📚 The Reading Journal #010

👋 Hey Everyone

Good Monday Morning! We are excited to welcome the 282 of you that joined the Reading Journal last week.

In today's newsletter:

📚 Staff Pick of the Week

📈 Rising Quickly - Week of August 29, 2022

🪄 Most Talked About Fiction - Week of August 29, 2022

✍️ Most Talked About Non-Fiction - Week of August 29, 2022

🆕 New and Noteworthy

Stephen King’s Riding the Bullet was the world’s first mass-market ebook, available to download for just $2.50.

The book, published by Simon & Schuster, sold over 400,000 copies in just 24 hours after the release, causing the SoftLock server to jam. Some Stephen King fans waited for hours for the book to download, and the encryption caused countless computers to crash.

📷 Bookshelf Humble Brag

📝 Note

• Want to show off your library? Send us a picture to be featured in the Reading Journal.

📚 Staff Pick of the Week

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Meditations is a collection of 12 books written by Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who’ll introduce you to Stoic philosophy, the concept of logic, self-discipline and give you faith that the course the world runs is a good one.

It is number 11 on our top 100 most recommended book list. It has been recommended by the likes Ryan Holiday, Arianna Huffington, Lex Fridman and 21 others.

🎥 Reading Talk's

📈 Rising Quickly - Week of August 29, 2022

Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us by Russ Roberts

Algorithms and apps analyze data and tell you how to beat the traffic, what books to buy, what music to listen to, and even who to date—often with great results. But what do you do when you face the big decisions of life—the "wild problems" of who to marry, whether to have children, where to move, how to forge a life well-lived—that can’t be solved by measurement or calculation?

🪄 Most Talked About Fiction - Week of August 29, 2022

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

From the author of the breakout New York Times best seller Hamnet—winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award—an electrifying new novel set in Renaissance Italy, and centering on the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de Medici.

Full of the drama and verve with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life, and offers an unforgettable portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.

Hamnet has been recommended by Bill Gates and Jack Edwards.

📚 Most Talked About Non-Fiction - Week of August 29, 2022

Gorbachev: His Life and Times by William Taubman

When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, the USSR. was one of the world’s two superpowers. By 1989, his liberal policies of perestroika and glasnost had permanently transformed Soviet Communism, and had made enemies of radicals on the right and left. By 1990 he, more than anyone else, had ended the Cold War, and in 1991, after barely escaping from a coup attempt, he unintentionally presided over the collapse of the Soviet Union he had tried to save.

🆕 New and Noteworthy

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

King’s storytelling in Fairy Tale soars. This is a magnificent and terrifying tale in which good is pitted against overwhelming evil, and a heroic boy—and his dog—must lead the battle.

Early in the Pandemic, King asked himself: “What could you write that would make you happy?”

“As if my imagination had been waiting for the question to be asked, I saw a vast deserted city—deserted but alive. I saw the empty streets, the haunted buildings, a gargoyle head lying overturned in the street. I saw smashed statues (of what I didn’t know, but I eventually found out). I saw a huge, sprawling palace with glass towers so high their tips pierced the clouds. Those images released the story I wanted to tell.”

👀 In Case You Missed It

✍️ Quote of the Week