Guest blogger hubby here, chipping in as promised on the male perspective on Watership Down (aka “The Bunny Book”). Overall, it is an enjoyable book that can appeal to both men and women, but it’s not a quick vacation read (which seems to be my usual standard for books these days).
If you want to feel manly while reading this book, get one without a giant bunny rabbit on the cover. Or just rip off the cover (with your teeth).
The book starts off slow, with way too much emphasis on flora, fauna, and bunny character development. There is some intermittent action spliced in at the beginning. For a while there it was touch and go as to whether I would keep reading. Thankfully my sweet, loving wife egged me onwards. She was spot on that the author seems to improve as the book went on, focusing more and more on something called “plot.”
I enjoyed the stories he told, which were sort of like fables and bunny folklore. Some even had a religious bent. Some of the stories have Biblical allusions, from the perspective of the animal kingdom. The bunnies prayed to the sun, “Frith,” so at least they were monotheistic. And “the black rabbit” was Frith’s enemy (think “Basement Cat” for Amy’s usual readers). What was pretty cool is how it talks about the need for strong male leadership. A warren cannot survive without a good leader. Then, much like the church has elders and deacons, the “Chief Rabbit” had his supporting cast, the “owlsla” who were always looking for a good fight. Plus, what guy doesn’t like to read about bucks conquering and mating with does! (hehe) It’s PG rated, don’t worry.
I especially liked the glossary at the end which explains all the bunny words. My favorite is “hrududu” (a vehicle with an engine). Amy (ever the linguist) didn’t even know the glossary was there and tried to figure out what all the words meant on her own.
There are several battle scenes throughout the book with blood, guts, death, and covert operations. If I have to explain why this is important, this post might not be for you (go back and read Amy’s post). Without spoiling it though, the bunny war at the end is…epic.
Oh, and you’ll look at seagulls in a totally new light. Did you ever wonder what accent a seagull speaks with? Read the book and find out.
Two folks have reviewed Leland Ryken’s new book on translation. One knows little about the issue and the other knows a lot about it. See the difference. Also check out Bryan’s thoughts on the first review.
Update: It looks like Mike pointed out all the same posts. See what happens when you have a fancy Greek blog title and end up at the bottom of someone’s Google Reader?
Fireproof movie with Kirk Cameron spawns two books and an iPhone app
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Fireproof Still Turning Up the Heat
When it released, The Love Dare entered The New York Times bestsellers list at no. 2. After 52 weeks, The Love Dare continues to remain in the top five on the bestsellers list. Now a follow-up book, The Love Dare Day by Day, is being released which will extend the 40-day Love Dare to 365 days…
I recently read ‘A Million Miles In A Thousand Years’ by Donald Miller as part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers Program.
This book grabbed by attention before I even opened it up mainly due to Miller’s previous book, ‘Blue Like Jazz’. Donald Miller is an incredible writer than will take you on a journey you believe you are part of. He is funny, interesting and very transparent.
A Million Miles In Thousand Years is a peak into a man who realizes his life is not as interesting and fulfilled as one would hope for. This is a peak into the life of Donald Miller himself. He takes the reader on a journey through a process he went through in evaluating his own life. Through an opportunity to allow a movie to be made on the basis of his life story, Miller realized his own life story lacked a punch. After his character had been edited so much to make the movie interesting he decided to go on a quest to reinvent his life story so that he could leave a lasting impression on this earth.
In the beginning Miller is delightfully entertaining, making fun at his own expense and enticing us with his quirky character. By the end of the book it is impossible not to find yourself evaluating your own life. Having an urge to reinvent your own life story that is not only interesting and fulfilled, but a life story that will leave a lasting impression. Miller shares stories of people he met while editing his own life like Bob the Lawyer or Jim the organizer. My personal favorite was one about a man called Mike who kidnapped a girls cat so that he could get to speak with her.
This is a book that I would like everyone I know read. What a powerful thing it would be if everyone evaluated their lives like Don Miller did. If everyone realized they were put on this earth for more than just the average life. If you want inspiring today go and get this book. I promise you, once you pick it up you’ll read it until your eyes and brain can not process anymore words. One of the best books I have read this year.
If you would like a free copy of this book click on this link, ‘Free Book’
If you would like to read a sample chapter either click on the image below or click here
Finding ways to stay upbeat and positive through cancer treatment can be a challenge. Humor and cancer aren’t seen as two words that naturally fit together, but they most certainly can! This is THE funniest cancer book I’ve ever read and one of my all-time favorite book titles, hands down.
I’d Rather Do Chemo Than Clean Out the Garage, Fran diGiacomo
Admittedly, post-cancer diagnosis my sense of humor has gotten a bit warped. (Let’s just say at Halloween I’ve taken full advantage of my hairless status.) After spending fifteen years in and out of hospitals and various treatments, you need to find laughs and entertainment wherever you can, or else you’ll just go batty. This little book is stuffed full of this-sucks-so-let’s-make-the-best-of-it observations from someone who has been down this path herself. (And it’s HYS-terical!)
As the author explains in chapter one: “Where there is humor there is hope. It’s just that simple. A sick mind cannot help a sick body. Laughter frees the mind from the shackles of despair and, in turn, empowers the body. This is neither chemo voodoo nor pseudo psychobabble. I know firsthand that when you ride the cancer roller coaster, you are so frantically clutching the handlebars and wild-eyed with terror that you forget to enjoy the dizzying heights.
“Understandably, you have probably failed to see the beauty and humor around you. As a result, you tend to ignore the benefits of the chemo lifestyle!”
While some of the thoughts and ideas may not be realistic, they sure are fun to imagine. (Seriously, who hasn’t thought about using their Cancer Card to get out of stuff you just don’t want to do, then “guilting” someone into doing it for you? Come on, be honest!)
Have cancer in your life? Get this book. I, personally, found it to be hysterical. A few may not like it. Some won’t get it. Most will find it funny. And some will find it so inspiring that it get’s them through treatment with a smile on their face. Can you ask any more of book than that?
I just finished a pretty decent read called, Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter. This book was originally published in 1964 and reprinted with a new introduction in 2009. The 2009 edition is 308 pages.
I’ll admit that I haven’t read too many prison novels, in fact, this would be my first. I wasn’t sure what to expect, either. Thoughts of crazy jail-fights, rapes, tatoos, gangs, and the like were definitely not far from my mind when I picked the book out, and I’m still not really sure why I decided to go ahead and read it.
That being said, however, I’m glad I did. It was a truly touching, and very suprising book in some places. Carpenter does a really good job of getting the reader to empathize with Jack, and I think too, that by the middle of the novel we also understand a little bit of how he’s gotten where he is.
A surprising twist came from me when Carpenter leads us through Jack’s relationship with Billy. The lead-up when they were both kids, finding each other again at the prison, and then eventually becoming lovers of a sort. Even as a gay man, I felt that Carpenter made the reader feel Jack’s discomfort and anguish through it all; the dealing with it, the climactic point where Billy demands that Jack admit his love for him, and then the end of their relationship.
The end of the novel was equally well done. Carpenter leads us full circle, from the making of the criminal to the reformation of the criminal.
Journey to the Kingdom of Muse where the Puzzle King and his subjects enjoy putting together puzzles. But King Falmore has been so busy working on puzzles, he hasn’t made time to find a queen. Calling for the help of his sorcerer, Sorbo, the king instructs Sorbo to find him a queen–a queen who loves puzzles as much as he does.
Stumbling upon a book in his massive library, Sorbo soon discovers it’s not a book at all, but a golden box filled with millions of puzzle pieces; and Sorbo is certain he has the answer King Falmore is looking for. As everyone helps the king to put together the largest puzzle they have ever worked on, it soon becomes clear that Princess Daisy, the future queen of the Kingdom of Muse, has been trapped within the puzzle and only a person who truly loves her can put her back together again and break the curse.
What a fabulous first book from debut author Nina Cordelia Craft! In this unique and fun adventure, an entire kingdom is caught up in the search for a queen to rule alongside their beloved king. Based upon a story that the author created for her grandchildren, Craft has written an engaging and captivating story that all young lovers of fantasy, kings and queens, and puzzle solving will enjoy.
Hillie Dijk provides the charming cover art and inside illustrations for The Puzzle King. The cover art is stunning and the thumbnail can’t hope to do it justice.
This is a must read for young people and at only $9.95 it is an excellent value. I highly recommend The Puzzle King and look forward to Craft’s next book, The Puzzle Princess.
Sebastiao Salgado has been frequently labeled a humanist photographer with the documentary story telling capability of W. Eugene Smith. This Thames and Hudson book Sebastiao Salgado helps to support these attributes. It is a nice compact book that covers Salgado’s photographs made during his tenure with Magnum photographic agency, spanning 1980 to 1991.
To understand Salgado’s photographic style is to understand his intent, which is to tell a difficult story about people and have that story circulated in the largest mass media possible, which is usually the newspaper, not a magazine. To obtain the widest newspaper distribution also means photographing in a black & white medium. Additionally, a black & white photograph allows the reader to become more introspection and contemplative of the events featured.
Salgado also believes in spending more time developing a story, thus running into odds with Photo Editors who are looking for the quick “photo bite” to a rapidly developing “News” story. Thus his stories are more about the difficulties of making a meaningful living in the face of daunting hardships, and survival.
The introduction is delightful and informative written by Christain Caujolle, who states;
Reports…were only possible because the images were eager to bear witness; they refused to remain complacent and exceeded the bounds of photojournalism in its strictest form. They had a different tone; their lyricism imposed respect and rejected simple pity. Like much of Salgado’s subsequent work, these images traveled the world, were printed and exhibited and turned into symbols. These symbols in turn made their creator into a symbol of a particular attitude to photojournalism.
