Here are 100 books that The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women fans have personally recommended if you like The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning

Annette Simmons Author Of The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling

From my list on develop sensational storytelling skills.

Why am I passionate about this?

When your storytelling simulates imagined physiological experiences, it guides your listeners to vicariously see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the world of your story. While my books suggest six kinds of stories and four buckets to find stories, I also use these favorite resources for training my brain to think in sensory language. Dip in to find a steady supply of metaphors, images, mannerisms, and context builders that make your story come alive. Current strategies that maximize clicks rarely tap into the wealth of sensory language needed to build epic, long-lasting results.

Annette's book list on develop sensational storytelling skills

Annette Simmons Why Annette loves this book

I love this pre-social-media collection of moral quandaries and relationship-based solutions presented in story form. Much of it is about addiction to substances, but it applies to all kinds of addictions, undermining our ability to deal with dangerous subjects.

I’ve told stories from these pages, and most of my ideas come from reading stories that inevitably remind me of a perfect story from my own life. Stories about release, gratitude, humility, tolerance, and forgiveness offer antidotes to the kind of problems that linear mechanical reasoning can’t solve.

For me, investing in a constant stream of moral stories supports the vital behavioral norms we need as groundwork for developing trusting relationships.

By Ernest Kurtz , Katherine Ketcham ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Spirituality of Imperfection as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

I Am Not Perfect is a simple statement of profound truth, the first step toward  understanding the human condition, for to deny your essential imperfection is to deny yourself and your own humanity. The spirituality of imperfection, steeped in the rich traditions of the Hebrew prophets and Greek thinkers, Buddhist sages and Christian disciples, is a message as timeless as it is  timely. This insightful work draws on the wisdom stories of the ages to provide an extraordinary wellspring of hope and inspiration to anyone thirsting for spiritual growth and guidance in these troubled times.

Who are we? Why so…


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of The Emotion Thesaurus

Annette Simmons Author Of The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling

From my list on develop sensational storytelling skills.

Why am I passionate about this?

When your storytelling simulates imagined physiological experiences, it guides your listeners to vicariously see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the world of your story. While my books suggest six kinds of stories and four buckets to find stories, I also use these favorite resources for training my brain to think in sensory language. Dip in to find a steady supply of metaphors, images, mannerisms, and context builders that make your story come alive. Current strategies that maximize clicks rarely tap into the wealth of sensory language needed to build epic, long-lasting results.

Annette's book list on develop sensational storytelling skills

Annette Simmons Why Annette loves this book

Yes, it says for writers, but this book is a great resource for in-person storytelling. On these pages are thousands of ideas on how you can show, not tell.

Comb through ideas on how to express a character’s emotion with posture, tone, and mannerisms. Don’t just say, “he looked guilty.” Look up “guilt” and find ways to indicate guilt without telling people what to think. Have your guilty character “avert her eyes,” “shift her feet,” “pull at her collar,” or “suddenly lose her appetite.” I regularly flick through this book to train my imagination on the sensory cues that make a story come alive.

By Angela Ackerman , Becca Puglisi ,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Emotion Thesaurus as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The bestselling Emotion Thesaurus, often hailed as “the gold standard for writers” and credited with transforming how writers craft emotion, has now been expanded to include 55 new entries! 

One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much. 

If you need inspiration for creating characters’ emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don’t-tell guide for emotion can help. It includes:

Body language…


Book cover of Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought

Annette Simmons Author Of The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling

From my list on develop sensational storytelling skills.

Why am I passionate about this?

When your storytelling simulates imagined physiological experiences, it guides your listeners to vicariously see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the world of your story. While my books suggest six kinds of stories and four buckets to find stories, I also use these favorite resources for training my brain to think in sensory language. Dip in to find a steady supply of metaphors, images, mannerisms, and context builders that make your story come alive. Current strategies that maximize clicks rarely tap into the wealth of sensory language needed to build epic, long-lasting results.

Annette's book list on develop sensational storytelling skills

Annette Simmons Why Annette loves this book

Before Lakoff wrote about politics, he compiled this treasure trove of the metaphors humans recruit to grapple with moral concerns. For instance, early in the book I learned how to take a listener “in front” of a problem, “behind it” “inside it” as well as “outside it” so they might vicariously experience four points of view instead of one.

Engaging the body embeds regular intelligence with sensory wisdom.

