Books like Life Everywhere — picked by fans

There is no other book I have read that offers greater insights into the elements and structure of writing than this book. Written for screenplay writers, I find it an excellent source of guidance and support.

It offers a detailed, step by step review of story progression and structure, from the beginning of a scene/chapter through the build-up and to an ending too enticing to not turn the page. It has guided me just as it has Dominick Dunne, as quoted in Amazon’s review of the book: "In difficult periods of writing, I often turn to Robert McKee's wonderful book for guidance" - Dominick Dunne, Novelist

In this classic, heart-wrenching novella, the misfit character is Lenny—a gigantic, strong, but intellectually challenged migrant worker in California in the 1930s. Despite being faithfully chaperoned by his lifelong friend George, who tries his best to keep Lenny out of trouble, it seems fated that trouble will inevitably find Lenny. And when it does, Lenny—who is in truth a huge, confused child in a world of rough, unforgiving men—pays the ultimate price.

This story resonates especially strongly with me because I had a younger brother, now deceased, who was severely intellectually challenged.

This was recommended to me by a friend who knew I was writing a sci-fi story that takes place in South Louisiana, where my story is set. Gautreaux’s story is enjoyable, but it is the vivid descriptions of the logging camp and its surroundings that held my attention: the thick, almost suffocating damp air, the smells of decay, and the dark mocha of mud puddles that never seem to dry up.

Though my own story isn’t set specifically in a swamp, this gave me the punch I needed to describe the Louisiana town where my story is set.   

I am a firm believer that the more information you assimilate, the more you know and the better writer you can be. I found this book refreshing and informative, with detailed insights into what we know about the universe, the Earth, through the evolution of humankind, and our social history up to more modern times.

No matter what your preferred genre is or what worlds you create, Big History is a foundation on which you can build any story, including Sci-fi, like my book.

The search for life outside the Earth is NASA’s greatest quest, and this book will bring you up to speed on it. Just a few decades ago, scientists thought life arose on the Earth in shallow seas, warmed by the early sun and zapped by energy-producing lightning. The best place to look for alien life was on Mars, where bacterial life may have formed in the shallow pools that covered the young Mars, and then hunkered down in subsurface spots of Martian water and ice as these pools evaporated. Scientists now suspect life arose in warm vents deep in the Earth’s ocean. Subsurface oceans in the moons of the outer Solar System may contain similar vents that serve as breeding grounds for primitive life. Kevin Hand describes NASA’s current missions and instruments to find this life in alien oceans.

This is one of the books I love most. It is a delightful small book in which Nobel Laureate Frances Crick, who together with James Watson discovered the double-helix structure of DNA, addresses the questions: “What is Life?” and “How did it originate?”

This takes him to the origin and evolution of the Universe and to how life may have originated from the world of atoms and molecules, either here on Earth or, in his view more likely: long before the Solar System and Earth formed, in other places in our Galaxy. His idea is that from its place of origin, long ago near another star, it spread to other planetary systems, in the form of spores of bacteria.

His speculations in this book are scientifically well founded and ingenious. Crick is a wonderfully clear writer and this book, with its brilliant explanations and ideas, is a beauty, which I… show more.

This is the darkest of Hermann Hesse’s well-known spiritual journey novels. Unlike works such as Siddhartha, and Demian, Harry Haller in Steppenwolf is a despondent, surly, and suicidal misfit, incapable of coming to grips with the bourgeois culture around him, which seems to him irreparably antithetical to the classical art and literature he worships.

Haller’s eventual spiritual awakening is far more subtle and less dazzling than those Hesse portrayed in other works, and for me, therefore, in many ways more relatable. Deeply ingrained in my mind is Hesse’s image of the gramophone playing tinny, distorted works by master classical composers—which Haller at first despises— but then comes to see that it is much like his trying to decipher mystical truth, which manifests to him in a sort of abridged and imperfect form—because that is all that we, as corporeal humans, are able to discern.

For those interested in the hidden mysteries of science and nature and trying to work out the meaning of life, this is essential reading. It goes from the creation to the end of the world, explaining the various mysteries along the way, all of which are not actually secret, but in plain sight, if you know where and how to look.

This is to me is the best book ever written for understanding what human beings are, how we are similar to and different from other animal species, how we develop from helpless newborns to fully functioning adults, and what we are striving for in our lives. Most nonfiction books make a point and then repeat it over and over with examples and anecdotes. In contrast, The Birth and Death of Meaning begins with evolution and progresses logically from its first page to its last. When you finish this book, you will have a much better understanding of yourself, the people in your life, historical and current events, and problems ranging from anxiety and depression to interpersonal conflict to prejudice.  

My book club found this book depressing and shook their heads at my choice. I found it a fascinating account of a life that is meaningful for its owner. The protagonist is a woman dying in an abandoned mental hospital after years of abuse and neglect. And yet, she has a psychological condition that makes her infinitely compassionate towards others: she can only perceive goodwill and love. When she tells the story of her “happy life,” she even feels bad for her rapist. You will love or hate this book. But it will make you think.