Library Haul and Reading List 4/10/15

This week’s list is an even mix of fiction and non-fiction. Two of the novels are continuations of series that I’ve already started, although one is a stand alone novel that just sounded funny, which is something sorely missing from my week. The non-fiction books are all career-oriented and I hope they’ll give me some new ideas and markets for my work. I’m especially eager to read the platform building book, as this is something I’ve been struggling with lately.

• Kingdom Keepers: The Syndrome, by Ridley Pearson. Being a Disney nut, I enjoyed the first series of Kingdom Keepers books (even though I felt that the last three weren’t as good as the first four), so I was excited to see that the series will be continuing. I gather that this book is sort of a “bridge” between the original series and the new plots that will drive the coming books. Interested to see where this one goes.
• The Last Days of Video, by Jeremy Hawkins. I’m old enough to remember actual video stores (and I spent quite a bit of time in them) and their inevitable demise, so this novel sounded interesting just for the nostalgia factor. It’s about a man who owns a dying video store and his (and his employees’) attempts to save it. It’s supposed to be funny, which I could definitely use right now.
• The Winner’s Crime, by Marie Rutkoski. This is the sequel to The Winner’s Curse, which I finished a few months ago. I enjoyed the first one enough to continue the series, so I was glad to see this one pop up in my hold queue.
• Platform: Get Noticed In A Noisy World, by Michael Hyatt. As you may have noticed, I’ve been working on getting my head around this whole “platform thing,” so I’m hoping this one can help.
• APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book, by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch. I’ve got several ideas for very niche non-fiction books and I think self-publishing those might be the way to go. This book sounded like a good introduction to the process.
• You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction–from Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything in Between, by Lee Gutkind. I don’t write a lot of creative non-fiction; most of my non-fiction work tends to be straight-up facts without creative embellishments. But I’m always up for learning about new things and writing opportunities, so this one landed on the reading pile.