By George Lakoff , Mark Johnson ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Philosophy In The Flesh as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What are human beings like? How is knowledge possible? What is truth? Where do moral values come from? Questions like these have stood at the centre of Western philosophy for centuries. In addressing them, philosophers have made certain fundamental assumptions,that we can know our own minds by introspection, that most of our thinking about the world is literal, and that reason is disembodied and universal,that are now called into question by well-established results of cognitive science. It has been shown empirically that:Most thought is unconscious. We have no direct conscious access to the mechanisms of thought and language. Our ideas…


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Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

The Duke's Christmas Redemption by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.

Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…

Book cover of Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

Annette Simmons Author Of The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling

From my list on develop sensational storytelling skills.

Why am I passionate about this?

When your storytelling simulates imagined physiological experiences, it guides your listeners to vicariously see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the world of your story. While my books suggest six kinds of stories and four buckets to find stories, I also use these favorite resources for training my brain to think in sensory language. Dip in to find a steady supply of metaphors, images, mannerisms, and context builders that make your story come alive. Current strategies that maximize clicks rarely tap into the wealth of sensory language needed to build epic, long-lasting results.

Annette's book list on develop sensational storytelling skills

Annette Simmons Why Annette loves this book

Reading about posture, tone, and timing does not train your body to know when and where to shift. What I do is stimulate my creative muscles by reading aloud any of the two hundred speeches as I imagine standing in the shoes of the orator who delivered it. It’s like an adventure in time travel.

The first time is usually a mechanical recitation but once you figure out the context, and what is meaningful to you, personally, you will experience a powerful difference in delivery. Experiment with posture changes, tone varies, pauses, and pacing to make the words more memorable. Expand your repertoire of posture, tone, and timing options by standing in the shoes of the greats.

By William Safire ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lend Me Your Ears as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, this collection of speeches is “the most valuable kind of book, the kind that benefits mind and heart” (Peggy Noonan).   This third edition of the bestselling collection of classic and modern oratory offers numerous examples of the greatest speeches ever delivered—from the ancient world to the modern. Speeches in Lend Me Your Ears span a broad stretch of history, from Gen. George Patton inspiring Allied troops on the eve of D-Day to Pericles’s impassioned eulogy for fallen Greek soldiers during the Peloponnesian War; and from Jesus of Nazareth’s greatest sermons to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s fiery…


Book cover of Scoundrel Time

Kevin Smokler Author Of Break The Frame: Conversations With Women Filmmakers

From my list on how women created our favorite media entertainment.

Why am I passionate about this?

Kevin Smokler here. I spent the last three years interviewing women film directors about their complete body of work and journey toward making it. I'm honored to share that with you. My career (4 books, 2 documentaries, countless articles) has always been about how our culture and entertainment are bigger than we think, and that size is an unending gift to us. In honoring the work of women artists here and in this list of books, I'm encouraging you (I hope) to think bigger and wider and more generously with what you see as a worry of your time and attention. This is also just how my mamma raised me.  

Kevin's book list on how women created our favorite media entertainment

Kevin Smokler Why Kevin loves this book

I grew up in a family of all brothers and male cousins and with a second-wave feminist mother who marched with Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug. So while my role models of feminine badassery were clear growing up, they were also few. Feeling like I was missing out, I often sought them out in my professional life and in my reading for fun. 

Lillian Hellman was as bad ass as they came. The author of a dozen plays, three memoirs, holder of six or so honorary degrees, blacklisted during McCarthyism who, to my amazement came roaring back with this book, among others to wow little me, who grow up rather ordinary in a rather ordinary midwestern college town. I was not romantically partnered with the greatest detective novelist in American history like Ms. Hellman was with Dashiel Hammett. I did stare down a hostile government trying to ruin my life…

By Lillian Hellman ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Scoundrel Time as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The third volume of memoirs from the National Book Award-winning playwright Lillian Hellman. 

In 1952, Hellman joined the ranks of intellectuals and artists called before Congress to testify about political subversion. Terrified yet defiant, Hellman refused to incriminate herself or others, and managed to avoid trial. Nonetheless the experience brought devastating controversy and loss. First published in 1972, her retelling of the time features a remarkable cast of characters, including her lover, novelist Dashiell Hammett, a slew of famous friends and colleagues, and a pack of "scoundrels" -- ruthless, ambitious politicians and the people who complied with their demands.


