How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

Author: Pierre Bayard

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2010-08-10

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 1596917148

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In this delightfully witty, provocative book, literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard argues that not having read a book need not be an impediment to having an interesting conversation about it. (In fact, he says, in certain situations reading the book is the worst thing you could do.) Using examples from such writers as Graham Greene, Oscar Wilde, Montaigne, and Umberto Eco, he describes the varieties of "non-reading"-from books that you've never heard of to books that you've read and forgotten-and offers advice on how to turn a sticky social situation into an occasion for creative brilliance. Practical, funny, and thought-provoking, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read-which became a favorite of readers everywhere in the hardcover edition-is in the end a love letter to books, offering a whole new perspective on how we read and absorb them.


The Book No One Wants to Read

The Book No One Wants to Read

Author: Beth Bacon

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2021-06-15

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 0062962558

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The Book No One Wants to Read is a highly visual full-color chapter book that uses humor, interactivity, and meta-storytelling to help even the most reluctant reader breeze through reading time, feel successful at reading, and even laugh! You’ll read a book . . . without really reading! A lonely book makes a deal with its reader: "You keep turning my pages, and I'll make it FUN!” If you think reading is boring, then you can pretend to read this book! All you have to do is sit here and turn the pages. Everyone will think you’re reading. Are you ready? Let’s get started… The ability to read by third grade is critical to a child’s success in school and beyond. But learning to read can be frustrating. The Book No One Wants to Read by Beth Bacon validates the experience of reluctant readers and rewards them with laughter.


The Book Nobody Read

The Book Nobody Read

Author: Owen Gingerich

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2009-05-26

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0802718124

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After three decades of investigation, and after traveling hundreds of thousands of miles across the globe-from Melbourne to Moscow, Boston to Beijing-Gingerich has written an utterly original book built on his experience and the remarkable insights gleaned from examining some 600 copies of De revolutionibus. He found the books owned and annotated by Galileo, Kepler and many other lesser-known astronomers whom he brings back to life, which illuminate the long, reluctant process of accepting the Sun-centered cosmos and highlight the historic tensions between science and the Catholic Church. He traced the ownership of individual copies through the hands of saints, heretics, scalawags, and bibliomaniacs. He was called as the expert witness in the theft of one copy, witnessed the dramatic auction of another, and proves conclusively that De revolutionibus was as inspirational as it was revolutionary. Part biography of a book, part scientific exploration, part bibliographic detective story, The Book Nobody Read recolors the history of cosmology and offers new appreciation of the enduring power of an extraordinary book and its ideas.


No One Is Talking About This

No One Is Talking About This

Author: Patricia Lockwood

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2021-02-16

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0593189604

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FINALIST FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE & A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2021 WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE “A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice “Wow. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book. What an inventive and startling writer…I’m so glad I read this. I really think this book is remarkable.” —David Sedaris From "a formidably gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review), a book that asks: Is there life after the internet? As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?" Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary. Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.


Nobody Is Ever Missing

Nobody Is Ever Missing

Author: Catherine Lacey

Publisher: FSG Originals

Published: 2014-07-08

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0374711283

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In the spirit of Haruki Murakami and Amelia Gray, Catherine Lacey's Nobody Is Ever Missing is full of mordant humor and uncanny insights, as Elyria waffles between obsession and numbness in the face of love, loss, danger, and self-knowledge. Without telling her family, Elyria takes a one-way flight to New Zealand, abruptly leaving her stable but unfulfilling life in Manhattan. As her husband scrambles to figure out what happened to her, Elyria hurtles into the unknown, testing fate by hitchhiking, tacitly being swept into the lives of strangers, and sleeping in fields, forests, and public parks. Her risky and often surreal encounters with the people and wildlife of New Zealand propel Elyria deeper into her deteriorating mind. Haunted by her sister's death and consumed by an inner violence, her growing rage remains so expertly concealed that those who meet her sense nothing unwell. This discord between her inner and outer reality leads her to another obsession: If her truest self is invisible and unknowable to others, is she even alive? The risks Elyria takes on her journey are paralleled by the risks Catherine Lacey takes on the page. In urgent, spiraling prose she whittles away at the rage within Elyria and exposes the very real, very knowable anxiety of the human condition. And yet somehow Lacey manages to poke fun at her unrelenting self-consciousness, her high-stakes search for the dark heart of the self.


The Language of Sisters

The Language of Sisters

Author: Amy Hatvany

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-07-31

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1451688148

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Ten years ago, Nicole Hunter left her troubled home behind her, unable to cope with the demands of a life with her disabled sister, Jenny. Though her search for happiness—both in career and in love—has fallen short of her dreams, Nicole pretends that all is well. Then a shattering event turns her world upside down, and suddenly, she is back in her hometown, caring for her pregnant sister and trying to heal her embattled relationship with her mother. Reunited with her family and forced to confront the guilt that haunts her, Nicole finally has the chance to be the sister she always wished she’d been. And when she is faced with the most difficult choice of her life, Nicole rediscovers the beauty of sisterhood—and receives a special gift that will change her life forever.


The Rot

The Rot

Author: Siri Pettersen

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-10-05

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 1646906012

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Book Two in Siri Pettersen's epic fantasy trilogy - The Raven Rings - at last comes to the U.S. after taking European audiences by storm. She has no identity. No family. No money. But the fate of the worlds rests in her hands. Hirka is stranded in a rotting world, with nothing but a raven and a notebook to connect her to the life she left behind in Ym. She came in search of her family, believing that she could protect Rime and the rest of Ym from the ancient evil of the blind. Instead, what Hirka finds in this new world are people willing to do anything for the blessing—or the curse—of eternal life. And for Rime, the threat of the blind is only growing stronger … Separated by worlds, unsure who to trust, and in danger from all sides, Hirka and Rime fight to end a thousand-year quest for power and revenge—and, maybe, to find a way back to each other. In this follow-up to the international bestseller Odin's Child, Norse-inspired mythology combines with modern-day action to create a work that is wholly original, endlessly surprising, and utterly unforgettable.


If He Had Been with Me

If He Had Been with Me

Author: Laura Nowlin

Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.

Published: 2013-04-02

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1402277849

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If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...


The Worst Book Ever

The Worst Book Ever

Author: Beth Bacon

Publisher:

Published: 2018-04-12

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 9780999432440

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Most bad books are happy hanging out at rummage sales. Not this bad book. Its goal is to be featured on the Banned Books List. Problem is, no one seems to notice¿ until the book teams up with its boisterous readers. Together, the book and its readers shout, sing, and wiggle their way into the attention of a local librarian. Will the book see its cover on the library wall¿ or will it end up in the recycling bin? Full of bold, colorful graphics and laugh-out-loud humor, The Worst Book Ever is another high-lo book for reluctant readers by Beth Bacon. Uses meta-storytelling and interactivity to get kids laughing, wiggling, shouting¿and reading. Ideal for read-alouds, story time, as well as independent reading for beginning to intermediate reluctant readers.