'Any bibliophile will find many enjoyable nuggets in this compendium of book chat' Stephen Poole, Guardian 'An engaging little eye-opener about the publishing business, full of tasty nuggets about books, writers and their editors' Sunday Times 'Enjoyable ... engaging ... insightful' Independent Once upon a time, a writer had an idea. They wrote it down. But what happened next? Join Rebecca Lee, professional text-improver, as she embarks on a fascinating journey to find out how words get from an author's brain to finished, printed books. She'll reveal the dark arts of ghostwriters, explore the secret world of literary agents and uncover the hidden beauty of typesetting. Along the way, her quest will be punctuated by a litany of little-known (but often controversial) considerations that make a big impact: ellipses, indexes, hyphens, esoteric points of grammar and juicy post-publication corrections. After all, the best stories happen when it all goes wrong. From foot-and-note disease to the town of Index, Missouri - turn the page to discover how books get made and words get good.* * Or, at least, better

The nation's premier communications expert shares his wisdom on how the words we choose can change the course of business, of politics, and of life in this country In Words That Work, Luntz offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the tactical use of words and phrases affects what we buy, who we vote for, and even what we believe in. With chapters like "The Ten Rules of Successful Communication" and "The 21 Words and Phrases for the 21st Century," he examines how choosing the right words is essential. Nobody is in a better position to explain than Frank Luntz: He has used his knowledge of words to help more than two dozen Fortune 500 companies grow. Hell tell us why Rupert Murdoch's six-billion-dollar decision to buy DirectTV was smart because satellite was more cutting edge than "digital cable," and why pharmaceutical companies transitioned their message from "treatment" to "prevention" and "wellness." If you ever wanted to learn how to talk your way out of a traffic ticket or talk your way into a raise, this book's for you.

What if you could make your writing FAST, FUN, and BETTER THAN EVER? In the indie publishing world of rapid releases and blistering word counts, it's easy to end up burned out with subpar work, and a loss of the enjoyment that once fueled your craft. There's a better way. In How to Write Fast, Platt and Silver show you how to shift your approach to writing to dramatically increase your natural speed, while tapping into your inner storyteller and unleashing more of the stories you were born to tell. You will discover: * How to immediately improve your writing speed. * Why writing fast will result in better writing. * How to redesign your writing strategy to promote going faster. * The five simple hacks Platt, Silver and the entire story studio have used to repeatedly best themselves and move many of them to producing more than a million words a year. * Mental tricks to bypass your inner editor (and why using them will retrain your brain to write faster, while also creating the cleanest copy you've ever created). Isn't it time you did more than just write fast? Now you can. Start writing better words faster today!

In recent decades, the contested areas of English usage have grown both larger and more numerous. English speakers argue about whether we should say man or humanity, fisher or fisherman; whether we ought to speak of people as being disabled, or challenged, or differently abled; whether it is acceptable to say that’s so gay. More generally, we ask, can we use language in ways that avoid giving expression to prejudices embedded within it? Can the words we use help us point a way towards a better world? Can we ask such questions with appropriate seriousness while remaining open-minded—and while retaining our sense of humor? To all these questions this concise and user-friendly guide answers yes, while offering clear-headed discussions of many of the key issues.

A gifted writer, seventeen-year-old Anna O’Mally is headed for the stars. Or she was until her uncle Joe died. Anna worshipped the ground Joe walked on ... until she discovers that she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did.

Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

If your success at work or in school depends on your ability to communicate persuasively in writing, you'll want to get Good with Words. Based on a course that law students at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago have called "outstanding," "A-M-A-Z-I-N-G," and "the best course I have ever taken," the book brings together a collection of concepts, exercises, and examples that have also helped improve the advocacy skills of people pursuing careers in many other fields--from marketing, to management, to medicine. "There is nobody better than Patrick Barry when it comes to breaking down how to write and edit. His techniques don't just make you sound better. They make you think better. I'm jealous of the people who get to take his classes." --Professor Lisa Bernstein, University of Chicago Law School and Oxford University Center for Corporate Regulation "Whenever I use Patrick Barry's materials in my class, the student reaction is the same: 'We want more of them.'" --Professor Dave Babbe, UCLA School of Law "Working one-on-one with Patrick Barry should be mandatory for all lawyers, regardless of seniority. This book is the next best thing." --Purvi Patel, Partner at Morrison Foerster LLP "I am proud to say that, when it comes to writing, I speak Patrick Barry. What I mean is that I use, pretty much every day, the writing vocabulary and techniques he offers in this great book. So read it. Share it. And then, if you can, teach it. There are a lot of good causes in the world that could use a new generation of great advocates." --Professor Bridgette Carr, Assistant Dean of Strategic Initiatives and Director of the Human Trafficking Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School "Patrick Barry is my secret weapon. I use his techniques every time I write, and I also teach them to all my students." --Professor Shai Dothan, Copenhagen Faculty of Law "I know the materials in this book were originally created for lawyers and law students. But I actually find them really helpful for doctors as well, given that a lot of what I do every day depends on effective communication. There is a tremendous upside to becoming 'Good with Words." --Dr. Ramzi Abboud, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Social media was made to bring us together. But few things have driven us further apart. Sadly, many Christians are fueling online incivility. Others, exhausted by perpetual outrage and shame-filled from constant comparison, are leaving social media altogether. So, how should Christians behave in this digital age? Is there a better way? Daniel Darling believes we need an approach that applies biblical wisdom to our engagement with social media, an approach that neither retreats from modern technology nor ignores the harmful ways in which Christians often engage publicly. In short, he believes that we can and should use our online conversations for good.

Illustrates words in such categories as people, places, things, animals, and opposites.

Sooner or later, our words take on meanings other than we intended. How Words Make Things Happen suggests that the conventional idea of persuasive rhetoric (which assumes a speaker's control of calculated effects) and the modern idea of literary autonomy (which assumes that 'poetry makes nothing happen') together have produced a misleading account of the relations between words and human action. Words do make things happen. But they cannot be counted on to produce the result they intend. This volume studies examples from a range of speakers and writers and offers close readings of their words. Chapter 1 considers the theory of speech-acts propounded by J.L. Austin. 'Speakers Who Convince Themselves' is the subject of chapter 2, which interprets two soliloquies by Shakespeare's characters and two by Milton's Satan. The oratory of Burke and Lincoln come in for extended treatment in chapter 3, while chapter 4 looks at the rival tendencies of moral suasion and aestheticism in the poetry of Yeats and Auden. The final chapter, a cause of controversy when first published in the London Review of Books, supports a policy of unrestricted free speech against contemporary proposals of censorship. Since we cannot know what our own words are going to do, we have no standing to justify the banishment of one set of words in favour of another.