Book cover of The Power of Film

Paul Chitlik Author Of Rewrite

From my list on start your career as a screenwriter.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for story began while I was still in elementary school. I was an avid reader, taking the tram to the library whenever I could. I read biographies, short stories, comic books, and novels of all kinds. In college, I studied comparative literature, focusing on 19th and 20th-century novels in English and Spanish. I met many authors and was inspired to write my own stories. Eventually, this led to screenwriting as a career and then teaching and writing about screenwriting. I never abandoned my love of novels, publishing one of my first novels as a magazine for which I sold advertising to pay for printing.  

Paul's book list on start your career as a screenwriter

Paul Chitlik Why Paul loves this book

I found Suber’s book eye-opening about film. His insight into the true meaning of films was enlightening. I liked the way he examined film, sometimes minute by minute, to reveal their true meaning. He reminded me of the true influence that films have on society and society’s influence on film.

His writing was clear and concise, and he inspired me to add more depth to my own writing. 

By Howard Suber ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Power of Film as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Breaking News!
The Power of Film Series (based upon this book) is now available on MAX. (Formerly HBO)

Make sure you tune in to see this amazing six part series.

One of America's most distinguished film professors provides the definitive A to Z course on the intricacies of film. Each entry in this remarkable book, which represents a lifetime of teaching film, has already inspired and educated several generations of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers and writers. This book examines the patterns and principles that make films popular and memorable, and will be useful both for those who want to create films…


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Book cover of Head Over Heels

Head Over Heels by Nancy MacCreery,

A fake date, romance, and a conniving co-worker you'd love to shut down. Fun summer reading!

Liza loves helping people and creating designer shoes that feel as good as they look. Financially overextended and recovering from a divorce, her last-ditch opportunity to pitch her firm for investment falls flat. Then…

Book cover of Stories for Work: The Essential Guide to Business Storytelling

Genevieve Hawkins Author Of Mentally at Work: Optimising health and business performance through connection

From my list on helping you thrive not just survive as a leader.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an Executive who started life as an Occupational Therapist. As an undergrad, I had an innate curiosity around mental health, and what makes people thrive not just survive. This fascination sent me to university multiple times, and, as a self-confessed book nerd (my teams tell me one of my most common sayings is ‘There is a book you could read..’), constantly testing book theories at work. As an executive, I mentor up-and-coming leaders. This compilation of books represents the most common books I recommend to people to help them thrive at work as a leader. I hope you find them as useful as I have.  

Genevieve's book list on helping you thrive not just survive as a leader

Genevieve Hawkins Why Genevieve loves this book

While we would love to think we are always rational, we are hard-wired for story not the rational data (albeit key data can be a strong anchor in a story). I started my career far more in the assumption of rational data trumps all, but recognised, through bumps and bruises, how stories can overtake decision-making. When I learned how to tell a better story, I learned how to get the results I needed. Gabrielle is such a down-to-earth, energising speaker and writer, and this book provided me with such a practical, relatable framework for always having a good story or two in my back pocket.  

By Gabrielle Dolan ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stories for Work as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Learn the science and master the art of telling a great story

Stories for Work walks you through the science of storytelling, revealing the secrets behind great storytellers and showing you how to master the art of storytelling in business. Stories hold a unique place in our psyche, and the right story at the right time can be a game-changer in business; whether tragedy, triumph, tension or transition, a good story can captivate the listener and help you achieve your goals. In this book, author Gabrielle Dolan draws from a decade of training business leaders in storytelling to show you…


Book cover of Burning Brightly: New Light on Old Tales Told Today

Justin Jaron Lewis Author Of Imagining Holiness: Classic Hasidic Tales in Modern Times

From my list on people telling each other stories.

Why am I passionate about this?

Nearly forty years ago, as a young poet, I started going to a storytelling circle in Toronto, thinking it would be a good venue to recite my poems. What I heard there awakened something in me. When I was a child, my parents read me wonder tales, and I soon began to read them on my own. Now I was hearing these stories, the way they were heard for millennia before anyone wrote them down. Today, I am a storyteller, I am married, and I am a professor who teaches a course on storytelling and writes about stories – all because of those weekly gatherings years ago and the storytellers there.

Justin's book list on people telling each other stories

Justin Jaron Lewis Why Justin loves this book

Stories come alive when people tell them to each other.

In my mid-20s, I happened upon a weekly gathering in Toronto, “1001 Friday Nights of Storytelling.” In a former synagogue turned art school – with candlelight shining on works in progress – people told old tales, by heart and with heart. This was the beginning of many things in my life, and this is the community that folklorist Kay Stone has written about.

