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How To Be a Heroine

Samantha Ellis · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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Howards End Is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home

Susan Hill · 236 pages

Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired her to embark on a year-long voyage through her books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know her own collection again. A book which is left on a shelf for a decade i

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My Reading Life

Pat Conroy · 331 pages

Bestselling author Pat Conroy acknowledges the books that have shaped him and celebrates the profound effect reading has had on his life.

BookishLiterary CriticismEssay CollectionMemoir & Biography
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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

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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.

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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

BookishLiterary CriticismEssay CollectionMemoir & Biography
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So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading

Sara Nelson · 242 pages

The interplay between our lives and our books is the subject of this unique memoir by publishing correspondent and self-described "readaholic" Sara Nelson. From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, the result is a personal chronicle of insight, wit, and infectious enthusiasm. Nelson writes, "Explaining the moment of connection between a reader and a book to someone who

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Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

Anne Fadiman · 144 pages

In these eighteen essays, Anne Fadiman "recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language."--Jacket. Ex Libris recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from an

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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,

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My Life in Middlemarch

Rebecca Mead · 293 pages

"A New Yorker writer revisits the seminal book of her youth--Middlemarch-- and fashions a singular, involving story of how a passionate attachment to a great work of literature can shape our lives and help us to read our own histories."--From publisher description. "Rebecca Mead was a young woman in an English coastal town when she first read George Eliot's Middlemarch, regarded by many as the gr

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With Borges

Alberto Manguel · 91 pages

"In Buenos Aires, 1964, a blind writer approaches a sixteen-year-old bookstore clerk asking him if he would be interested in a part-time job reading aloud. "The writer was Jorge Luis Borges, one of the world's finest literary minds; the boy was Alberto Manguel, who was later to become an internationally acclaimed author and bibliophile. "The young Manguel spent several years reading aloud an

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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.

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Reading Lolita in Tehran

Azar Nafisi · 368 pages

Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Azar Nafisi, a bold and inspired teacher, secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; some had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to

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

Andy Miller · 338 pages

"An editor and writer's vivaciously entertaining, and often moving, chronicle of his year-long adventure with fifty great books (and two not-so-great ones)-- a true story about reading that reminds us why we should all make time in our lives for books. Nearing his fortieth birthday, author and critic Andy Miller realized he's not nearly as well read as he'd like to be. A devout book lover who some

BookishLiterary CriticismMemoir & BiographyNonfiction
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Housekeeping vs. the Dirt

Nick Hornby · 176 pages

A follow-up to The Polysyllabic Spree features a collection of essays that surveys the author's stuffed bookshelves as well as the wide range of books that he purchases and reads within the confines of his busy lifestyle, in a volume that serves as a literary barometer for today's readers.

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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.

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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

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The Rights of the Reader

Daniel Pennac · 208 pages

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

Christopher R. Beha · 258 pages

Recounts how the author set out to read all of the Harvard Classics in an effort to get his life back on track after a serious illness and to discover how the great writers of the past grappled with essential questions of existence.

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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

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Books for Living: Some Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting, and Embracing Life

Will Schwalbe · 342 pages

From the author of the international bestseller The End of Your Life Book Club , an inspiring and magical exploration of the enduring power of books - a must for all passionate book lovers, exploring books as diverse as The Girl on the Train , The Little Prince and David Copperfield . 'I've always believed that everything you need to know can be found in a book.' Will Schwalbe Why is it that we re

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Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading

Lizzie Skurnick, Laura Lippman, Meg Cabot, Jennifer Weiner, Cecily von Ziegesan

Remember that book you read at that time in your life when everything seemed to be going crazy—the one book that brought the world into focus and helped soothe your raging teenage angst?

Literary CriticismBookishEssay CollectionNonfiction
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Negotiating with the Dead

Margaret Atwood · 219 pages

What is the role of the Writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art? Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain--or excuse!--their activities, looking at what costumes they have assumed, what roles they have chosen to play. In her final chapter she takes up

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The Heroine's Bookshelf: Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder

Erin Blakemore · 224 pages

In this compelling book of beloved heroines and the remarkable writers who created them, Erin Blakemore explores how the pluck and dignity of literary characters such as Anne Shirley, Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre, Scarlett O'Hara, Scout Finch and Jo March can inspire women today.

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Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books

Cara Nicoletti · 283 pages

"As a young bookworm reading in her grandfather's butcher shop, Cara Nicoletti saw how books and food bring people to life. Now a butcher, cook, and talented writer, she serves up stories and recipes inspired by beloved books and the food that gives their characters depth and personality. From the breakfast sausage in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods to chocolate cupcakes with

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