Journalism

The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law

Whether you're a student struggling through Composition 101 or a professional writer on a quest for perfection, The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law is always ready to fill the role of trusted advisor to your creative genius. Revised and updated in 2000, this version contains a 40-page section on media law, guides for punctuation and bibliographies, and specialized glossaries for business and sports writing, all in addition to its 280-page generalized stylebook.

Within each section, entries are alphabetized, and searching for an answer is a fairly simple process. Tricky words--those that can be hyphenated (know-how) or not (jukebox), homonyms, nonstandard spellings (mo-ped)--are given their own short entries. Larger categories, such as religions, military titles, the Internet, and datelines, have multiple pages devoted to their explanations, but detail and clarity are brought nicely together in each listing. Many entries concern brand names and trademarks--never again will you question whetherpingpong or Ping-Pong should be used in the flier for your table-tennis tournament.

While a few sections of this book--the ones concerning media law, photo captions, filing the wire, and proofreading marks--will most likely be used by professional and student journalists and editors, the majority of this book is an excellent tool for anyone who ever has to write for the public. Whether it's a newsletter for your badminton league, a training manual for your employees, or a press release detailing your company's quarterly earnings, this stylebook will help you turn out well-written copy that gains the approval of every English teacher you've ever had. --Jill Lightner

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Think you've got a book inside of you? Anne Lamott isn't afraid to help you let it out. She'll help you find your passion and your voice, beginning from the first really crummy draft to the peculiar letdown of publication. Readers will be reminded of the energizing books of writer Natalie Goldberg and will be seduced by Lamott's witty take on the reality of a writer's life, which has little to do with literary parties and a lot to do with jealousy, writer's block and going for broke with each paragraph. Marvelously wise and best of all, great reading.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

Heralded as the "best book on the dope decade" by the New York Times Book Review, Hunter S. Thompson's documented drug orgy through Las Vegas would no doubt leave Nancy Reagan blushing and D.A.R.E. founders rethinking their motto. Under the pseudonym of Raoul Duke, Thompson travels with his Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in a souped-up convertible dubbed the "Great Red Shark." In its trunk, they stow "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls," which they manage to consume during their short tour.

On assignment from a sports magazine to cover "the fabulous Mint 400"--a free-for-all biker's race in the heart of the Nevada desert--the drug-a-delic duo stumbles through Vegas in hallucinatory hopes of finding the American dream (two truck-stop waitresses tell them it's nearby, but can't remember if it's on the right or the left). They of course never get the story, but they do commit the only sins in Vegas: "burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help." For Thompson to remember and pen his experiences with such clarity and wit is nothing short of a miracle; an impressive feat no matter how one feels about the subject matter. A first-rate sensibility twinger, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a pop-culture classic, an icon of an era past, and a nugget of pure comedic genius. --Rebekah Warren

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page.  It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.

Now this cult classic of gonzo journalism is a major motion picture from Universal, directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.  Opens everywhere on May 22, 1998.

The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of his Life--His Own

Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: In his fabulously entertaining The Kid Stays in the Picture, legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans wrote: "There are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth." David Carr's riveting debut memoir, The Night of the Gun, takes this theory to the extreme, as the New York Times reporter embarks on a three-year fact-finding mission to revisit his harrowing past as a drug addict and discovers that the search for answers can reveal many versions of the truth. Carr acknowledges that you can't write a my-life-as-an-addict story without the recent memoir scandals of James Frey and others weighing you down, but he regains the reader's trust by relying on his reporting skills to conduct dozens of often uncomfortable interviews with old party buddies, cops, and ex-girlfriends and follow an endless paper trail of legal and medical records, mug shots, and rejection letters. The kaleidoscopic narrative follows Carr through failed relationships and botched jobs, in and out of rehab and all manner of unsavory places in between, with cameos from the likes of Tom Arnold, Jayson Blair, and Barbara Bush. Admittedly, it's hard to love David Carr--sometimes you barely like the guy. How can you feel sympathy for a man who was smoking crack with his pregnant girlfriend when her water broke? But plenty of dark humor rushes through the book, and knowing that this troubled man will make it--will survive addiction, fight cancer, raise his twin girls--makes you want to stick around for the full 400-page journey. --Brad Thomas Parsons

Do we remember only the stories we can live with?

The ones that make us look good in the rearview mirror? In The Night of the Gun, David Carr redefines memoir with the revelatory story of his years as an addict and chronicles his journey from crack-house regular to regular columnist for The New York Times. Built on sixty videotaped interviews, legal and medical records, and three years of reporting, The Night of the Gun is a ferocious tale that uses the tools of journalism to fact-check the past. Carr's investigation of his own history reveals that his odyssey through addiction, recovery, cancer, and life as a single parent was far more harrowing -- and, in the end, more miraculous -- than he allowed himself to remember. Over the course of the book, he digs his way through a past that continues to evolve as he reports it.

That long-ago night he was so out of his mind that his best friend had to pull a gun on him to make him go away? A visit to the friend twenty years later reveals that Carr was pointing the gun.

His lucrative side business as a cocaine dealer? Not all that lucrative, as it turned out, and filled with peril.

His belief that after his twins were born, he quickly sobered up to become a parent? Nice story, if he could prove it.

