Showing results for "Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life after Which Everything Was Different Chuck Palahniuk" in All Categories

For years Chuck Palahniuk has reserved his best storytelling for his readings, often choosing to read a new short story instead of whatever novel he is supposed to be promoting. Make Something Up compiles these previously unpublished tales for the very first time, plus the Byliner social media insta-classic "Phoenix" and Palahniuk's most notable pieces from Playboy.

Chuck Palahniuk's world has always been, well, different from yours and mine. The pieces that comprise Stranger than Fiction, his first nonfiction collection, prove just how different, in ways both highly entertaining and deeply unsettling. Included are encounters with alternative culture heroes...

There are three kinds of feelings when reading a story: boredom, interest, and wow! To become a successful writer, you must create the wow feeling on as many pages as possible, and this requires writing that engages the reader emotionally. In his best-selling book, screenwriter Karl Iglesias explored the working habits of A-list Hollywood scribes. Now, he breaks new ground by focusing on the psychology of the reader.

Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times. Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be “saved” by fellow patrons...

The vast majority of writers begin the storytelling process with only a partial understanding of where to begin. Some labor their entire lives without ever learning that successful stories are as dependent upon good engineering as they are artistry. But the truth is, unless you are master of the form, function, and criteria of successful storytelling, sitting down and pounding out a first draft without planning is an ineffective way to begin. Story Engineering starts with the criteria and the architecture of storytelling, the engineering and design of a story....

Wish you knew how to walk up to anyone and break the ice effortlessly? Do you hope to avoid awkward silences and make an instant impression? You'll get more than that in this book: not only what, when, and how to say it, but the exact roots of why from human psychology and interaction.

“Begins here first account of operative me, agent number 67 on arrival Midwestern American airport greater _____ area. Flight _____. Date _____. Priority mission top success to complete. Code name: Operation Havoc.” Thus speaks Pygmy, one of a handful of young adults from a totalitarian state sent to the United States, disguised as exchange students, to live with typical American families and blend in, all the while planning an unspecified act of massive terrorism.

With color, irony, and sensitivity, Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard illuminates the dedication, absurdity, and daring that is the writer’s life. As it probes and exposes, examines and analyzes, The Writing Life offers deeper insight into one of the most mysterious of professions.

In 2012, fiction author Monica Leonelle made a life-changing decision to learn to write faster. Through months of trial and error, hundreds of hours of experimentation, and dozens of manuscripts, she tweaked and honed until she could easily write 10,000 words in a day, at speeds over 3,500 words per hour! She shares all her insights, secrets, hacks, and data in this tome dedicated to improving your writing speeds, skyrocketing your monthly word count, and publishing more books.

Cinema is full of neurotic personalities, but few things are more transfixing than a woman losing her mind onscreen. Horror as a genre provides the most welcoming platform for these histrionics: crippling paranoia, desperate loneliness, masochistic death-wishes, dangerous obsessiveness, apocalyptic hysteria. Unlike her male counterpart—the eccentric'—the female neurotic lives a shamed existence, making these films those rare places where her destructive emotions get to play.

From the "astounding" (Entertainment Weekly), "spectacularly evocative" (The Atlantic), and "brilliant" (Los Angeles Times) author of the New York Times bestsellers The Recovering and The Empathy Exams comes a return to the essay form in this expansive book. With the virtuosic synthesis of...

In what is one of the most impressive and authoritative books on the Catholic Mass, Bishop Schneider reestablishes what Catholics have known for centuries but have forgotten today: that the Mass is the highest form of Christian prayer. You'll come to understand why the rubrics are vital to preserving the authenticity of the liturgy, and you'll learn why architecture, music, sacred art, and even incense are vital symbols that direct our attention to Heaven.

More than 30 acclaimed writers—including diverse voices such as Nikki Giovanni, David Omotosho Black, Natasha Trethewey, Barry Jenkins, Jacqueline Woodson, Tayari Jones, and Angela Flournoy—reflect on their experience and expertise in this unique book on the craft of writing that focuses on...

