What are the top book recommendations for 'casual and straightforward storytelling'?
We found 63 book recommendations
What do readers say about Freakonomics?
casual and straightforward storytelling everything on the planet hard evidence based analysis interesting and informativeWhich is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool?
What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?
How much do parents really matter?
These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical ... Read more about Freakonomics
Imagine for a moment that you are the manager of a day-care center. You have a clearly stated policy that children are supposed to be picked up by 4 p.m. But very often parents are late. The result: a...
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What do readers say about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone?
fun book fantasy stories wonderfully witty and short twists and turnsHarry Potter has no idea how famous he is. That's because he's being raised by his miserable aunt and uncle who are terrified Harry will learn that he's really a wizard, just as his parents were. But everything changes when Harry is summoned to atten... Read more about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or...
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What do readers say about The Martian?
an adventure story science and the survival aspects thriller/suspense hilarious and rivetingA survival story for the 21st century and the international bestseller behind the major film from Ridley Scott, starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain.
I'm stranded on Mars.
I have no way to communicate with Earth.
I'm in a habitat designed to last... Read more about The Martian
For the record…I didn’t die on Sol 6. Certainly the rest of the crew thought I did, and I can’t blame them. Maybe there’ll be a day of national mourning for me, and my Wikipedia page will say, “Mark W...
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What do readers say about On Writing?
the act of writing part memoir and part guide very frank and practical practical and common senseONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S TOP 100 NONFICTION BOOKS OF ALL TIME
"Long live the King" hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King's On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb vol... Read more about On Writing
A year or so later, my mother, my brother, and I were in West De Pere, Wisconsin. I don’t know why. Another of my mother’s sisters, Cal (a WAAC beauty queen during World War II), lived in Wisconsin wi...
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What do readers say about All Systems Red?
pacy and punchy fast paced and short simple, light scifi light and easy fareA murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.
"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."
I COULD HAVE BECOME a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been wel...
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What do readers say about Every Heart a Doorway?
bitterly wistful and heartbreaking the characters are easy a tale of regret enchanting and hauntingEleanor West's Home for Wayward Children
No Solicitations
No Visitors
THE HABIT OF NARRATION, of crafting something miraculous out of the commonplace, was hard to break. Narration came naturally after a time spent in the company of talking scarecrows or disappearing cat...
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What do readers say about Stoner?
straightforward, middle-of-the-century prose a lost classic not bad for book beautifully lyrical, evocative proseMOST LOVED. MOST RED. Ten must-read modern classics.'He learned silence and did not insist upon his love.'This is the great forgotten novel of the last century - a quiet book; the story of a quiet life. William Stoner is a man who learns to contain h... Read more about Stoner
WILLIAM STONER ENTERED the University of Missouri as a freshman in the year 1910, at the age of nineteen. Eight years later, during the height of World War I, he received his Doctor of Philosophy degr...
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What do readers say about Slaughterhouse-Five?
a fictionalized memoir entertaining and refreshing fresh postmodern language simple, laconic styleSelected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of w... Read more about Slaughterhouse-Five
All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn’t his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to h...
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What do readers say about The Colour of Magic?
fast-paced and funny very, very funny light fantastical fantasy inventive and funny'His spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction' Mail on Sunday
NAMED AS ONE OF THE BBC'S 100 MOST INSPIRING NOVELS
The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat ... Read more about The Colour of Magic
FIRE ROARED through the bifurcated city of Ankh-Morpork. Where it licked the Wizards’ Quarter it burned blue and green and was even laced with strange sparks of the eighth color, octarine; where its o...
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What do readers say about Animal Farm?
insightful political novelle quick, easy read a book with non-human characters sad but important bookUnder the feckless husbandry of Mr Jones, the Manor Farm has fallen into disrepair. Pushed into hardship, the animals decide to stage a revolt, and, led by two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, they overthrow Mr Jones and drive him away from the far... Read more about Animal Farm
Mr Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side he lurched ...
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