The notion that he was an easy choice as a custodial parent once he finally was sober? His lawyer pulls out the old file and gently explains it was a little more complicated than that.

In one sense, the story of The Night of the Gun is a common one -- a white-boy misdemeanant lands in a ditch and is restored to sanity through the love of his family, a God of his understanding, and a support group that will go unnamed. But when the whole truth is told, it does not end there. After fourteen years -- or was it thirteen? -- Carr tried an experiment in social drinking. Double jeopardy turned out to be a game he did not play well. As a reporter and columnist at the nation's best newspaper, he prospered, but gained no more adeptness at mood-altering substances. He set out to become a nice suburban alcoholic and succeeded all too well, including two more arrests, one that included a night in jail wearing a tuxedo.

Ferocious and eloquent, courageous and bitingly funny, The Night of the Gun unravels the ways memory helps us not only create our lives, but survive them.

ProBlogger: Secrets Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income

Blogging has become a popular and fascinating pastime for many, but more and more bloggers are finding it can also be an excellent source of direct or indirect income. Although the barriers to starting a blog are low, without expert guidance it is easy to get frustrated when success doesn’t match expectations. Written by the creator of the world’s #1 resource for making money with blogs, ProBlogger takes the reader from absolute beginner to earning money from or as a result of blogging. Through step by step practical lessons the reader will choose a blog topic, analyze the market, set up a blog, promote it and earn revenue.

Unlike other books that are big on potential and theory, ProBlogger provides results based on the authors own experience of what really works through practical, tried and tested advice. Inside readers will learn:

• How Bloggers Make Money
• Direct Income Earning vs. Indirect Income Earning methods
• Why Niches are Important
• Using 20 critical blogging tools
• 20 Ingredients for a successful blog post
• Optimizing advertising
• Which advertising platforms work best
• Expert analysis of Technocrat’s Top Blogs – why they work

and so much more.

McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope

Is John McCain "For Real?"


That's the question David Foster Wallace set out to explore when he first climbed aboard Senator McCain's campaign caravan in February 2000. It was a moment when Mccain was increasingly perceived as a harbinger of change, the anticandidate whose goal was "to inspire young Americans to devote themselves to causes greater than their own self-interest." And many young Americans were beginning to take notice.


To get at "something riveting and unspinnable and true" about John Mccain, Wallace finds he must pierce the smoke screen of spin doctors and media manipulators. And he succeeds-in a characteristically potent blast of journalistic brio that not only captures the lunatic rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign but also delivers a compelling inquiry into John McCain himself: the senator, the POW, the campaign finance reformer, the candidate, the man.

Blogging For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Everybody’s doing it! And while that logic never got far with your mother, it’s a fine reason to start blogging, especially if you have a business to build or a cause to promote. Well-run blogs do more than offer an outlet for your thoughts. They’ve actually influenced everything from a company’s image to the outcome of a local election.

Because the blogosphere is pretty crowded, it’s a good idea to find out a bit about the anatomy of a blog, what makes a good one, and what it takes to keep one going before you dive right in and start sharing with the world. Blogging For Dummies, 2nd Edition gives you all the basics so you can get a good start. And if you’ve been around the blog a few times and want to advance to the next level, Blogging For Dummies, 2nd Edition even takes a look at podcasting and videoblogging.

You’ll find out how to:

• Make your blog stand out in a crowd, build an audience, and even make it pay
• Choose the best software options, boost readership, and handle comments
• Generate revenue from your blog with ads and sponsorships
• Protect your privacy and your job
• Deal with spam and the inappropriate comments from that guy who posts several times a day
• Find your niche
• Attract and keep readers
• Use your blog to promote your business, cause, or organization
• Add audio, video, cool widgets, and more

Ready? Get Blogging for Dummies and let’s get started!

The Future's So Bright I Can't Bear to Look

Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University

Inspiring stories and practical advice from AmericaÂ’s most respected journalists

The country’s most prominent journalists and nonfiction authors gather each year at Harvard’s Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism. Telling True Stories presents their best advice—covering everything from finding a good topic, to structuring narrative stories, to writing and selling your first book. More than fifty well-known writers offer their most powerful tips, including:
• Tom Wolfe on the emotional core of the story
• Gay Talese on writing about private lives
• Malcolm Gladwell on the limits of profiles
• Nora Ephron on narrative writing and screenwriters
• Alma Guillermoprieto on telling the story and telling the truth
• Dozens of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists from the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and more . . .

The essays contain important counsel for new and career journalists, as well as for freelance writers, radio producers, and memoirists. Packed with refreshingly candid and insightful recommendations, Telling True Stories will show anyone fascinated by the art of writing nonfiction how to bring people, scenes, and ideas to life on the page.

Writer's Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing

This highly anticipated update of the Writer's Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing builds off the excellent reputation the first edition enjoys with more of the great information readers have come to expect.

With original material as well as articles taken from the pages of Writer's Digest, the leading authority in the field, this book is the only resource readers need for all of their questions on how to:

* Brainstorm creative article ideas magazine editors will find irresistible

* Find the right magazine for their work

* Compose a professional, sophisticated query letter that catches the editor's eye

* Keep editors coming back for more (get repeat assignments from magazines)

This book is the writer's treasure map to the lucrative field of magazine writing!