She shows that the Toronto storytelling circle is part of a worldwide movement. She talks with great storytellers and explores favourite stories with them. And she shares her own struggle with a witch story from Grimms’ Fairy Tales, and how, as she told it again and again, she changed the story and the story changed her.

By Kay Stone ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Burning Brightly as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Burning Brightly is the first full-length book treatment of professional storytelling in North America today. For some years there has been a major storytelling revival throughout the continent, with hundreds of local groups and centres springing up, and with storytelling becoming an important part of the professional training for librarians.

In the book, Stone explores storytelling through storytellers themselves, while providing enlightening commentary from her own background as a storyteller. Included in her analysis are informative discussions of organized storytelling communities, individual tellers, and tales. Issues such as the modern recontextualization of old tales and the role of women in…


Book cover of The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue & Vice for Box Office Success

Marshall Dotson Author Of Actions and Goals: The Story Structure Secret

From my list on story structure.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a student of story structure for decades. As a novelist, this initially started as a means to learn as much as I could from those with more experience than myself, but quickly grew into a passion. I read everything on the subject I could get my hands on and eventually began analyzing the plots of novels and movies for myself, amalgamating what I had learned with my own theories and insights which coalesced into a wholly new structural paradigm. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of working with many talented screenwriters and novelists to help them shape their stories using Six Act Structure. 

Marshall's book list on story structure

Marshall Dotson Why Marshall loves this book

As the title suggests, Williams’ book focuses on identifying the Moral Premise at the heart of your story idea and building around it. It’s a very thematic approach to storytelling. This Moral Premise essentially breaks the story into four components: a positive “virtue”, a negative “vice”, desirable consequences (success), and undesirable consequences (defeat). You can use this to create a simple structure of “Vice leads to undesirable consequences (defeat), while Virtue leads to desirable consequences (success)”. I'm admittedly oversimplifying it, but it's a great tactic to get to the heart of your story's theme and strengthen your narrative. 

By Stanley D. Williams ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Moral Premise as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Moral Premise reveals the foundational concept at the heart of all storytelling and successful box office movies. In concrete terms it explains how you can create your own success and, in the process, entertain, delight, challenge, and uplift this generation and the ones to come.


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Book cover of Pinned

Pinned by Liz Faraim,

“Rowdy” Randy Cox, a woman staring down the barrel of retirement, is a curmudgeonly blue-collar butch lesbian who has been single for twenty years and is trying to date again.

At the end of a long, exhausting shift, Randy finds her supervisor, Bryant, pinned and near death at the warehouse…

Book cover of Little Stories of Your Life: Find Your Voice, Share Your World and Tell Your Story

Claudia Amendola Alzraa Author Of The Cosmic Whispered Verses of Awakened Motherhood

From my list on books for spiritual mothers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I wear many hats in my life, but none matter as much as the hat: mama. As a clairaudient medium who works first-hand with mothers on their spiritual journeys, I feel as though I know what spiritually conscious parents hope to find and be moved by in the books they read because I know what my spirit needs during this wild and overwhelming adventure called motherhood. It can be an isolating path to walk, and these books not only felt like a helping hand during the rockiest moments but also like a warm hug when I needed it most. 

Claudia's book list on books for spiritual mothers

Claudia Amendola Alzraa Why Claudia loves this book

This is not even a motherhood-focused book, but it absolutely had to make this list. It completely transformed my motherhood journey. It helped me find my new identity in motherhood. It allowed me to recognize that I have stories to tell - about my experience as a mother and also about myself separate from motherhood.

It allowed me to take life a little slower and be more intentional and mindful in my living and parenting. It’s essentially what moved me to start writing my poetry book in the first place. It helped illuminate my life in a way I never noticed before. I am a better mother because of this book. 

By Laura Pashby ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Little Stories of Your Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Embrace the power of storytelling with Little Stories of Your Life. Start telling your own story, find your creative self and be more mindful.

Combining the wellbeing benefits of mindfulness, creativity and daily photography, this book shows you how to use words and photographs to capture precious little moments and how to share these in order to connect with others.

Each chapter explores the different ways you can tell your own stories, considers why you might choose to tell them and helps you to create a patchwork of tiny tales about your life, however small they might be. Throughout the…


Book cover of The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning
Book cover of The Emotion Thesaurus
Book cover of Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought

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Interested in storytelling, folklore, and Europe?

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