For decades Hazie Coogan has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton, veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie’s heart - and boudoir. Soon, Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in an upcoming musical extravaganza. As the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans and for posterity.

This program is read by Noah Galvin, who starred in The Good Doctor, Dear Evan Hansen, The Real O'Neals, and Booksmart. An unashamedly proud, loud, and hilarious novel about a small town that’s forever changed by a big gay wedding, perfect for fans of Red, White & Royal Blue and The Guncle Two...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “[A] word-of-mouth smash hit.” —The New York Times One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why… His name is Theo. And he asks a lot more questions than he answers. Theo visits the...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers comes a magnificent and intimate new novel of desire, friendship, and the lasting impact of first love. You knew I’d write a book about you someday. Our narrator understands good love stories—their secrets and subtext, their...

This audio edition is read by Marin Ireland and Michael Urie as Marcellus. It was a Finalist for Audiobook of the Year. A New York Times Bestseller * A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick Soon to be a Netflix Film “This fantastical debut audiobook will enchant listeners. Gifted vocal...

A 2026 Audie Award Finalist for Fiction Over 1 Million Copies Sold A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK | A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is an unforgettable story of love, loss, and the choices that shape our lives…but it’s also a masterfully crafted mystery that...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK From the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love...

OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage—Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds...

Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don’t know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum—as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face. He had a little boat, and he rowed about quite quietly on the lake; for lake it was, wide and deep and deadly cold.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK TIMES "BEST THRILLER" and "BEST CRIME NOVEL" OF THE YEAR PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR ONE OF NPR’S “BOOKS WE LOVE” ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S “100 MUST-READ BOOKS”...

As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house until one night her stargazing causes an accident. After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father's thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes “a thorny examination of power, lust, shame and rage” (Los Angeles Times) from “a writer able to capture some of the darkest parts of human nature with unflinching honesty and...

Never make a major life decision in the wake of emotional turmoil. Cassie Romano learned this the hard way, leaving sunny San Diego for a teaching position at a private school in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York after a painful break-up left her heart-broken and in need of a change. It all seemed so perfect in June when she came to interview. But now it’s December, and she’s stranded on top of a mountain surrounded by snow, ice, and acres of wilderness, lonelier than ever and bored out of her mind.

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER OVER 120 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE PUBLISHED IN 89 LANGUAGES “Teaches us about dreams, destiny, and the reason we are all here.”—Oprah Daily, “Best Self-Help Books of a Generation” A spellbinding audio presentation of the extraordinary bestseller...

In rural 1930s Virginia, a young immigrant mother fights for her dignity and those she loves against America’s rising eugenics movement—when widespread support for policies of prejudice drove imprisonment and forced sterilizations based on class, race, disability, education, and country of origin—in this tragic and uplifting novel of social injustice, survival, and hope for listeners of Susan Meissner, Kristin Hannah, and Christina Baker Kline.

The #1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year "A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits."—The Washington Post The dazzling reader-favorite...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A darkly comic and warm-hearted novel about an old man on a cross-country mission to reunite with his high school crush—bringing together his adult daughter, two orphaned kids, and a cat who can predict death—by the beloved author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely Animals...

On the eve of his marriage to the beautiful Mercedes, having that very day been made captain of his ship, the young sailor Edmond Dantès is arrested on a charge of treason, trumped up by jealous rivals. Incarcerated for many lonely years in the isolated and terrifying Chateau d'If near Marseille, he meticulously plans his brilliant escape and extraordinary revenge.

This is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man's search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeare’s life ... here is a novel ... so gorgeously written that it transports you." —The Boston Globe In 1580’s England, during the Black Plague a young...

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND READ WITH JENNA PICK—A WORD-OF-MOUTH HIT THAT BEGS TO BE SHARED LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL “Dazzling.” —The Washington Post “A magnificent novel.” —Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Horse The extraordinary...

Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli. By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Elsa must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.

Introducing Detective Stilwell: a cop relentlessly following his mission in the seemingly idyllic setting of Catalina Island. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been “exiled” to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a...