Short Personal Essay

Communication is more than just talking. It is about knowing how to act in a meeting, how to tell a good story, and how to understand the people around you. In Underrated, you will get 101 quick lessons that teach you the "unwritten rules" of life and work. What is inside? This book is not a boring textbook. It is a collection of short stories on: Public Speaking: How to tell if you’ve talked too long and how to use the same tips the world’s best speakers use. Work Life: How to deal with boring jobs, how to manage younger workers, and how to get noticed at the office.

Ever been told to “get around to it”? This small book is about that moment—when intention and delay quietly shake hands. The TUIT is not a planner. It is not an alarm, a calendar, or a productivity system. It does not buzz, nag, or shame you. A TUIT simply remembers. Using the familiar joke of the “round TUIT” as a metaphor, this book explores why we postpone the things that matter—creatively, emotionally, and practically—and why delay is so often reasonable, human, and misunderstood. Along the way, you’ll discover: Why procrastination isn’t laziness How intentions can ...

In King Maker, you'll find 101 bite-sized stories, thought-provoking essays, and powerful insights designed to sharpen your communication skills in every aspect of life. Whether you're delivering a speech, telling a story, or simply making conversation, this book will help you connect, persuade, and leave a lasting impression.

Lydia Davis is a writer whose originality, influence, and wit are beyond compare. Jonathan Franzen has called her "a magician of self-consciousness," while Rick Moody hails her as "the best prose stylist in America." And for Claire Messud, "Davis's signal gift is to make us feel alive." Best known for her masterful short stories and translations, Davis's gifts extend equally to her nonfiction. In Essays One, Davis has, for the first time, gathered a selection of essays, commentaries, and lectures composed over the past five decades.

Home Alone, Watching Home Alone Let’s get something straight. This is not a sad book. Nobody left the author at the airport. No violins are playing in chapter one. He’s home alone on Christmas Day because he wants to be. While everyone else is rushing around to family events, avoiding difficult questions, and engaging in rituals they’d rather not, one guy stays home, starts watching Home Alone, and enjoys the moment. Somewhere between the opening scene and the last family reunion, he gets to wondering why solitude freaks everybody else out so much. What you’re going to read is a ...

In her new collection of autobiographical essays, Nino Gugunishvili offers her reflections and meditations on grief and loss, on friendship and longing, on memory and aging, on writing, and not writing, told through her personal experiences, forming an intimate, confessional narrative.

Versatile is a collection of 101 short pieces that help you become a better communicator. Each story, essay, or insight is written in a way that’s easy to read and understand. The topics cover everything from giving better speeches to handling awkward conversations, improving writing, building better habits, and understanding people. Whether you want to get better at public speaking, talk to others more confidently, or just enjoy interesting takes on everyday situations, this book is for you. You can read it from start to finish or flip to any chapter that grabs your attention.

Stories include How to Remember Names Better, Too Smart for Your Own Good?, How to Write Every Day, FOREVER, How to Get Rid of a Nasal Voice, Why Do Authors Use Tension in a Story?, Why Study History As An Adult?, and more. Listen today!

Welcome to a fascinating collection of 30 explanations and essays that will tickle your brain with intriguing facts, thought-provoking perspectives, and imaginative tales. This book is part of an epic 50-volume series spanning diverse topics from science and philosophy to creativity and adventure. Together, these books aim to nurture a lifelong love of reading and learning. In the coming chapters, we'll explore questions both profound and playful. What dreams reveal about the mind's need for stimulation, how describing the science of rain sparks debate about the supernatural, whether we are...

A Simon & Schuster audiobook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every listener...

A few years ago, Erica Heller realized how universal the longing is for one more moment with a lost loved one. It could be a parent, a sibling, a mentor, or a friend, but who wouldn't love the opportunity to sit down, break bread, and just talk? Who wouldn't jump at the chance to ask those unasked questions, or share those unvoiced feelings?

