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Do the Work! Overcome resistance and get out of your own way. Steven Pressfield. 2011. ISBN 9781936719013.  A very useful little book, written to help get writers (and other sorts)  over the various blocks to their goal (blocks are all internal)  It was recommended by several folks including Guy Kawasaki.  Well written in a short punchy style, the book delivers on its promises.  If you want to write well, this will help.

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eat pray love. One woman’s search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia. Elizabeth Gilbert.2006. ISBN 9780143038412.   My wife suggested I read this book and I am glad she did.  The author has a clear strong voice that makes this book much more than the movie (which became a Julia Roberts vehicle) .  The writing style is excellent.  I especially enjoyed Gilbert’s analysis/discussion of God from an Indian and Indonesian context.  The story of the the cat tied to a tree is hilarious yet tragically true! I have struggled in past to understand the various forms of God worship across so many cultures, yet at the core I sensed much similarity.  Gilbert clears this up but very gently. More than a “chick book” this is actually a very useful point of view.

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Write the Perfect Book Proposal. 10 that sold and why. Jeff Herman & Deborah Levine Hermine. 2001. ISBN 0471353124 .  This was suggested to me as the best book on the subject in the market today. I can only agree.  Combining an easy informative style, the book presents 10 proposals that were funded with margin comments showing weaknesses and strengths.  The authors are also comprehensive in their bibliography.  This is an insightful and  targeted marketing book directed at book publishers.  Useful read in its own right, even if you are not wanting to write a book.

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1001 Ways to Market Your Books.  For Authors and Publishers. John Kremer. 2008. ISBN 139780912411491.  More than book this is the bible on book marketing. John has been writing the definitive newsletter and now blog on the subject since 1980s. Thanks for the review copy John!

Pop! Stand out in any crowd. Sam Horn. 2006. ISBN 0399532765.  I vote this my marketing book choice for Q1-Q2! This is a terrific read , but its way more than that. By showing you how to find and build on catchy ideas, Horn helps make you a more engaging writer.   To paraphrase her , if you are asking people to spend their time on your content, it is your responsibility to make it worth their while. If you follow her easy step by step chapters on the many ways to do this, you should dramatically improve your communication impact.   A short and easy read, it is still just stuffed with great ideas worth  a lifetimes worth of work stuck inside. Buy , read and re read this one, its a library keeper.

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Isaac Newton. James Gleick. 2003. ISBN 1400032954. At various times of his life Newton was a reclusive, paranoid, antisocial cleric/scholar at Cambridge who as he rose in esteem,  grew increasingly ambitious, autocratic and demagogic.  It seems he travelled very little, probably never saw the sea , yet set down the answers to tides and the creation of tide tables.

The trials of an author,  trying to recapture the life of persons who lived at that time in what was a very rural England with only had one large city London,  can only be imagined.  Records were scant to nonexistent, most of the population was illiterate, books were published rarely and read by few.  The language was Old English yet most of what Newton discovered required new words to describe it.

Lesson learned for me was the extent that Newton explored alchemy (which became very useful when he was put in charge of the Royal Mint) .  He struggled to reconcile his theological research with the preachings of the day, having decided that the “Holy Trinity”  was just not based on the ancient writings he had translated and that the Church had manufactured stories over the years. This was a real problem because at one time in order to remain at Cambridge he was supposed to be ordained as a priest.  Newton also hid the bulk of his findings away for many decades, refusing to publish them, yet railing against those who “rediscovered” the materials on their own and published them. Letters flew across the country, positions were taken, hatreds grew.  When Newton grew in esteem and power, he became a real tyrant in his positions against all others. It was pretty heady stuff in its day.

If you are a scientist or just  curious, this is a a useful book. Not an easy read, through no fault of the author. But it is short.

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Style. Toward clarity and grace. Joseph M. Williams. 1995.  ISBN 0226899152.  A very good handbook to better writing. A very useful addition to Zissner’s On Writing Well.  I expecially enjoyed the references to good writing that tended to break the rules, while still showing that they author knew all the “rules”.   If you feel that your concise albeit clear  writng is tends to being boring,  this book will  to help you  add interest and style to your work.  Not a light read, it is more useful to you if you have some work that you wish to edit at hand.

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Shakespeare. The world as a stage. Bill Bryson. 2007. ISBN 9780061673696.  This completes my task  to read everything Bill Bryson has written so far. A book on the life of Shakespeare is always going to be a small book, since so little was written down about him.  Bryson does a good job of organising and relating what is known, what is surmised and what is made up about “The Bard”.  This is a quick, easy  read I enjoyed. Yet the book seemed to be missing much I could bite on – which is more likely due to the subject than the author.   I was intrigued by the whole story wrto debunking Francis Bacon as WS with its genesis in the nutty thoughts of a US spinster, who seemed gifted at bending influential peoples ears and wills.

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Blog Blazers. 40 top bloggers share their secrets. Stephanie Grenier.  2008. ISBN 9780981085203.  OK if you want to really be businesslike about your blog (or your companies blog), this is one meaty little book.  If you have no ambitions/questions/ideas about blogging, skip this post.

Take my example, I read the book slowly, enjoying the nuggets that each of the bloggers shared.  When I finished the book, I had a full day of work ahead  to  add the first five things to what I was already doing with this blog. My support guy wishes I had never read the book I am sure, since I have another ten things to do next update day.

This book reinforced and dramatically increased my utility and usage of Twitter, Stumbledupon and de.lic.ious  . I updated my Digg account and picked up that  RSS feed to Google Reader – awesome.  I have new ideas about trackbacks, retweets and commenting.

This book is likely the leadng best practises on blogging repository at the moment.  If this is

something you care about, you need this book.

You can get it on Amazon.com

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Mimesis. The representation of reality in western civilization. Erich Auerbach. 1953. ISBN 9780691113364.   Aurebach was a