There is a very modern look to Salgado’s images, creating interesting form, structural dynamics, and deft tonalities to pull the readers attention into the image and follow through to make his point. In the India photograph below, there is an interesting balance between the lone woman on the left, gracefully holding out what appears as a wide cloth, but looking away from the ensuing activity to her rights. The other workers create a flow that seem to mover your attention into what you think is normal a rail car, until you notice that it is just suspended above the ground, sans wheels.
Likewise the goldmine open pits in Brazil, where the amount of human activity takes on the appearance of a flow of ants, until you fully realize that this is a flow of very hard working men. Salgado being ever the Economist (PhD in Paris), reflects that when this intense manual labor is replaced by machines, what does happen to all of the people who depended on this job for a living? Where do they go, what do they do then? These are the difficult questions that Salgado strives for us to consider.
This is a wonderful book that does not purport to tell the entire story of Salgado’s photographic career, but illustrates his stories that includes the goldmines of Brazil, the boat wreckers of Bangladesh, steelworkers of Ukraine, refugees of Ethiopia & Sudan, landmine victims of Cambodia and oil fires in Kuwait after the Gulf War.
To Thames and Hudson credit, this compact and handsome book is printed in duotone that benefits the printing of Salgado’s images. It has a stiff cover, but does not lay flat, thus the photographs that span the entire spread sometimes lose a little content in the gutter. The book is creatively laid out, but does require some twisting and turning to see all the images, but not a bad compromise to maximize the image within the available space. This book about Salgado is in PHOTOFILE series from Thames and Hudson that includes the photographers Henri Carter-Bresson, Man Ray and Helmut Newton.
Percy Jackson isn’t expecting freshman orientation to be any fun. But when a mysterious mortal acquaintance appears on campus, followed by demon cheerleaders, things quickly move from bad to worse.
In this fourth installment of the blockbuster series, time is running out as war between the Olympians and the evil Titan lord Kronos draws near. Even the safe haven of Camp Half-Blood grows more vulnerable by the minute as Kronos’s army prepares to invade its once impenetrable borders. To stop the invasion, Percy and his demigod friends must set out on a quest through the Labyrinth–a sprawling underground world with stunning surprises at every turn.
As always, I enjoyed this Percy Jackson book. They’re funny, they’re sweet, they’re lovably charming, and they’re the perfect mix of action and romance. I find no qualms about these books, other than the fact that they’re written at a middle school-age reading level.
(But then again, you’re talking to the girl who read 11th grade required reading books in 7th grade.)
I’m starting to get a bit worried though. A Percy/Annabeth pairing has been hinted at since the first book and now a new girl named Rachel has come into the picture. I am normally one for crack!pairings (see: Tassie, Plossie) but when it comes to books like these, I like to keep things traditional.
On another book-related note, I am going to try to get a summary, or Book in 15 Minutes, of Suspicion within the week.
“It hit me by surprise ten years ago. I woke up with a huge racket in my head and permanent whistling. Those background noises didn’t vanish; I wake up and sleep with voices and noises in my head as if I was renting beneath a terribly noisy neighbors. I visited all kinds of physicians but they were helpless since they had no idea about these symptoms; all that they said “You need to find ways to live with; there is nothing we can do to relieve your case.” It is always depressing when physicians say that they are helpless after lengthy consultations. It dawned on me that my physicians are not treating the causes but are trying to manage the consequences; they fear that I might behave like fools, become a nutcase, or worse a serial killer. What I really miss is my right for silence when I need it; I miss hearing nature’s cacophonies and birds singing. I am being told that progress in that field is on the way and that I need to be patient two more years” testified one of those ” acouphenes ” from the Greek roots “akourin” (hearing) and “phai nestai” (appear to).
Are you hearing a mower running while everyone is napping quietly? Has Archangel Gabriel visited you and is ordering you around? Those suffering of acouphenes call these loud background noises “ghost noises”. Physicians are not agreed on the main causes for these symptoms and the patients have to wait two more years for experiments to confirm the causes and the appropriate treatments.
Have you saved $5,000 with no chance for re-imbursement? Then, you might check in a health institution in Marseille (France) for a thorough check up where half a dozen of various specialized physicians will ponder on the results, including psychologists and psychoanalysts. This research institute is called “Institue Mediterraneen de recherche et de traitment des acouphenes”. You check in before dawn; four more acouphene patients are of the group; the nurses take blood samples (just to pile up the account), then the patients chat in the presence of a “specialist” and share experiences of their ailments and troubles. In the next 4 hours the patients undergo a dozen tests such as audited evoked potentials, audiogram, then an acoustic oto-emissions, electrocardiogram, echo Doppler of the carotids, radiographies of the head and the neck, then MRI of a few parts of the body and on. Next the patients are interviewed by an osteopath (for jaws anomalies), a psychiatrist (for psychic balance). Finally two physicians evaluate the results and suggest treatments.
What kinds of treatments are offered? It spans the gamut from removing excess wax, to hearing prosthesis or anything to compensate for loss of hearing. One of the treatments is to tone down or reduce the level or frequency of noises instances; the loss of hearing is stimulated by listening to a CD within the deficient audition frequency so that the audition brain has time to re-organize and be ready to capture the appropriate frequency level.
The second treatment is to normalize the influx of glutamate (transmitter of signals from the cilia in the cochlea to the brain nerves).
The third treatment is to appease the brain with magnetic induction so that to interfere with aberrant cortical activities. The patient wears a magnetic helmet that targets the auditory brain; acute depressive patients or suffering from chronic hallucinatory pains are also treated with magnetic fields.
The fourth treatment is used in the USA since 1960 and enjoying acceptance in Europe. It is called the neuro-feedback technique and intended to re-organize the auditory brain. The electro-encephalogram machine registers the cerebral activity; then the patient views the activity chart and modifies the tracing using a cursor up or down. It is one of the psychophysical techniques where the subject equilibrates the external signal to his perceived senses. Still, I have no idea how this can treat the patient except by assuming that the brain will undergo a better re-organization by two ways interactions.
The fifth treatment is the radical cochlear implant that sends signals to electrically stimulate the brain and decrease the acouphenes. Electrodes are planted in the head by the auditory brain and linked to box under the skin.
Whatever are the causes it all boils down to hearing loss in addition to whatever troubles and discomforts you may be suffering.
Note: There is increased rate of cases of dizziness symptoms; people over 50 are debilitated by cases named “labyrinthine” that affect the fluid in the inner ear. Either the fluid is infected with an accumulation of crystals or dirt that hampers its normal flow in the cochlea or the cilia in the cochlea have degraded by hardening or deterioration. Patients suffer for a week and are treated to dizziness pills until the infection goes away; the symptom recurs within 6 months and there are no cures for the causes.
It’s hard to believe that anything might be banned in today’s world. Between bawdy television shows, suggestive advertisements, and risque cinema, I honestly thought we had already broken through all thresholds of tolerance. Archaic as it may sound, there are people who still challenge books and move to have them banned.
September 26th through October 3rd is Banned Books Week (BBW). Sponsored by several literary societies and associations, BBW was designed to celebrate intellectual freedom and embrace the power of literature. The American Library Association (ALA) has a trove of information about Banned Books Week as well as compiled lists of books that have been challenged/banned over past years.
What is the difference between a banned book and a challenged book? To lift directly from the ALA, “A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.”
If you think about tangling with your local librarians, think again. The following definition of intellectual freedom by the American Library Association follows:
ALA actively advocates in defense of the rights of library users to read, seek information, and speak freely as guaranteed by the First Amendment. A publicly supported library provides free and equal access to information for all people of that community. We enjoy this basic right in our democratic society. It is a core value of the library profession.
So really, how much does this affect me? Did you read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini? Not only did I love this book, but empathetically learned a tremendous amount about both Afghanistan and the Taliban. According to amazon.com’s Recently Banned and Challenged Books of 2008, it has been both challenged and removed from several high school curricula. Prep, The Lovely Bones? Maybe not high-brow literature, but are these titles worth challenging? Can you imagine being stripped of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, or Native Son just to name a few?
What this week is all about is the protection of your rights. Librarians, teachers, and booksellers go to great lengths to feature threatened books, reiterating the importance of your personal freedom to choose. This is a nationwide celebration of awareness, so check your local library and book stores for Banned Book Week events.
I finished reading The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein earlier this week. I’ve been delaying my review because I’m not sure how I feel about the book.
Sometimes, I love the book others I’m like really. I think it’s the ending. I’m not really sold on the happily ever after. It’s not believable. I guess a book from the point of view of a dog isn’t believable, but the story was really well told. I enjoyed the book and loved Enzo, the dog that wanted so bad to have thumbs!
I cheered for Enzo and I loved his humor, but the book for me was ruined by the last chapter.
“Very gently. Like there are eggshells on your pedals,” Denny always says, “and you don’t want to break them. That’s how you drive in the rain.”
Enzo tells a fascinating storyteller. I often found myself talking to my dog or reading to him. I feel like I see my dog a little more human. That’s really what I took away from the book. Although, I think my dog has over come his need for thumbs. He gets his way with out ever needing them.
I looked at the zebra, still perched on his throne of lifeless animal carcasses, and i growled at it very softly but ominously. And the demon knew. The demon knew not to
“Sometimes our gospel is just too small.
