The American Scholar (1837) by Ralph Waldo Emerson & Character, Experience, and the Secrets of the Mind & Spirit
“Character is higher than intellect.”
Category: Non-Fiction
Literary Ethics (1838) by Ralph Waldo Emerson & Conformity, False Consistency, & the Virgin Universe
“All literature is yet to be written.”
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The Analects of Confucius (ca. 500 BCE), translation by Annping Chin (2014) & Bits of Wisdom
The Master said, “The wise are never perplexed. The humane never suffer from vexation. The brave are never afraid.”
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Green Hills of Africa (1935) by Ernest Hemingway & Thoughts on Writers
“You find that it is the thing he is writing about that is interesting. Not the way it is written.”
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Letters Over The Wall: Life in Communist East Germany (2015) by David F. Strack & the 30th Anniversary, 1989-2019
“I hope that a Wende for better times will take place.”
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Stages on Life’s Way (1845) by Søren Kierkegaard & Connections to Nabokov’s Lolita (1955)
“The esthetic hero must have his opposition outside himself, not in himself.”
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Never Eat Alone (2005) by Keith Ferrazzi with Tahl Raz & the Legacy of Our Choices
“Some of the major issues included in this self-help book are networking, making impressions, building trust, branding, goal setting and seeking help.”
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Finnegans Wake (1939) by James Joyce & the Great Irish Novel
“We may come, touch and go, from atoms and ifs but we’re presurely destined to be odd’s without ends.”
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Working with Emotional Intelligence (1998) by Daniel Goleman & Systems Theory
Some “secrets of success”: “rapport, empathy, persuasion, cooperation, and consensus building.”
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The Sense of Style (2014) by Steven Pinker & the Importance of Precise Language
Unlike hundreds of other writers and scholars, Pinker does correctly attribute (the oft-misattributed phrase) “Murder your darlings” to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch found in On the Art of Writing.
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You are the Universe: Discovering Your Cosmic Self and Why it Matters (2017) by Deepak Chopra and Menas Kafatos & Where Thoughts Come From
“You are the creator of reality, and yet you have no idea how you do it—the process is effortless… In ancient India, the Vedic sages declared Aham Brahmasmi, which can be translated as ‘I am the Universe’ or ‘I am everything.’ They arrived at this knowledge by diving deep into their own awareness.”
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What They Teach You at Harvard Business School (2008) by Philip Delves Broughton & the Crimson Dilemma
“HBS smacks of an ivory tower, cut off from the world outside.”
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How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) by Dale Carnegie & 30 Principles to Live By
30 Principles to Live By
1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want
4. Become genuinely interested in other people
5. Smile
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On Becoming a Novelist (1983) by John Gardner and the Art of Fiction
“On some subjects—for instance, writers’ workshops—one is tempted to pull punches or rest satisfied with oversimplified answers; but I’m assuming, as the primary reader of this book, an intensely serious beginning novelist who wants the strict truth (as I perceive it) for his life’s sake, so that he can plan his days of technique, theory, and attitude; and become as quickly and efficiently as possible a master of his craft” (p xxii).
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What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir (2009) by Haruki Murakami & the Duty of Being a True Novelist
“The whole process—sitting at your desk, focusing your mind like a laser beam, imagining something out of a blank horizon, creating a story, selecting the right words, one by one, keeping the whole flow of the story on track—requires far more energy, over a long period, than most people ever imagine.”
