Author and former literary agent Nathan Bransford shares his secrets for creating killer plots, fleshing out your first ideas, crafting compelling characters, and staying sane in the process. Read the guide that New York Times bestselling author Ransom Riggs called "The best how-to-write-a-novel book I've read."

"In a counterfactual world resembling the 1930s, the state of Khazaria, an isolated nation of warriors Jews, is under attack by the Germanii. Esther, the precocious daughter of Khazaria's chief policy advisor, sets out on a quest to ensure the survival of her homeland"--

What does it feel like to try and create something new? How is it possible to find a space for the demands of writing a novel in a world of instant communication? Working on My Novel is about the act of creation and the gap between the different ways we express ourselves today. Exploring the extremes of making art, from satisfaction and even euphoria to those days or nights when nothing will come, it's the story of what it means to be a creative person, and why we keep on trying.

A devotee of Stendhal who has shunned the company of his fellow human beings to live on the outskirts of a tiny village in Savoy is kidnapped and left for dead along a forest road. A middle-aged mother who spends much of her time shuttling her numerous offspring along twisting mountain roads loses control of her car and ends up injured but alive in a gorge. Meanwhile, an elderly man of unbreakable habits is taunted and threatened by two unknown men while on his morning walk along the cliffs of Brittany. Mystery abounds but A Novel Bookstore is no everyday mystery. The victims here are not members of the underworld, toughs or thugs, but mild, meek and apparently ordinary people. In the eyes of their aggressors, they are guilty of only one crime: expressing their tastes in literature. Indeed, all three victims are members of The Good Novel's secret selection committee. Tucked away in a corner of Paris, The Good Novel bookstore offers its clientele literary masterpieces, both contemporary and classic, selected by a top-secret committee of authors. The store has proven an instant success, but nobody could have imagined that success would unleash a tide of hatred. Now, there are those who will stop at nothing to destroy The Good Novel. One by one, the pieces of this puzzle fall ominously into place, as it becomes clear to the store's owners, Ivan and Francesca, that their dreams of an ideal place for books may be shattered by envy and violence. Elegantly mixing the mystery and literary fiction genres, Laurence Cossé has written an enthralling fable for lovers of good books and a heartfelt tribute to fine bookselling.

This new essential guide to entertaining is divided by occasion, offering a fresh lineup of menus and ideas from Oxford, Mississippi's go-to caterer for every celebratory scenario life serves up. In this update to the best-selling book of our mothers' and grandmothers' era, Elizabeth's tell-it-like-it-is voice provides a twist to the classic Southern advice that is a refresher for entertainers of any age or experience. Packed with delicious recipes from the original book like Smoked Salmon Canapes, Hot Cheese Squares, and Brandy Alexanders, the book also includes popular picks from the current pages of Southern Living as well as Elizabeth's treasured recipe box. The Southern Living Party Cookbook is an entertaining handbook loaded with lifestyle tips and hilarious Heiskell stories, along with lush photography to help you get the look from table setting to plated dish.

"It's a lot easier just not to write." So argues Josefina Vicens' alter ego, Jose Garcfa, in The Empty Book. Yet his need to write exists independently of his perception that an "ordinary" person has "nothing to say." In the very act of writing about "nothing," Garcia paradoxically tells a story that does have meaning and significance--the story of his own attempt to transcend the limits of mundane existence through creative work.Winner of the prestigious Xavier Villaurrutia prize, The Empty Book was first published in Mexico as El libro vacfo in 1958. A novel about the writing process, it stands as a forerunner of the metafiction boom of the 1960s that included the works of such writers as Cortazar, Pacheco, and Elizondo. The accessibility of its language and themes makes this novel highly democratic and empowering, rescuing literature from the realm of high art and opening it to participation by "ordinary" people.A novel for everyone interested in the process of writing--and not writing-- The Empty Book presents a novelist who deserves to be much better known by English-language readers. Josefina Vicens (1915-1988) was a noted Mexican screenwriter and author of a second novel, Los anos falsos. David Lauer is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at Stanford University.