This is a collection of readings and notes on the past, present, and future of books. The topic is vast, but the idea here is to identify notable or highly useful books, articles, and resources that relate to every stage of writing and publishing books—and the technologies supporting it in the future. (All in English, at least for now.)

🚧 This list is far from complete. Please help suggest items—tweet at @ojoshe or add a comment here!

• Wikipedia: History of Books and History of Printing
• 📖Amaranth Borsuk, The Book (MIT Press Essential Knowledge series), 2018.
• 📖Andrew Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance, 2011.
• 📖Andrew Pettegree, The Bookshop of the World: Making and Trading Books in the Dutch Golden Age, 2020.

• 📖Barbara Minto, The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking, 2010.
• 📖Rolf Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly, 2014.

• 📖William Strunk and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, 4th Ed.
• 📖William Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (30th anniversary edition), 2016.
• 📖John McPhee, Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process, 2018.
• 📖George D. Gopen, The Sense of Structure: Writing from the Reader’s Perspective, 2004.
• 📖Mark Forsyth, The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase, 2014.
• 📖Stephen Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, reprint 2015.
• 📖Jefferson D. Bates, Writing with Precision: How to Write So That You Cannot Possibly Be Misunderstood, 2000.
• 📖Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson, Writing That Works: How to Communicate Effectively In Business
• 📖Laura Brown, The Only Business Writing Book You’ll Ever Need, 2019.
• 📖Bryan A. Garner, Legal Writing in Plain English: A Text with Exercises, 2nd edition, 2013.
• Jerry Neumann, two-page summary on business writing
• Donald E. Knuth, Tracy Larrabee, and Paul M. Roberts, Mathematical Writing, 1987.
• The full list of Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing has others.

• 📖Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft, 2010.
• 📖Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, 1995.
• 📖Renni Browne, Dave King, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print, 2nd edition, 2004.
• 📖Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity, 1994.
• 📖Ursula Le Guin, Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story, 2015.
• 📖Margaret Atwood, Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing, 2003.
• 📖Virginia Wolf, A Room of One’s Own, reprint of 1929 edition.

• 📖Peter Ginna, What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing, 2017 — A wonderful survey to understand the many different jobs of editors.
• 📖Scott Norton, Developmental Editing: A Handbook for Freelancers, Authors, and Publishers, 2011.
• 📖Amy Einsohn, The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, 3rd edition, 2011.
• 📖Benjamin Dreyer, Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, 2019.
• 📖The Chicago Manual of Style (web and print) — The one and only. A “guiding light for almost all published writing in America today.” (Boston Globe)
• 📖June Casagrande, The Best Punctuation Book, Period: A Comprehensive Guide for Every Writer, Editor, Student, and Businessperson, 2014 — Most style guides omit some punctuation nuances; this book is the most careful and detailed of its kind.

• Wikipedia on book design including the parts of a book.
• 📖Keith Houston, The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time, 2016.

• 📖Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, 2002 — A definitive and respected modern work.
• 📖Alexander Lawson, Anatomy of a Typeface, 1990 — A modern survey of type design and type designers for a general audience.
• 📖Karen CHeng, Designing Type, 2006 — A detailed, visual survey of actual letterforms, explaining the processes behind creating and designing type.
• 📖Daniel Berkeley Updike, Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use, 1922 — A classic historical survey, now in public domain.
• Buttrick’s Practical Typography — Likely the best brief, online resource on typography for beginners and practitioners.

• 📖Jane Friedman, The Business of Being a Writer, 2018.
• 📖Guy Kawasaki, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur: How to Publish a Book, 2012.
• 📖Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant, Write. Publish. Repeat.: The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success, 2015.
• 📖S.K. Quinn, Indie Author Survival Guide, 2nd edition, 2015.
• 📖Writer’s Digest Books, Writer’s Market 2020: The Most Trusted Guide to Getting Published
• 📖Writer’s Digest Books, Guide to Literary Agents 2020: The Most Trusted Guide to Getting Published

• Wikipedia: Stages of publishing
• About 60% of English-language books are produced through the “Big Five” publishing houses: Penguin Random House (Bertelsmann), Hachette (Lagardère), HarperCollins (News Corp), Simon & Schuster (National Amusements) and Macmillan (Holtzbrinck)¹
• 📖The Bookman’s Glossary — The classic 20th century reference by Bowker.
• 📖The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read by Andre Schiffrin, 2001.
• 📄Keith Gessen, The Book On Publishing, 2011.
• 📄Richard Nash, What Is the Business of Literature?, VQR, Spring 2013.

• 📄Are ebooks dying or thriving? The answer is yes, 2018.
• 📄The 2010s were supposed to bring the ebook revolution. It never quite came, 2019.
• 📄The E-Reader Device Is Dying A Rapid Death, 2020.
• 📄A short comparison of EPUB vs MOBI for authors
• 📄EPUB format overview

• 📖The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX — LaTeX and TeX are among the most mature systems for technical typesetting. This is a good overview.
• 📄Scott Chacon, Living the Future of Technical Writing — An overview from a technical author on writing using Git workflows.
• O’Reilly Atlas toolchain

• Jean-Claude Carriare and Umberto Eco, This Is Not the End of the Book, 2012.
• 📖Hugh Mcguire, Brian Oleary, Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto: A Collection Of Essays From The Bleeding Edge Of Publishing, 2012 — Available free in several chapters:
  1. The Setup: Approaches to the Digital Present
     • Context, not Container (Brian O’Leary)
     • Distribution Everywhere (Andrew Savikas)
     • What We Can Do With “Books” (Liza Daly)
     • What we Talk About When We Talk About Metadata (Laura Dawson)
     • Analyzing the Business Case for DRM (Kirk Biglione)
     • Tools of the Digital Workflow (Brian O’Leary)
     • Designing Books in the Digital Age (Craig Mod)
  2. The Outlook: What Is Next for the Book?
     • Why the Book and the Internet Will Merge (Hugh McGuire)
     • Web Literature: Publishing on the Social Web (Eli James)
     • Making Books Out of Words (Erin McKean)
     • Why Digital Books Will Become Writable (Terry Jones)
     • Above the Silos: Social Reading in the Age of Mechanical Barriers (Travis Alber & Aaron Miller)
     • User Experience, Reader Experience (Brett Sandusky)
     • App, Meet Book (Ron Martinez)
     • The Curation of Obscurity (Peter Brantley)
     • A Reader’s Bill of Rights (Kassia Krozser)
  3. The Things We Can Do with Books: Projects from the Bleeding Edge
     • Communities of Writers (Jürgen Fauth, Fictionaut)
     • On the Therapist’s Couch: Books as Apps, Really? (Neal Hoskins, WingedChariot)
     • The Engagement Economy (Bobby Gruenewald, YouVersion)
     • How Do Books Get Discovered? (Patrick Brown, Kyusik Chung, and Otis Chandler, Goodreads)
     • The Surprising Power of “Little Data” (Peter Collingridge, Bookseer)
     • Exaggerations and Perversions (Valla Vakili, Small Demons)
     • Pain and Its Alleviation (John Oakes, OR Books)
     • The End of the Public Library (As We Knew It)? (Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbour District Library)
     • Now Is the Time for Experiments (Ian Barker, Symtext)
     • The Forgotten Consumer (Jacob Lewis, Figment)
     • A Conversation That Can’t Be Controlled (Sarah Wendell, Smart Bitches Trashy Books)
• 📄Andy Matuschak, Why Books Don’t Work, 2019.