The Editor’s Blog

Richard Templar’s “The Rules of Life”: Self-help at its best

Self-help is the Marmite of the book world. It seems that readers either ravenously consume self-help books or find them utterly unhelpful. […]

Let’s talk about race: My thoughts on “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race” as a mixed-race female book editor

The news hit last week that Reni Eddo-Lodge had become the first black British author to ever top the UK paperback non-fiction […]

Did E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” predict the future?

While nonfiction is our bag at The Book Shelf, E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops is stranger than fiction. It has an uncanny resemblance […]

The E-Myth: The book every business owner needs to read

When it comes to business books, there’s no shortage of options available to entrepreneurs, wantrepreneurs, and small business owners hoping […]

Nihilism: Four useful life lessons from a bleak mentality

A close-up shot of a dark green typewriter with a page coming out of it that reads "Crisis"

In a #fakenews and #posttruth era, the 19th-century philosophical bad boy of nihilism has reared its head. Nihilism stems from […]

7 Lessons from the Stoics on how to deal with life’s uncertainties

Over recent years, the Ancient Greek philosophy of Stoicism has gained a new lease of life. 3rd Century BC ideas […]

The importance of fact-checking before publishing: The Gladwell case study

Times of crisis like this demonstrate how important it is to know truth from fiction. Written content has a huge […]

An editor’s review: Brief answers to the big questions, Stephen Hawking

I’ll be the first to admit that I hated science at school. And when I say hated, I mean that I’d […]

RIP books: is the written word dying?

If you read the news, scour forums, or listen to podcasts, you might have encountered sensationalist headlines suggesting that the written word is dead. Or if it’s […]

An editor’s review: The little book of tidying, Beth Penn

In this age of consumerism and materialism, on a planet drowning in stuff and fast fashion, it’s understandable that “tidying” […]