English Research

F--k the F--kity F--kin' F--ker. Fans of Katherine Dunn won't be surprised that this was her father's favorite sentence, or that, as a young girl, she heard it as a kind of profane poem, a secret song. For many of us, the language of Geek Love carries a similar staying power, born of Dunn's agile use of language and her strange, beautiful diction. And as a true exegete of the expletive, she remained undividedly devoted to obscenity - both as scholar and practitioner.

Everyone has a sensitive side, but nearly one in three people have the genes to be more sensitive than others—both physically and emotionally. These are the people who pause before speaking and think before acting; they tune in to subtle details and make connections that others miss. Whether introverted or extroverted, they tend to be bighearted, creative, and wired to go deep, yet society tells them to hide the very sensitivity that makes them this way. These are the world’s “highly sensitive people,” and Sensitive is the book that champions them.

In a ranch south of Texas, the man known as The Executioner dumps 500 body parts in metal barrels. In Brazil's biggest city, a mysterious prisoner orders hit men to gun down 41 police officers and prison guards in two days. In Southern Mexico a meth maker is venerated as a saint while enforcing Old Testament justice on his enemies. A new kind of criminal kingpin has arisen: part CEO, part terrorist, and part rock star, unleashing guerrilla attacks, strong-arming governments, and taking over much of the world's trade in narcotics, guns, and humans.

Journalists today are inundated with data about which stories attract the most clicks, likes, comments, and shares. These metrics influence what stories are written, how news is promoted, and even which journalists get hired and fired. Do metrics make journalists more accountable to the public? Or are these data tools the contemporary equivalent of a stopwatch wielded by a factory boss, worsening newsroom working conditions and journalism quality?

Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best - covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN - 24 hours of mainline news.

Revolutionary retail guru Paco Underhill is back with a completely revised edition of his classic, witty, best-selling book on our ever-evolving consumer culture—full of fresh observations and important lessons from the cutting edge of retail, which is taking place in the world’s emerging markets.

A newly revised and updated edition of the influential guide that explores one of the most powerful ways to attract attention and influence behavior - fascination - and how businesses, products, and ideas can become irresistible to consumers. In an oversaturated culture defined by limited time and focus, how do we draw attention to our messages, our ideas, and our products when we have only seconds to compete?

The wisdom from Sun Tzu's world-famous book, The Art of War, has been widely applied by many top-class CEOs to drive their businesses to success. One of the quotes from his book reads, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” That translates to business as, “If you know yourself, your customers, and your competitors, you need not fear about your business anymore.” But how can entrepreneurs and business owners do that? The answer is market research.

Why do some stories work and others don't? The answer is structure. In this IPPY and NIEA Award-winning guide from the author of the bestselling Outlining Your Novel, you will discover the universal underpinnings that guarantee powerful plot and character arcs. An understanding of proper story and scene structure will help you to not only perfectly time your story's major events, but will also provide you with an unerring standard to use in evaluating your novel's pacing and progression.

Brevity is confidence. Length is fear. This is the guiding principle of Smart Brevity, a communication formula built by Axios journalists to prioritize essential news and information, explain its impact and deliver it in a concise and visual format. Now, the co-founders of Axios have created an essential guide for communicating effectively and efficiently using Smart Brevity—think Strunk and White’s Elements of Style for the digital age.

In their acclaimed best seller The Challenger Sale, Matthew Dixon and his colleagues at CEB busted many longstanding myths about sales. Now they've turned their research and analysis to a new vital business subject - customer loyalty - with a new book that turns the conventional wisdom on its head. The idea that companies must delight customers by exceeding service expectations is so entrenched that managers rarely even question it. They devote untold time, energy, and resources to trying to dazzle people and inspire their undying loyalty.

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Power Broker and the Years of Lyndon Johnson series: an unprecedented gathering of vivid, candid, deeply revealing recollections about his experiences researching and writing his acclaimed books.

Writing guides are often full of 'tips' and 'tricks' either too broad to be useful, so specific they don't apply, or frustratingly vague. The On Writing and Worldbuilding series is here to change that. Volume III covers a whole new array of topics with applicable, clear, and practical discussions, be it writing character descriptions, compelling dialogue, or worldbuilding cities and towns. While written with an edge for science fiction and fantasy, the help found in this book applies to all genres. Volume III stands entirely independent of the first two volumes with entirely new discussions.

An informative and entertaining account of how actions send signals that shape behaviors and how to design better incentives for better results in our life, our work, and our world.

Smart and accessible, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding is the definitive text on branding, pairing anecdotes about some of the best brands in the world, like Rolex, Volvo, and Heineken, with the signature savvy of marketing gurus Al and Laura Ries. Combining The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding and The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding, this book proclaims that the only way to stand out in today’s marketplace is to build your product or service into a brand - and provides the step-by-step instructions you need to do so.

The time has come when advertising has in some hands reached the status of a science. It is based on fixed principles and is reasonably exact. The causes and effects have been analyzed until they are well understood. The correct methods of procedure have been proved and established. We know what is most effective, and we act on basic laws. Advertising, once a gamble, has thus become, under able direction, one of the safest of business ventures. Certainly, no other enterprise with comparable possibilities need involve so little risk.

In this spellbinding blend of memoir and insight, best-selling author Chuck Palahniuk shares stories and generous advice on what makes writing powerful and what makes for powerful writing. With advice grounded in years of careful study and a keenly observed life, Palahniuk combines practical advice and concrete examples from beloved classics, his own books, and a "kitchen-table MFA" culled from an evolving circle of beloved authors and artists, with anecdotes, postcards from the road, and much more.

What is it that made Starbucks an overnight sensation and separated it from other coffee house companies? Why do many products with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising, fail to get the same visceral traction in the marketplace as brands like Apple and Nike?

Memoir writing isn't just for celebrities and politicians. For anyone prone to self-reflection and ready to give shape to your memories and experiences, Memoir Writing For Dummies is your definitive guide. This book offers a concrete roadmap for writing a captivating memoir. Get advice on exploring your past, mapping out your story, and perfecting your plot, setting, character, and dialogue. You'll also find information on recruiting the help of AI and digital media for a more dynamic storytelling experience.

The Robert Collier Letter Book is by far the top book on writing sales letters. But it goes beyond that. As every great copywriter knows, these techniques are directly transferable to the Internet, whether through web copy or email or whatever. This book earned Robert Collier the distinction of being one of the greatest marketing minds in history. Robert Collier's sales letters were successful because he wrote to his audience's needs.