If we’re not careful, we can take a story about Jesus rescuing creation, and reduce it into a story about me.” -Andrew Wilson
‘God*Stories: Explorations in the Gospel of God‘ by Andrew Wilson is a book for the new believer with a mind to discover the many beautiful biblical accounts in an exceptional way. It is also a book for the seasoned believer and provides a fresh, innovative view.
It’s a series of reflections on God as revealed in the bible from beginning to end. It’s reflecting on these accounts with current illustrations and references displaying reverence and an awe for the mighty works of our glorious God.
Andrew Wilson writes God’s gospel, His ‘Good News’, offering them in as 5 act play, which are:
• Creation and Fall
• Israel and History
• Poets and Prophets
• Jesus and Rescue
• Restoration and Hope
“It’s an epic love story that starts with betrayal and ends with a wedding, but it’s also a thriller where the hero fights to save the world against impossible odds. It’s massive. It’s a sweeping drama of GodStories from start to finish.” -Andrew Wilson
Biblical events are described using current relevant topics and several different Bible versions (ESV, NASB, KJV, NKJV, and the NIV) creating a very easy to read, conversational style.
Another point I found interesting was his description of his purpose for writing this book is his reference to the ‘story beneath the story’ relating it to popular movies providing a connection to the reader using examples from the entertainment industry, popular social media, and ideas on culture.
Intermittently listed are sections called ‘Coffee Breaks’. These sections include a wealth of additional areas to study, read, learn, listen and view other resources.
In these ‘Coffee Break’ sections, the reader will find recommended reading from great minds (Hudson Taylor, George Whitfield, Elisabeth Elliot, Roy Hattersley, John Piper, and Max Turner); Prayers; Poems; Dramas that can viewed on youtube.com; Hymns; and references to the powerful preachers from the past.
I found this a wonderful read. I recommend it highly as a personal resource or a gift to a new or seasoned believer.
About the Author Andrew Wilson holds degrees in theology from Cambridge University and London School of Theology. His passion is to communicate the extraordinary truths of God. Andrew teaches internationally and is a deacon at Kings Church Eastbourne in the United Kingdom, where he leads training and development.
God Stories: Explorations in the Gospel of God
By Andrew Wilson / David C. Cook
# Paperback: 304 pages
# Publisher: David C. Cook; New edition (July 1, 2009)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1434765393
# ISBN-13: 978-1434765390
ok i first read this book in 6th grade for the battle of the books team. i really liked it. im one of those poeple that like old books. and this one isnt even too old it was published in 1960. so i bring this book up because we’re reading it in Enrichment and we did a fun project on it today. the book is about Scout (the narrator) who starts out being a 6 year old, tough, spunky girl. she has an older brother named Jem who is 10, her father Atticus, and her caretaker/cook Calpurnia. she explains life in the town of Maycomb, Alabama (fictional) in the 1930’s, right in the middle of segregation and the depression. she describes events in her own point of view from the people who live in the town and thier scandolous ways, to the rape case her father is on about a black man supposedly raping a white woman (her father is a lawyer). the book has some ‘’strong language” (i dont think so lol but thats me) and may offend some people but hey, thats what its for. so thats pretty much it off the top of my head. when we get deeper into it i will remember stuff and maybe update this. bye!!
ok so im a pretty cool nerd. i like reading. i love it!! shoot me already. but i figured i should talk about more meaningful things, so why not write REAL reviews about certain titles. i talk about them all the time anyways. might give my friends a break cuz they hate this habit of mine so much. so, here we go!!!
P.S. idk how many times im going to do this. or if im going to do it for every book i read. all i know is when i remember about it, its up here.
David Naugle serves as professor of philosophy at Dallas Baptist University, Dallas, Texas. He has contributed a great deal to the study and history of philosophy. His book Worldview: The History of a Concept guides the reader through a development of the idea of worldview. This review examines the first six chapters, summarizing, critiquing, and interacting with each.
Chapter 1
Naugle begins in chapter 1 by tracing the development of worldview throughout protestant evangelicalism. He asserts from the outset, “Conceiving of Christianity as a worldview has been one of the most significant developments in the recent history of the church (4).” Christians have always had a grand view of how the world worked, but only in recent history have they thought in terms of a worldview. Naugle examines this development by summarizing the writings of James Orr and Abraham Kuyper.
James Orr first presented the idea of viewing Christianity as a worldview when he delivered the 1891 Kerr lectures at the Presbyterian Theological College in Edinburgh, later published as The Christian View of God and the World. In these lectures he stated that Christianity must be defended as a whole and not simply in a piece mill fashion. This defense must be centered on a solid orthodox Christology. He rightly views Christ as the creator, sustainer, and climax of history. Viewing Christianity as a worldview provided Orr with the opportunity to engage unbelievers on every level. Orr’s lectures had a great impact on many great thinkers including Abraham Kuyper.
Abraham Kuyper set forth his understanding of Christianity as a worldview when he delivered the Stone Lectures at Princeton University. Kuyper specifically focuses on viewing Calvinism as a worldview in his lectures. He rejects traditional apologetics and says that they do not advance the gospel one bit. He discusses in his lectures how Calvinism can bring insight to the three big ideas everyone deals with: God, man, and the world. Where Orr focused more on viewing Christ as the center of everything, Cuyper directed his attention to establishing Calvinism as a worldview.
Naugle further develops Kuyper’s thought by focusing on one of his disciples, Herman Dooyeweerd. Two different aspects of his understanding of worldview can be seen. At first he followed in the footsteps of Kuyper, but later on he questioned the validity of Kuyper’s approach. According to Dooyeweerd one must first “expose the under lying religious condition that is determinative of all theoretical activity and cultural endeavor (26).” The condition of the human heart for Dooyeweerd is the only precondition for philosophy. The state of one’s heart will determine how he or she views the world. Dooyeweerd finally concludes that religion and philosophy differ in several ways; therefore, one’s religious convictions are not his worldview.
The chapter then concludes with a discussion of Francis A. Schaeffer. Schaeffer’s main contribution was that everyone had a worldview. Everyone had to have a worldview in order to function in the world. He asserted that the Christian worldview is the only one which will stand up to all of the questions facing the world. These four thinkers, for Naugle, shaped the protestant evangelical understanding of worldview.
Chapter 2
Chapter two traces the development of Christianity as a worldview through Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Lawrence Cunningham explains a Catholic worldview by discussing four themes. First, he sees the world as a gift. God created the world and has given it to humans to manage and enjoy. Second, he deals with the Catholic view of sin. All of the wickedness and evil present in the world flows directly out of the original sin committed by Adam. Because of this original sin wickedness is a part of the human condition. Third, he examines the idea of Christian realism. This notion attempts to bridge the gap between the goodness of creation and the wickedness of the human heart. Fourth, he summarizes an understanding of the Christian’s experience with time. He sees God acting in special terms throughout history. History is moving towards something. In recent years these ideas have been made accessible to the broader Catholic community. People are encouraged to adopt a worldview that is distinctly Catholic.
The worldview of the Eastern Orthodox church presented in Naugle’s book centers on the theme of food. The human is seen as a hungry being and the world is set before him as the provision for his need. In Eastern Orthodoxy the simple act of eating is seen to be communion with God. Humans can reobtain their priestly position by taking the Lord’s Supper.
Chapter 3
In chapter three Naugle traces the history of the word weltanschauung. Immanuel Kant coined the term in his work Critique of Judgment. Kant understood the word to be the sense perception of the world. Weltanschauung was quickly adopted by many German and other European thinkers, and its definition began to broaden.
The chapter next turns its attention to the development of the word in German and other European languages. Fichte applied the word using Kant’s original understanding; however, his younger colleague Shelling began to alter the meaning. Schelling saw weltanschauung to be the product of the unconscious intellect. The term was taken up by many German thinkers to mean many different things. It was seen to be a companion to philosophy. In the early twentieth-century the word reached its climax.
When the word reached the English speaking world it was seen as both a lone word and a copy word. In many ways it is seen to be equal with the term worldview. Weltanschauung as its own word has not received much interest from the philosophical world in recent years. Most of its development has taken place among the social-sciences. This chapter provided a brief, but helpful, summery of how the word developed throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
Chapter 4
Chapter four shifts from talking about the history of a word and begins to discuss the philosophical history of worldview. This chapter focuses on the development of weltanschauung in nineteenth-century Europe by examining the writings of G. W. F. Hegel, Soren Kierkegaard, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Hegel formulated the ides of the absolute spirit and alternative conceptual frameworks. According to him both individuals and nations have weltanschauungs. Every individual and nation has some understanding of the nature of the universe and how people function within this understanding. It would be interesting to hear what Hegel would say about contemporary America. Does America have a national weltanschauung that incorporates everyone? It seems that the answer to that is no. Hegel would say that the worldviews of Americans are developed through the culture in which they live.
Soren Kierkegaard not only adopted the word weltanschauung but he also began to speak of one’s lifeview. He defined lifeview as, “The duty and importance of the individual to understand himself, his premises and his conclusions, his conditionality and his freedom (74).” He focuses on lifeview because each man must answer as an individual for the existence of the world and the meaning of life. Because man must answer as an individual Kierkegaard does not want people to rely on culture or religion to tell him the answer to life’s biggest questions.
Wilhelm Dilthey wanted to develop a weltanschauung for the human sciences. For him a worldview served to answer the question of life. He challenged people to try and understand life and what their role should be in it. Every worldview must be grounded in life itself. It seems that Dilthey would also say that no worldview is absolute and should not stand above the others. He however, does say that many things in life are common from person to person. For this reason people’s worldviews will have much in common.
