In my case it led to a book with a intriguing title. A print book also offered as an eBook. An eBook listing that doesn't yet exist (because the print book won't be released until November 4). But the author wrote a book I read within the last year.
And because I liked that book, now I want to read his new one:
The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits by Les Standiford
Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist.
The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution. It was a harsh and dreary age, in desperate need of spiritual renewal, ready to embrace a book that ended with blessings for one and all.
OK, how can any writer not want to read that?
(For those who have already read biographies of Dickens: Shut up. In my Infinite Backlog.)
An interesting note regarding the eBook: No ePub version! (And, um, Random, update that blurb about the Sony Reader.)
The previous book I read was:
Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America, in which I learned that capitalist icon Andrew Carnegie launched his fortune with insider trading. So much for the Horatio Alger myth of pluck and luck, strive and succeed!
Additional:
Writer Les Standiford's website
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