an object of desire in itself, is the transcription of a long conversation between the two men in which they discuss a vast range of subjects, from what can be defined as the first book, to the idea of the library, the burning of books both accidental and deliberate, and what will happen to knowledge and memory when infinite amounts of information are available at t
Judging a Book by Its Lover: A Field Guide to the Hearts and Minds of Readers Everywhere
Lauren Leto · 269 pages
"Want to impress the hot stranger at the bar who asks for your take on Infinite Jest? Dying to shut up the blowhard in front of you who's pontificating on Cormac McCarthy's "recurring road narratives"? Having difficulty keeping Francine Prose and Annie Proulx straight? For all those overwhelmed readers who need to get a firm grip on the relentless onslaught of must-read books to stay on top of the
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
Thomas C. Foster · 325 pages
What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey?. Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface—a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character—and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you.In this practical an
One for the Books
Joe Queenan · 244 pages
One of America's leading humorists seriously examines his own obsession with books. Joe Queenan became a voracious reader as a means of escape from a joyless childhood in a Philadelphia housing project. In the years since then he has dedicated himself to an assortment of idiosyncratic reading challenges: spending a year reading only short books, spending a year reading books he always suspected he
Dear Fahrenheit 451: A Librarian's Love Letters and Break-Up Notes to the Books in Her Life
Annie Spence · 282 pages
If you love to read, and presumably you do since you've picked up this book, you know that some books affect you so profoundly they forever change the way you think about the world. Some books, on the other hand, disappoint you so much you want to throw them against the wall. Either way, it's clear that a book can be your new soul mate or the bad relationship you need to end. In Dear Fahrenheit 45
The Child that Books Built
Francis Spufford · 219 pages
"To understand the thrall of fiction, Spufford goes back to his earliest encounters with books, exploring such beloved classics as The Wind in the Willows, The Little House on the Prairie, and the Narnia chronicles. He re-creates the excitement of discovery, writing joyfully of the moment when fuzzy marks on a page become words, which then reveal - a dragon. Weaving together child development, pe
My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues
Pamela Paul · 256 pages
"Imagine keeping a record of every book you ever read. What would those titles say about you? With humor and warmth, the editor of The New York Times Book Review shares the stories that have shaped her life. For twenty-eight years, Pamela Paul has been keeping a diary that records the books she reads, rather than the life she leads. Or does it? Over time, it's become clear that this Book of Books,
The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
Elif Batuman · 297 pages
Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details of lived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Platonov, with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence--including her own.
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
A.J. Jacobs · 492 pages
Raised in a secular family but interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to stone adulterers. The
The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future
Robert Darnton · 218 pages
"In The Case for Books, Robert Darnton offers an in-depth examination of the book from its earliest beginnings to its shifting role today in popular culture, commerce, and the academy. In a lasting collection drawn from previously published and new work alike, Robert Darnton lends unique authority to the life and role of the book in society. The resulting book is a wise work of scholarship - one t
13 Ways of Looking at the Novel
Jane Smiley · 591 pages
Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling novelist Jane Smiley celebrates the novel--and takes us on an exhilarating tour through one hundred of them--in this seductive and immensely rewarding literary tribute.In her inimitable style--exuberant, candid, opinionated--Smiley explores the power of the novel, looking at its history and variety, its cultural impact, and just how it works its magic. She inv
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie
Wendy McClure · 344 pages
For anyone who has ever wanted to step into the world of a favorite book, here is a pioneer pilgrimage, a tribute to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and a hilarious account of butter-churning obsession. Wendy McClure is on a quest to find the world of beloved Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder -- a fantastic realm of fiction, history, and places McClure has never been to yet somehow kno
Ruined By Reading: A Life in Books
Lynne Sharon Schwartz · 123 pages
Schwartz, an author, offers insight into why we read and how what we read shapes us.
Stop What You're Doing and Read This!
Carmen Callil, Mark Haddon, Michael Rosen, Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson, Blake Morrison, Maryanne Wolf, Tim Parks, Jane Davis, Nicholas Carr · 192 pages
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
Francine Prose · 296 pages
Long before there were creative-writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose. In *Reading Like a Writer*, Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads the work of the very best writers—[Dostoyevsky][1], [Flaubert][2], [
The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading
Phyllis Rose · 271 pages
"Phyllis Rose embarks on a grand literary experiment--to read her way through a random shelf of library books, LEQ-LES. Can you have an Extreme Adventure in a library? Phyllis Rose casts herself into the wilds of an Upper East Side lending library in an effort to do just that. Hoping to explore the "real ground of literature," she reads her way through a somewhat randomly chosen shelf of fiction,
The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction
Neil Gaiman · 546 pages
"An enthralling collection of nonfiction essays on a myriad of topics--from art and artists to dreams, myths, and memories--observed in #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman's probing, amusing, and distinctive style. An inquisitive observer, thoughtful commentator, and assiduous craftsman, Neil Gaiman has long been celebrated for the sharp intellect and startling imagination that inform
How Fiction Works
James Wood · 273 pages
Provides a somewhat academic approach to a discussion of the main elements of fiction using examples (good and bad) from literature.