Friedrich Nietzsche saw the breakdown of Christianity and the death of God and turned to naturalism. He presents two foci for understanding the world, nature and the ongoing historical process. He says that people are products of, subordinate to, and dependent upon the worldview of their culture. From this worldview one’s perspective on life is developed. For Nietzsche a distinct connection between worldview and perspectivism exist.
Chapter 5
Naugle continues his summery of the philosophical history of a worldview by taking a look at its development in the twentieth-century. His summarization of the twentieth-century spans two chapters. Chapter five examines the thought of Edmund Husserl, Karl Jaspers, and Martin Heidegger. Husserl set science above the relativism of worldviews. He saw philosophy to be an objective science and thought that the notion of a worldview threatened this objectivity. He rejects historicism and weltanschauung and sets philosophical science as the standard. He does not realize that his understanding of philosophical science is a weltanschauung.
Jaspers analyzes the concept of a worldview from two perspectives, attitudes and world pictures. Attitudes are, “Formal patterns and structures of mental existence (121).” These include different emotional responses and are developed through one’s culture. World pictures are, “The whole of the objective mental content an individual possesses (121-22).” According to Jaspers a person encounters the objective world through their own personal attitudes and form world pictures about said world.
Heidegger primarily dealt with the ontological question of the nature of being. He has three significant aspects to his understanding of weltanschauung. First, is his review of Jaspers book in which he critiques Jaspers’s understanding of what human beings really are and he sets forth his own understanding of what existence is. Second, he attempts to deal with the problem between philosophical science and weltanschauung. He concludes that all philosophy is worldview philosophy. Third, he tried to assert that the notion of a worldview is a recent development.
Chapter 6
Naugle concludes the first half of his book by examining the second part of the twentieth-century. In this chapter he deals with Ludwig wittgenstein, Donald Davidson, and other postmodern thinkers. Wittgenstein fully embraced the notion of a holistic worldview. He did not want just another interpretation of the world, so he began to see that one’s worldview is determined by the grammer and language one uses. He wanted to label his approach as a world picture and tried to distance himself from the idea of weltanschauung. He however, could not accomplish this task. Wittgenstein did not want to set forth a worldview because often a weltanschauung presents itself as the way of seeing the world. He was much more postmodern in his approach and just wanted to present a way of seeing the world.
Davidson seeks to understand how different languages or cultures can develop different concepts of seeing the world. He is extremely relative in his approach. He says that something may be true in one concept and not true in another. It seems that he would say that these conflicts would not exist if one could properly translate from one language to another. Somehow he links languages to conceptual schemes and says that if languages can be translated then so can concepts.
The postmodern movement has decided to jettison the whole notion of a worldview. These thinkers reject the ability of one to establish a worldview and say that it is the right way to think. Many of these thinkers attempt to deconstruct language and say that it has no meaning. One postmodern thinker Naugle talks about is Michel Foucault. Foucault states, “Every human discourse is a power play, every social arrangement oppressive, and every cultural setting tyrannical (183).” He saw every interaction among humans as one person trying to gain an advantage over the other. He ultimately says that nothing exists and if it does humans cannot know it. They cannot know because they are constrained by the power plays of people above them. Knowledge and truth are used by people to get what they want.
Conclusion
Naugle has provided a brief, but thorough, history of the development of weltanschauung. He follows the formation of the word, and then he examines the philosophical history of the concept. He clearly establishes that the understanding of what a worldview is has changed drastically over the past two centuries. Postmodern thinkers view the world quite differently than did their modernist counterparts. By tracing the history of the weltanschauung Naugle guided his reader through the plethora of writings related to the subject and helped him understand how the concept has arrived at its present state.
This summer I read all of Malcolm Gladwell’s books: The Tipping Point, Blink, and The Outliers. Though I can recommend them all as fantastic books, my favorite was Blink.
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
by Malcolm Gladwell
Blink is a book about first impressions – the adaptive unconscious part of our brain that assimilates information and makes snap judgements.
“The difference between good decision making and bad has less to do with how much information we process than with our ability to focus on a few, particular details.”
The purposes behind Blink are stated in the book:
“To convince you of a simple fact: decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.”
To answer the question, “When should we trust our instincts, and when should we be wary of them?”
“The third and most important task of this book is to convince you that our snap judgments and first impressions can be educated and controlled. . . . Just as we can teach ourselves to think logically and deliberately, we can also teach ourselves to make better snap judgments.”
The example in Blink that blew my mind was the experiments done by John Gottman. The topic was on ‘thin-slicing’ – the idea that less information is sometimes more accurate than more. John Gottman did an experiment with couples. He would tell them to go into a room by themselves and have them discuss “any topic in their marriage that had become a point of contention”. The couple was hooked up to sensors to determine their heart rate, etc. Gottman found that according to his formula, he could predict with 95% accuracy whether the couple would divorce in the next 15 years, by watching the couple go back and forth for one hour. If he only watched them for 15 minutes, he was 90% accurate.
I realize that may sound ridiculous, but his conclusions actually make a lot of sense. He categorized the different emotions he saw displayed in the conversation, such as neutralality, anger, or whining. Gottman found that there were four emotions that predicted failure for the marriage. He nicknamed them ‘the Four Horsemen’: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. He has found that the key factor is contempt.
What Gottman is saying, is you can know a couple very well, but if you don’t know what to look for, you might not have a clue about the actual state of their marriage. It all comes down to knowing how to accurately thin-slice.
Another really cool concept that Gladwell talks about in Blink is the IAT – Implicit Association Test. These tests ‘study the role our unconscious (or implicit) associations play in our beliefs and behavior’. I’m not going to explain the IAT much further, as I find it rather complicated to put into words; but if you’d like to see how they work, go to www.implicit.harvard.edu. I’ve played around on the site some, I find it intriguing. It’s like the ultimate personality test!
Blink is made up of dozens of fascinating examples like these: how this concept plays out in salespeople, in policemen, in dating relationships – put simply, it’s a study of snap judgments – and it’s fascinating! I couldn’t put it down.
You can purchase the book on Amazon, or read more about Blink and excerpts from the book at Malcolm Gladwell’s website.
The American History Cookbook by Mark Zanger covers a wide range of American history cookery from the pre-colonial to school lunches. Many of the recipes were selected from historical cookbooks with the intention to illuminate techniques used by the people of the time, and thus history. The book is arranged chronologically by time periods (50 Chapters in total) and each chapter opens with a brief historical background then gives a typical recipe of that period. The recipes include detailed instructions on how to prepare the dish authentically with instructions for substitutes for hard to find ingredients and difficult techniques.
The American History Cookbook is available as an eBook through Greenwood Digital Collection database. To access this resource go to the library homepage, select databases, then scroll down to Greenwood Digital Collection and choose your location (either on or off campus). Once you are in the database, click on “American History” subject heading to expand your options, then expand “American History (General)” and you’ll see The American History Cookbook.
Classes are back in session and we’re having a really busy term around here! We’re so excited about having our students back, and we just love the buzz of people in the halls around here. I’ve noticed that since school started my passion for reading has waned just a tad. Not that I still don’t love a great story- because I do- it’s just that I’m a little tired when my quiet reading time comes along and so I don’t really want to invest too heavily in long stories that need a lot of brain power. Instead, I want something light with a great narrative and larger than life heroes. I was bemoaning my lack of great reading material today when Chris, our new evening staff person, reminded me of our really great graphic novel collection.
I’m glad Chris is here, for lots of reasons, but tonight I was especially glad because he shook me out of the “too busy to read” doldrums. Now, I’m taking home a graphic novel called Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters by Mike Grell. I haven’t ever read Green Arrow before, so I’m looking forward to the story. I’ll definitely post a review for you but the moral of my little post is:
Feeling too busy to read? Try visiting Chris, or any of the rest of the library staff, we’ll find something that will interest you just enough to make your reading time the best for you!
Title: Love is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community
Author: Andrew Marin
Rating: Outstanding
Date Read: June 2009
About the Author (From Amazon):
Andrew Marin’s life changed radically in 2000 when, during three consecutive months, his three best friends all came out to him. A self-described homophobic, straight, Bible-believing, conservative Christian alpha-male, Marin’s world was rocked by the revelations of his friends. Determined to find some answers to his crisis, he made the dramatic choice to become what he calls “the gayest straight dude in America,” and followed God’s call to move to a predominantly gay neighborhood in Chicago and immerse himself in the gay and lesbian community. His book, Love Is an Orientation, shares the lessons learned, experiences had and lives touched in the eight years since.
My Review:
This book lived up to its hype. It will blow your mind, especially if you have friends who are gay. I wanted to go running up to them and say “why didn’t you tell me this way of discussing this was so offensive to you?!?” Marin’s point eventually comes down to the idea that we are all on a journey and we don’t need to be judging others who may be on a different part of the journey than we are. Reminds me a bit of Brennan Manning’s Ragamuffin Gospel in that sense – that we can’t expect people to change overnight, and God doesn’t expect change to come that easily either. The Church has for too long claimed that they wanted to reach the gay community, but has only succeeded in driving them further away. Here’s hoping that the new generation of the Church, armed with Marin’s book will succeed in drawing this segment of the population back to Christ.
Ruins clutter the landscape. They disrupt farming, buildings, roads, dams, and taking possession of what you own or plan to own. The rule is that if you cannot plow over it, then recycle it for building material. And in the course of time when you’ve made your fortune, you will have time to travel to see the historical ruins in foreign places, those ruins now made profitable by tourists. Tourism is a cultural blessing, but not in one’s own backyard.