What if your next cup of coffee could change the way you see everything? Life comes with detours, dead ends, and days that feel like you’re running on empty. But sometimes all it takes is one good conversation — and a perfectly brewed cup — to see things in a whole new light. In The Coffee Shift: Perspectives, Cat Wisdom, and the Power of a Good Cup of Coffee, Beenie Mann invites you to pull up a chair, pour something warm, and join her for a series of heart-to-heart chats about what really matters. This isn’t your average self-help book. It’s part conversation, part comedy, part ...

David Bain offers ten essays on writing, with an eye toward helping new writers gain their footing and keeping the more seasoned scribe motivated. It also includes his essay "Basic E-Book Self-Publishing Advice for Newbies" which has already helped hundreds of beginning indie authors. A longtime college English prof and former newspaper bureau chief, Bain infuses these essays on the writing life with years of teaching, editing, and indie publishing experience, using an easygoing yet incisive style.

Omnibus is an engrossing ride through Jo’s wacky world. There are articles and stories on ski jumps, drumming, music and dogs; even Mary Poppins gets a mention. There’s a friend lost, then found, then slowly lost again as his mind begins to crumble – thank goodness we shared some laughs in days gone by. There’s even a set of Antlers and my favourite aeroplane, the S71 Blackbird at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, England. And then there’s the odd ride on a bus! No ordinary journey this. Many years ago, following some dire health issues, Jo and wife Jan discarded their long-term ...

The definitive new book from India’s no. 1 business writer Chanakya was one of the best strategic thinkers of the world. In the fourth century BC, he wrote the Arthashastra, an unrivalled political treatise that has since been used by leaders across the globe. In Inside Chanakya’s Mind, for...

What would you get if the Seinfeld, Reiner, Crystal, and Kagan families got together for dinner? You’d get fatter, guiltier, and hoarser from trying to get a word in edgewise and suffer muscle cramps from laughing. When you get into My Shorts, you get all that and more. An uproarious collection of true stories featuring a chubby Cheetos-loving Jewish middle child with overactive sweat glands and an abundant imagination.

Written with sharp wit and tender insight, these stories transform mundane moments into extraordinary adventures, revealing the magic that exists in the spaces between where we are and where we think we should be. Perfect for anyone who's ever found themselves having a philosophical conversation with their houseplants. This collection celebrates the art of getting lost in the best possible way, finding humor and humanity in the strange territories between reality and whatever comes next. Each story is a reminder that the most meaningful moments often come disguised as ordinary life having a...

Stories that will make you laugh, cry, and feel a thousand emotions in between. Following on the heels of his critically acclaimed first book of short works, A Flamingo Under the Carousel, William John Rostron continues with this second compilation of published works that utilizes multiple genres. Again, the reader is treated to tales of fiction, non-fiction, and his unique style of “almost fiction.” He spans the globe with stories that take place in London, Paris, and Rome…not to mention the oceans of the world and outer space. Rostron’s imagination brings you to the mysterious ...

When Trisha Low moves West, her journey is motivated by the need to arrive “somewhere better” - someplace utopian, like revolution; or safe, like home; or even clarifying, like identity. Instead, she faces the end of her relationships, a family whose values she has difficulty sharing, and America’s casual racism, sexism, and homophobia. In this book-length essay, the problem of how to account for one’s life comes to the fore - sliding unpredictably between memory, speculation, self-criticism, and art criticism, Low seeks answers that she knows she won’t find.

Según el Génesis, el primer castigo fue botánico, y consistió en expulsarnos de un paraíso, de un jardín. Desde entonces vivimos en la añoranza. Bajo esta tensión entre exilio y pertenencia, Clara Obligado nos invita, con su escritura híbrida, a un paseo por la naturaleza en el que se mezclan pensamiento y literatura, ensayo y memorias. Un itinerario por los espacios más indómitos y los más sometidos que chocan y crecen dentro de nosotros. Desde la niñez, desde la semilla, desde distintas partes del mundo, una reflexión poética y conmovedora, un canto a todo lo que crece.