Timothy R. Pauketat, secure in both research and field experience, has written Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi, an empire capital that held power over the middle of our country for 300 years beginning in 1050. It is a cultural shame that we were late in recognizing the abandoned and forgotten city that degradation took all but a ghost of it away. The degradation by time and nature combined with what western development did to it are understandable. In its place we created St Louis MO, no small town accomplishment. It is the Gateway To The West.
The error of today is that students, parents, political and cultural leaders–actually all of us regardless of where we live in America know so little about the empire that lives on in the culture and character of Native Americans. We should be so proud of Cahokia that every student in America can tell the story.
Despite the poise with which Pauketat pulls the story together, it is very evident that he is a conductor presenting a symphony from a mangled, incomplete score. Never mind, the music is wonderful and unique, not easy to hum but easy to appreciate. Hopefully our government at all levels, our research universities, and our cultural foundations will give financial support to the professionals who can bring additional pieces of the musical score.
This is not Pauketat’s first effort to tell the Cahokia story as the footnotes make clear, and is meant for a general readership, the kind found off a university campus. It is the latest in The Penguin Library Of American Indian History. If the earlier titles measure up to this one, you may want to check out the series. Read a couple of chapters, then try to get a pickup game of chunkey going. You can email me from your hospital bed. Charles Marlin
John Pipkin’s debut novel, Woodsburner, is built on the intriguing historical event of Henry David Thoreau accidentally setting fire to 300 acres of Concord woods in 1844. Though one of the novel’s main characters is Thoreau, it is actually the lives of other townspeople who take center stage and really steal the show.
The novel circulates among a variety of third person perspectives, each linked together by their observations of the oncoming fire. In real time the novel spans less than a day, but with each new character Pipkin brings their history and back story to bear, allowing him to look at the big question of what role fate and chance plays in a man’s life.
When Thoreau reflects on his brother’s death, he says, “It is clear to him that one man’s death erases not only that man’s possibilities but all the possibilities that might have ensued from those, like the wake of a boat slicing through waves that might otherwise have reached the shore. Every man lives among the deaths of all who came before” (174).
It’s this interconnectedness that Pipkin shows, whether through bookseller Eliott Calvert selling pencils made by Thoreau’s father or selling books to Emma, Oddmund Hus’s secret love. Oddmund is the best character, one deserving of an entire book. He is Thoreau before Thoreau is, living alone in the woods before his love for Emma leads him to take work with her husband so he can be nearby. His arrival to America is stunning and tragic, and his story is what Pipkin is really about—the various people who came to America to start over and get away from some Old World, whether literal, internal, or figurative. In the end, Thoreau mistakenly calls him Young America, and Oddmund’s transformation, spurred by the fire, does give hope.
The novel also follows the creepy preacher man Caleb Dowdy, who sort of imitates Jonathan Edwards through a 21st century lens that tends to mock such views. His visitation by Anezka and Zalenka is haunting.
And Calvert’s story is also an American one—rather than religion he represents the tension between art and commerce as a struggling playwright and bookstore owner. It’s hard not read some of today’s bookselling woes into his plight, as Calvert eventually decides to add a coffeehouse to his business since books alone can’t keep his wife in the lifestyle she demands.
Thoreau himself is the least interesting, perhaps because Pipkin limited himself to historical events in that case. But he overthinks, sometimes arriving at pithy aphorisms in unrealistic ways. He is flawed and earnest, though, so somewhat forgivable.
The book was also recently nominated for the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction.
“That Dan Brown,” I thought to myself several times as I read this book. “What an imagination.”
Credit where it is due. Dan Brown has a singular ability to take a great many likely very unrelated things and use them to authoritatively build a construct where none should exist. He managed to create a cute little Path of Illumination in “Angels and Demons” and a Grail conspiracy in “The da Vinci Code” (where he somehow never got around to mentioning that Grail stories don’t appear until the 12th century).
Now in his latest book, he creates a bizarre Masonic conspiracy that involves a McGuffin so great it could Change The Whole World. The CIA is also involved, for some reason. Also, a man gets his hand cut off, and Robert Langdon runs around staring, at various times, in wonder, in awe, in stunned silence and bewilderment.
The book carries Langdon on a chase around Washington, DC, on one rather memorable Sunday night during the football playoffs. A mysterious call, apparently on behalf of a friend of his, sends him on his mission to apparently uncover some great Masonic secret or, depending on what’s happening at any given moment in the story, not uncover some great Masonic secret.
This book was pretty insufferable, really. I rather liked “Angels and Demons” and “The da Vinci Code” had it’s moments, but this book didn’t really. From the moment the concept of “noetic sciences” was introduced (you ever hear of “The Secret”? It’s that), my eyes began rolling and didn’t stop until the end, and then that was only because I think whatever muscle controls the rolling had gotten tired.
There’s so much of this book that just doesn’t make sense. Take the involvement of the CIA. What appears to be their internal affairs office spends much time running around DC, sending black ops people to do things and generally pushing around folks from other departments (hilariously the director of this office tells someone else, employed by an entirely different branch of the government, that she outranks him. This is like the Chicago PD’s internal affairs department saying they outrank an NYC police officer). Of course the CIA isn’t allowed to operate on American soil, but since we all “know” they do anyhow, Brown has them do so in this book. There’s no real reason for them to. He could’ve had it be the FBI, and that would’ve made a lot more sense and not strained credibility, but whatever.
And then there’s the noetic sciences nonsense. Did you know thoughts have mass? I didn’t, and I’m willing to bet this is news to most physicists, too. Brown likes to spout off a bunch of “scientific” theories in the book as though they are fact, which gets really irritating after a bit.
Also laughable is someone sustaining a very, very serious injury for which they have had no medical treatment, as well as dealing with the after affects of torture, and a serious psychological jolt… and a couple hours later this same person is traipsing about Washington without a care in the world or any real medical attention. Right.
There’s one line towards the very end of the book where someone says, “I have witnessed human minds affecting the physical world in myriad ways.” You know what? I have, too. Those minds power hands, for example. I suggest you use your hands to not pick up this book…
… ok, that’s a little strained, but you get the idea.
The book gets two stars because it held my attention (when my eyes weren’t a spinnin’), but it gets one star for everything else. Not worth buying.
The Write Time & Place is very pleased to welcome this week’s Cover Corner guest, best selling author, Lavada Dee. Lavada’s new Siren-Bookstrand release, Forever Love debuts today. Lavada’s current book, For Love or Money topped the best seller list almost instantly after being released. Check out both of her books below. Make sure you leave Lavada your comments and feedback at the end of the post. ~Valerie
Forever Love:
“I admire women who escape abusive and violent relationships to build a new life for themselves. I can imagine their sacrifices, fears and loneliness. I wanted to write a romance around the dark side of their life to bring out the hope of happy endings.” ~ Lavada ~
Roman Ragazzi, criminologist turned best selling author, works as a special investigator for the prosecutor’s office. When Bethany Towers is assigned to prosecute his latest case he has a problem. He thought he’d gotten over his love for her, but finds out a love like theirs isn’t all that easy to walk away from.
Bethany knows she’ll be working closely with Roman, and she’s not sure she can keep her professional and personal feelings separate. She’s loved him for what seems like forever and knows she always will. Once he felt the same way, then she made a decision that changed their lives. Will telling him the whole story restore his love, and what about his trust? She wants it all.
Excerpt:
As she slowly inched away from him, his hand tightened, pulling her hard against him. The breath she’d been holding came out in a soft groan of pleasure. Giving up the pretense of wanting to get up she rolled over and pulled herself up so she could reach his mouth. Lowering her mouth, she kissed him. He might not have been fully awake, but his senses evidently didn’t need his mind to react. Bethany gave a sigh as his tongue parted her lips and he deepened the kiss. He found the clasp on her skirt and slid it down. She helped him remove the rest of her clothes until all she had on were the thigh highs. His voice was whiskey rough. “Leave them on.”
With frustration, she worked the buttons on his shirt. He wouldn’t stay still long enough for her to get them undone. “Help me. I want to feel your skin against mine.”
At her softly spoken words, he took her hands away and finished the job himself. Pulling her back against him he said, “You feel so good, so soft, so….mine.”
It had to be early because the room was dark. Rolling away, Roman opened the door to the nightstand and took out protection. At same time, he snapped the lamp on.
It all took little more than a second, but long enough for Bethany to come fully awake and have second thoughts. A blush spread across her face and her voice shook. “I know I started this, but it probably isn’t a good idea.”
* * * *
Roman couldn’t believe what he heard. He’d woken up to all of Bethany. She’d been open and passionate as she’d kissed him awake and almost melted into him. Now, it wasn’t a good idea? With a groan he fell back across the bed. Shielding his eyes with his forearm, he willed himself to gain control. It didn’t work. With a curse he rolled over intending to get up, but at his first sight of her, he knew he couldn’t walk away from this. Her hair fell in sexy disarray and her lips were full and soft from their kisses. When she nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, he groaned and reached over, drawing her down with him on the bed.
She started to say something, but Roman put the tip of his finger against her mouth, silencing her. “Shush, no more second guessing. No more, all right?”
Bethany shook her head in assent and, snuggling against him, reached up and covered his mouth with hers. “I need you now. Please.” She breathed into his mouth.
“Make sure, because in another second I’m going to be beyond stopping. Beyond thinking. Tell me again you want me. You want this.”
“I do. I want you so much I ache.” She nipped on the lobe of his ear letting her breath tease his neck. “Please, I need to feel you inside me, moving and . . .” She broke of with a soft moan.
Romans soft laugh filled the room as he said, “Damn, I love it when you talk like this.”
Slipping his hand between her legs, he could feel that she was more than ready. Good, ready was good. This wouldn’t to take long and that was a shame. Click to continue reading.
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For Love or Money:
“One of my favorite movies is Pretty Woman. In this story, Megan, like Julia Roberts character in the movie, is out of her element in the world of the hero. To me, a must for a good story is being engaged in the emotion of the characters. Megan and Alex will bring you in as they struggle for their happily ever after.” ~ Lavada Dee ~
Wealthy hotel owner Alexander Colin King wants a child and heir. He is used to getting what he wants and he wants Megan Moore for the mother of his baby. Alex knows he can make his proposal easier if he takes a more traditional approach, but he will be honest with Megan. No courting, no wine and roses. This is going to be a business proposal.
When Alex presents her with his business proposal, Megan at first thinks he’s asking her to be a surrogate mother, but he quickly makes it clear he intends to create a child the traditional way.
Excerpt:
Alex took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy, but he was used to getting what he wanted, and he wanted Megan. He knew he could make it easier if he took a more traditional approach, but from the beginning, he’d known he would be honest with her. No courting, no wine and roses. This was going to be a business proposal. However, he hadn’t factored Rebecca’s health into his plan. The way things were playing out, his proposal was going to be more brutal than honest. Megan worked for him, and now more than ever she needed her job. He held the winning cards. With Rebecca’s heart condition, Megan didn’t have much of a choice other than the one he intended to offer her unless she filed a harassment suit. If she did, he knew with her limited funds, and the legal counsel he had at his disposal, he would win. He also knew that if she went that route he’d instruct his attorney to settle. Either way Rebecca was going to get the best medical treatment money could buy.
Physically, she was everything he could want. She was a medium height of five foot five, and her figure was perfectly proportioned. She didn’t flaunt her looks, and dressed on the conservative side, though it didn’t matter, with her violet eyes and sensual mouth, she could be wearing a gunnysack.
Alex watched that mouth now, and was tempted to reach over and trace her lip with his finger. Not tonight, though. She wouldn’t let him tonight, but by next week, if he had his way…
Alex lifted his coffee, taking the time to gather his thoughts. He anticipated the impact of his proposal, and his heart thudded with the challenge. “I know it’s been a long day, and you’re tired. In truth, it would be better if we could put off talking until tomorrow. However, with Rebecca’s medical condition, we don’t have the luxury of time. The next few days are going to be hard.”
Alex stood up and walked across the room. “I heard most of what the doctor told you about Rebecca’s condition. I can guess the rest.”
Agitated, he ran his hands through his hair and sat back down on the couch. “Unless I’m mistaken, King’s Crown employs you as a casual employee, which means you’re not covered with the company’s health insurance.”
Megan’s eyes looked bruised. “No. You’re right; I don’t have any insurance.”
Standing up, she visibly pulled herself together. “I really have to go. This is my problem, not yours. I appreciate your kindness in stopping in at the hospital and for dinner, but it’s getting late and, as you pointed out, the next few days are going to be stressful, to say the least.”
Alex started to answer, but Megan interrupted him. “I know I don’t have sick leave either. Hopefully, Rebecca will recover quickly, and I can return to work before you have to replace me.”
Alex grated out his next word’s with a harsh tone. “I’ll take care of Rebecca’s medical expenses.”
Megan scooted to the edge of the sofa. “Why? You hardly know me. Look, I don’t want to be rude, but I can handle this.”
“Yeah, right. In the meantime, the clock is ticking for your daughter. If you try to get State Aid, which you no doubt can, it’s going to take time.”
Alex knew he was being brutal but continued on anyway. “Megan, you have to know what money can buy. Look around you. Hell, that car out there cost just under three hundred thousand. If I finance the operation, Rebecca will have the best. That means the best doctors and the best accommodations. Do you honestly think you can provide what she needs?”
He paused. “Well maybe what she needs, but is that all you want? To provide only the bare necessities?”
Megan blinked back tears. “So, what are you proposing, a loan? It will take me awhile to pay it back, but I have a friend who can help me get an extra job that pays well.”
“And who takes care of Rebecca while you hold down two jobs?”
Megan lowered her gaze to the floor. “This job is nights, after Rebecca is in bed, and our neighbor who watches her now can just spend the night. Besides…” Megan broke off. Taking a deep breath, she continued. “Besides, I wouldn’t have to work every night. Kel…my friend, says I’d have to work only a couple of nights a week.”
She didn’t have to finish the sentence for him to know she was talking about Kelly. Alex clenched his teeth shut on the nasty reply he wanted to make. He’d spent most of the day with King’s Crown security and the police. To add to his frustration, he’d wanted to fire Kelly outright, but they’d convinced him to hold off and give them a chance to close the escort service down by getting the top guys. Kelly, the receptionist that worked alongside Megan, was using the hotel for a place of business, and he didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know exactly how Megan intended getting the money to pay him back. Still, he wanted to hear her say it. “Do you have any idea of the cost for this kind of operation?”
Still avoiding eye contact, Megan kept her gaze focused on the floor in front of Alex. “When the first tests came back, I checked with the hospital office to get an idea of the costs. They said somewhere between a hundred and two hundred thousand. When I talked to the doctor, he confirmed it.”
So she had done her homework and knew how much money she was going to need. He winced at what it would take to get it. Even if she was good, which equated to expensive, that was going to be a lot of late-night work. He’d be damned if he cared. That she was willing to prostitute herself only helped the case he was going to make.
Alex leaned back against the sofa, giving the allusion of comfort, when he was feeling anything but comfortable with what he was saying. “I have a better option for you. You need money, and I have it. On the flip side, I need you for something I want.”
Megan’s head snapped up and Alex paused. In her eyes he saw what a cornered animal looked like just before it sprang for the jugular. The look was there for a only second, then gone. He had to give her credit; she was a fighter and a smart one. Click to continue reading.
Reviews:
5 BOOKS: “While For Love or Money features a marriage-of-convenience premise that has been done countless times before, I enjoyed this author’s take on the premise and the surprises and twists she threw in with the characters and their relationship with one another. For Love or Money is a extremely pleasurable story filled with characters you can’t help but come to love.” — Long and Short Romance Review
5 HEARTS: “This story is extremely thought provoking, making anyone who reads this story stop and think about how you would have reacted if you were in Megan’s shoes… For Love Or Money is an excellent name for this book, for both Alex and Megan will have to chose which road they will take. A great book with loving and passionate scenes written with good taste and a nice storyline for everyone to enjoy.” — Margo Arthur, The Romance Studio
Both books are available through Siren-BookStrand
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About Lavada:
Lavada lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. She is an avid reader, enjoying almost all genres. She takes the advice to write what you enjoy reading to heart and her goal is to write books that cross genres, taking the reader on different paths with equally enjoyable and captivating stories.
A dreamer, Lavada has a need to create. She worked in the computer field designing and developing first mainframe applications and later web sites. The art of writing has proved to be a challenge but it gives her satisfaction beyond anything she could have dreamed. When not writing, Lavada enjoys reading, web development, and being with her husband and their very alpha Jack Russell Terrier.
If you love books, you likely love paper. And if you love paper, you love art. And if you love art, you love photos. And if you love photos, you likely love books and, see? It all goes in a grand little circle.
Yesterday we were at a picnic. As I was sitting for a caricature portrait, a woman sat next to me and began talking.
“I know you can’t turn around while you’re sitting for a portrait, but when I find out someone is from New York, I have to come over and say ‘hello” and talk to them about that beautiful place.”
And so our conversation began, albeit a bit odd with me staring straight ahead and staring straight ahead, too, in a companionable way, and it was lovely to meet someone new (the idea of the Rotary picnic to begin with…!) And as the artist finished and we turned to one another, the conversation moved into books because Ridley Pearson will be speaking at Rotary this week and I asked if she were attending. “Yes, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s sit together.” And the pact was made.
And then we discussed what we were reading (oh, isn’t this scintilating dialogue,but honestly, it was so nice to go from “hello, who are you” to “here’s what I’m reading,” because, well, you know how we bookaholics are!
She asked if I’d read THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG. No, I hadn’t. She took my arm. “You must,” she conspiratorially.
HM was standing right there as I kudo-ed Book Blogworld for already giving me a heads up, and HM said, “You’ve heard of it?” and I said, “Yes!” and he said, “Would you like to go to Barnes and Noble on the way home and pick it up?”
And I said, “YES!”
Oh, I could nearly have hugged my new friend Judith right then and there.
I DID hug HM.
And we found it, along with fancy coffees and an hour “timeout” at one of the cafe tables.
And the point of all this is Paper.
The cover of the HEDGEHOG book is so smooth. Yes, it’s a softcover. It’s the Euro edition; not because I’m special – anyone who buys it at B&N will get the same. How nice to have a book that is so aesthetic before the reading even begins.
And then, like with so many bookaholics (tho’ they’re not all talkin’), there’s the desire to create something oneself. Maybe writing. Maybe something with paper. And so my compulsion to make something.
Still working on it.
One star down. A galaxy to go.
But the paper is so smooth. (the entry title mentions PAPER. And it is “flapped” on the front and back, quite different than our usual softcover (trade) publications. And it’s a nice blue. And I got all starry-eyed just holding it.
A riveting tale of one man’s obsession with rare books, another man’s unrelenting efforts to catch him, and the woman who documented it all.
Persistent lying and stealing. Check. Superficial charm. Check. Lack of remorse or inability to care about hurting others. Check. Narcissism and sense of extreme entitlement. Check and CHECK.
John Charles Gilkey could be the poster child for Antisocial Personality Disorder and he’s fixated on rare books. In him, Allison Hoover Bartlett finds an inconsistent and unreliable source who acts as her guide on a literary odyssey through the world of rare books and his obsession with possessing them through acts of fraud and theft.
Spending whole years researching Gilkey and Ken Sanders, the book dealer who made it his personal mission to catch him, Bartlett finds herself, at times, walking the fine line between right and wrong to get her story. This conflict actually made the work all the more authentic and exciting. Gilkey confides in her about crimes past and Bartlett wrangles with her conscience–should she report him and risk scaring him off, ending their professional relationship (and her research)?
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much details the world of rare books, making it seem enticing and almost seductive. Each collector’s hunt for the book, the crowning jewel of his or her collection, keeps the dealers in business. What used to be a rich, white man’s game is now seeing an influx of younger, more diverse collectors.
With colorful characters, steady pacing, tales of deception and illicit behavior, and dogged efforts to catch a criminal, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is an exciting, educational, and thoroughly entertaining read. If you’re looking for a great nonfiction book for a challenge or just want a change of pace, I would recommend this book without hesitation. Many thanks to Lydia at Riverhead for this review copy!
Do you collect rare or first edition books? How about signed editions? I have a few signed books–Jodi Picoult came to my local library a few years ago and signed two books for me and I went to Megan McCafferty’s book signing a few years ago at B&N. I don’t have any rare or first edition books–the only old books I have are ones from my childhood that I keep for nostalgic reasons.
Well, the weekend is winding to a satisfactory close. I definitely needed it. My first week of work was an exciting and stressful blur, and I am very thankful that I was given the weekend off as a mercy. Of course, it’s a double-edged sword as this break was a “enjoy it now, because it won’t happen again for some months” sort of deal due to the ever-increasing workload of the firm’s litigation department. But we shall not dwell on the future, but instead enjoy the present, and the fun that I feel I definitely earned.
The weekend began with a whirlwind of a Friday, which saw me leave a fourteen-hour work day to immediately hop a subway up into Chelsea for drinks with friends from law school. Standard youthful revelry followed, with the night coming to a close at 4 AM over pierogis and goulash at Veselka on 2nd and 9th. Over the course of this most delightful of New York nights, I did actually manage to get some reading done, seeing how I’m the nerd who always carries a book in his back pocket. It was not All the King’s Men, but instead a paperback of Truman Capote’s The Glass Harp and Other Stories.
A full review after the jump…
I managed to finish the core story of the book, the novella The Grass Harp, on the J Train as the evening took me into the East Village, and I am very glad I did. You see, I have a very hit-or-miss appreciation of Capote. I read In Cold Blood a couple years ago and was simply blown away. Everything from pacing and structure to the use of language and its characterization, the book blew me away by its sheer perfection. It also prevented me from sleeping since I read it in the middle of the night, alone in my apartment, and thereafter could not close my eyes because every creak in the floorboards of the old building seemed to promise my brutal demise. But then I followed up In Cold Blood with Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Answered Prayers. Neither particularly impressed me.
Both were perfectly fine in terms of writing, but neither really left an impression. I was fully aware that Breakfast at Tiffany’s was not meant to boast anything in terms of a plot, but rather was a vehicle for showcasing what was supposed to be one of American literature’s most captivating characters. I say supposed to be because I was never that fascinated by Holly Golightly. I found nothing interesting in that flighty, roving promiscuous girl who frankly never struck me as a believable character. I was constantly conscious that she was a creation, that Capote was straining far too hard to create someone captivating and exceptional. In the end, she just reeked of artifice. After reading her exploits, I felt like the only thing I gained from the book was a way to pass a rainy afternoon. As for Answered Prayers—the unifinished, posthumously published work that was the product of his later years when he was little more than a professional socialite—it really doesn’t even warrant much in the way of review. It was a sordid tale of a male prostitute’s adventures among the lower and upper classes, but so thoughtlessly done that it lacked depth and substance. It was just an exercise in prurience. After Answered Prayers, I really had no desire to read any more Capote; I was worried that any more disappointments would taint the experience of In Cold Blood. If it weren’t for my need for conveniently-sized paperbacks for subway reads, I might never had read another of his works.
The Grass Harp redeemed Capote in my eyes. The story is set in a small Southern town, centered an orphaned boy on the cusp of manhood, living in the home of his two aunts, the domineering miserVerena, and sweet, dreamy Dolly. Rounding out his family is Catherine, their servant who is fiercely and possessively devoted to Dolly. The impetus of the story comes out of a conflict between Dolly and Verena. Dolly, so good natured and content to live subordinate to her sister, awakens to rebellion when Verena seeks to claim the one thing that is hers: a dropsy remedy taught to Dolly by a gypsy as a child. It was Dolly’s great joy to spend her days in the woods picking herbs with Catherine and her young nephew, the narrator Collin, and her evenings around a bubbling pot making the draught that she would sell to penpals by mail. Verena, with a head for business and a lust for money, notices that the home remedy is in fact highly successful and, seeing an opportunity to mass market it, demands that Dolly give her the recipe. When Dolly refuses, denying Verena for the first time in their long lives, it leads to her fleeing her sister’s house with Collin and Catherine in tow as they search for a place of her own. The find themselves living in a treehouse in a Chinaberry tree, in the woods where they spent their days hunting for herbs beneath the leaves, to their own delight and the confusion of a scandalized town.
The story progresses as the three defend their life in the tree from Verena and the town’s condemnation and at times violent interference. They are aided by Judge Charlie Cool, a man of deep wisdom, quiet dignity and charming chivalry, as well as Riley Henderson, a wastrel of scarcely realized potential and the object of Collin’s youthful admiration. This story of eccentrics in a treehouse is all at once comical, heartrending and engaging. The prose is more akin to poetry, every sentence perfectly crafted. But above all, the book is characterized by something overwhelming and essential, what Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Answered Prayers lacked: sincerity. The book is pervaded by something powerful and real, a yearning for a place and a life of one’s own; an emotional core that makes something wonderful of a book that would otherwise devolve into a farcical melodrama. I think that same yearning motivated Holly Golightly, but whereas hers was expressed in terms of a selfish hunger, Dolly’s search for an existence decidedly her own is poetic and heartfelt, easily identified with by the reader. I heartily recommend this fanciful tale, which definitely restored Capote to my good graces.
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Of course, finishing The Grass Harp did not lead me to neglecting All the King’s Men. I spent the better part of the afternoon reading it in a coffeeshop. At the same time, I pursued one of the other goals of this blog: to listen to new music. My album of the week was definitely appropriate for coffeeshop listening; it was the newest effort by Ingrid Michaelson, an album entitled “Everybody.”
I have heard a few of Michaelson’s songs from previous albums, and a friend recommended her new album, knowing that I have weakness for soulful chanteuses like Tori Amos and indie pop starlets like Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley. So, I put Ingrid into my iPod and took her with me to keep me company as I continued my examination of the rise and fall of Willie Stark.
She was, over all, excellent company. She has a lovely voice, clear yet delicate with a good range and no shortage of emotional expression. However, the album was not what I expected. The songs of hers with which I was familiar were intimate and sparely instrumentalized, the sort of lyrcially-driven, emotionally ladden ballads you expect to hear at an indie coffee shop while kids in skinny jeans and black, square-rimmed glasses argue as if their discussions would settle once and for all the great controversies of mankind. This album lacks the small-studio appeal of her previous efforts. There is far more instrumentation, layered guitars and a number of tracks where Michaelson’s voice is used to provide a backtrack on the chorus. The overall effect is something that flirts with being overly produced and creates a disturbing lack of variety from song to song.
The increased production certainly makes for something with broad market appeal, an assertion evidenced by the fact that the album reached number 18 on the billboard chart, but I feel something essential to Michaelson was lost. For example, the title track, “Everybody” was so saccharine sweet I could barely take it seriously. While her songs retain the same sincerity (a topic of great importance today!) and vulnerability that made her previous songs so captivating, that emotional integrity is threatened by the excess ornamentation. Examples are “Soldier” and “Maybe,” which boast strong vocals and lyrics, but come across as tailermade for the top 40 charts.
The only song in which the increased production values meld harmoniously with her vocals and intimate style is “The Chain,” a heartfelt ballad that sweeps you up in a powerful melody that builds in intensity, perfectly supporting Michaelson’s voice. If the entire album followed that pattern, it would have been something special. Otherwise, the songs more reminiscent of her past work, with greater emphasis on her voice over effects, are the most successful. “Mountain and the Sea,” “Men of Snow” and “Locked Up” are all perfectly delightful and insure that the album is worth listening to.
Overall, it is an album of considerable quality. However, I hope in the future Michaelson returns to her roots. “Everybody” is filled with enjoyable songs, but the overall sound is worryingly stylized. A voice like hers does not need the crutch of heavy production; I hope she realizes that in her next effort, lest she lose her own unique sound and become just another pop princess.
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Well dear readers, that is all for today. With a couple hours left in the weekend, and an evening all to myself, I think I am going to sit back on the couch with a glass of wine and watch a movie. I’m thinking I can’t go wrong with Wes Anderson.
I just finished Fire by Kristin Cashore, the author of Graceling. Boy was this book amazing. It’s apparently a prequel to Graceling but I don’t even care. You don’t even have to continue on with Graceling if you don’t want. This book stands by itself!
Short summar. It’s about this girl who has powers to read and control people’s minds. She is essentially a “monster” and other “monster” critters go after her. Eventually she gets tied up in the battles of the relm, and has to help find the spies and what not. All the while, she has to deal with the fact that she is indeed a “monster”. In the end, it does have a pretty happy ending.
Through out this book, you fall in love with the characters. You really get to know them quite well. It’s hard not to cry when this or that happens to one character or another.
The details in this book are vivid and amazing, along with the plot line. I couldn’t get enough of this book, and I had a hard time putting it down.
I personally fell in love with the characters and demanded the book to play out how I wanted it too. While it may of not played out exactly how I wanted to (it skipped some details I wanted) it did go the direction I wanted and predicted. Unfortunately, like one of my friends mentioned, this is a rather predictable book. For me though, it’s the type of book you read because you know you know how the end is gonna be, and that’s why you’re reading it.
All in all, I fell in love with this book. I adored it. I love the characters. I love the plot. I love it all
I cannot wait to see what else Kristin Cashore comes out with next!!
Side note, this book doesn’t come out until October. If you’re a fan of fantasy and romance I would definitely go out and buy this when it comes out.
As a mom I try to teach my boys to look at things from both sides of an issue. I am constantly reminding them to look at a situation from the others persons perspective. I think this helps reduce misunderstandings and makes them a little more in tuned to others around them. Note I say I try to do this and I am not sure if I have succeeded but I will continue to plug away at it.
That is why I was pleased when I happened upon the book “Daft Bat “ written by Jeanne Willis and illustrated by Tony Ross at our local bookstore the other day.
Here is the synopsis:
Is Bat batty—or does she just see things a little differently?
The trouble begins when Bat moves into the neighborhood. All the animal children want to welcome her with a special gift—but then Bat shocks them by asking for an umbrella…to keep her feet dry! Soon, it’s clear to everyone, from little Lion Cub to tall Giraffe Calf, that she always gets things upside-down and wrong-way-round. Only when Wise Owl suggests a change of perspective does everything become clear to Bat’s young friends. And kids get to share Bat’s unique viewpoint, too, when they flip the book over to read the upside-down text in this cleverly formatted book.
Adorable animals, and an important lesson charmingly taught, will make this story a favorite.
I loved this book! It was a great way to share the message that things aren’t always as they seem and it’s always good to look at things from the other persons (or bats) perspective. The pictures are fun and colorful, a quick and easy read for the end of the day.
Good If…You’re looking for a quick but original ghost story.
Rating: 8.5/10
Summary:
Cass McKenna much prefers ghosts over “breathers.” Ghosts are uncomplicated and dependable, and they know the dirt on everybody…and Cass loves dirt. She’s on a mission to expose the dirty secrets of the poseurs in her school.
But when the vice president of the student council discovers her secret, Cass’s whole scheme hangs in the balance. Tim wants her to help him contact his recently deceased mother, and Cass reluctantly agrees.
As Cass becomes increasingly entwined in Tim’s life, she’s surprised to realize he’s not so bad—and he needs help more desperately than anyone else suspects. Maybe it’s time to give the living another chance….
My Thoughts: Give Up The Ghost is my current favorite ghost story. It’s fun and spunky but also has its heartbreaking moments. For those who are easily spooked – do not worry. While this may feature ghosts, they are not the creepy haunt-you-in-your-sleep type and that’s what I really adored about this novel. Most ghost stories are scary but there’s nothing scary in this one except for Cass’s attitude at times.
The reason this didn’t get an even higher rating is because I felt that certain character could have and probably should have been developed more. Cass and Tim are the only two characters whose names I can remember now and I felt Cass was the only completely developed character. Some of the secondary characters, especially her ghost friends, seemed like interesting characters but we never got to know them.
Other than that, Give Up the Ghost is completely squee-worthy. I adored almost everything about it and highly recommend it. Megan Crewe is definitely an author to keep on your radar. I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next.
The events of Helen Dunmore’s beautifully written novel Talking to the Dead take place during a blazing summer on the Cornwall coast. Nina has come to spend time with her sister, Isabelle, who has just given birth to Antony. It is a difficult labour and delivery and Isabelle is having a slow recovery.
You don’t look very alike, Susan said yesterday. I wouldn’t have guessed you were sisters. (29)
Susan has been hired to care for Antony while Isabelle recovers from the complications of Antony’s birth. Although the sisters are, as Susan notes, unalike physically, they share the bond of family: an emotionally distant mother who worked as a potter, a drunkard father and the crib-death of their little brother, Colin.
They also share knowledge, perhaps suppressed, about the death of their little brother. It is during the hot days that follow that a family secret is revealed and Nina begins an illicit affair that sends shrapnel through the house Isabelle and her husband, Richard, have leased for the summer.
I’m a Dunmore fan. She’s a beautiful writer and much of the prose in this slim volume is breathtaking. So I am going to attribute the fact that I didn’t tear through this novel (only 214 pages!) to the fact that I’ve had a serious case of book lethargy over the last few weeks. After all, like all of the Dunmore novel’s I’ve read – as literary as they are – this one has an element of psychological suspense. The pace isn’t fast though; information is revealed slowly, like veils pulled back one at a time. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem for me…like I say, I was in a bit of a slump.
If you haven’t yet read Dunmore, you really should. She’s quite remarkable.
Welcome to Day Thirteen of Pump Up Your Book Promotion’s September Authors on Virtual Book Tour! Follow along as these talented authors travel the blogosphere all month long to talk about their books, their lives and their future projects. Leave a comment at their blog stops and you could win a FREE virtual book tour if you’re a published author with a recent release or a $50 Amazon gift certificate if you are not published. So, pick your favorites, follow their tours, and make sure you leave them a note to tell them you stopped by!
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Laced with Magic
Barbara Bretton, author of the paranormal romance novel, Laced With Magic (Berkley Trade) will be visiting Books and Needlepoint! Knit shop owner and sorcerer’s daughter Chloe Hobbs felt the Fates finally got it right when she met Luke MacKenzie. And no one could have convinced her otherwise—including the trolls, selkies, or spirits who also call Sugar Maple, Vermont, home. But then out of nowhere Luke’s ex-wife suddenly shows up, claiming to see the spirit of their daughter, Steffie—a daughter Chloe knows nothing about. You can visit Barbara on the web at http://www.barbarabretton.com/.
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Football is for Lovers
Robert Brooker & Kathleen O’ Dougherty, authors of the humorous nonfiction, Football is For Lovers (Mill City Press) will be visiting the Examiner! With anecdotes, illustrations, and a lot of laughs, Football is for Lovers not only makes it easy to understand the game, but also shows you how to put an end to the TV clicker wars, improve your relationship, and spice up your love life. You can visit their website at www.footballforlovers.com.
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Homer's Odyssey
Gwen Cooper, author of the memoir, Homer’s Odyssey (Delacorte Press), will be visiting Pets and Authors and Blogcritics! Homer’s Odyssey is the once-in-a-lifetime story of an extraordinary cat and his human companion. It celebrates the refusal to accept limits—on love, ability, or hope against overwhelming odds. By turns jubilant and moving, it’s a memoir for anybody who’s ever fallen completely and helplessly in love with a pet. You can visit her website at http://gwencooper.com/.
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Diary of a Mad Gen Y er
Marcus Dino, author of the young adult fantasy novel, Diary of a Mad Gen Y er, will be visiting Libby’s Library News! Perhaps more of a prequel than a sequel to Marcus Dino’s electrifying Hollywood novel, Fifi Anything Goes in the Doubles Os (Iuniverse 2003, Airleaf 2005) Diary of a Mad Gen Yer focuses on the hilarious adventures of 21st century actress/heroine Fifi Larouche; her silly poems, her silly stories, her silly blogs, during her days working as a waitress while pursuing her dreams of Hollywood fame. You can visit him on the web at www.authorsden.com/marcusdino.com.
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The Missing Keys to Thriving in Any Real Estate Market
Eddie Godshalk, author of the non-fiction real estate investment book, The Missing Keys to Thriving in Any Real Estate Market (AVIVA Publishing), will be visiting No Stop Today! “I am a leading authority on current, local real estate info. And author of “The Missing Keys to Thriving in Any Real Estate Market”. My competition is Case-Shiller which you can buy for a min of $250 for a few counties at Economy.com. And only covers macro markets, which has HUGE errors at the micro-market and block level. Consumers, investors, and bankers, all can benefit with current local information and forecasts, and thus, make more profits.” Visit Eddie’s website at http://www.HomeValuePredictor.com/.
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The Target
J.R. Hauptman, author of the murder mystery, The Target: Love, Death and Airline Deregulation (Caddis Publishing),will be visiting No Stop Today! The Target: Love, Death and Airline Deregulation is set in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West, and tells the tale of the tumultuous first years of airline deregulation and the effects it had on that industry and the people who worked there. There are many people today who believe it was, in large part, the rush to overall deregulation back then, that led directly to the economic chaos that threatens to overwhelm our entire economy today. You can visit his website at http://www.caddispublishing.com/.
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Night of Flames
Douglas W. Jacobson, author of the historical fiction novel, Night of Flames (McBooks Press), will be visiting The Book Connection! In 1939 the Germans invade Poland, setting off a rising storm of violence and destruction. For Anna and Jan Kopernik the loss is unimaginable. She is an assistant professor at a university in Krakow; he, an officer in the Polish cavalry. Separated by war, they must find their own way in a world where everything they ever knew is gone. You can visit Douglas’ blog at www.douglaswjacobson.blogspot.com.
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Return to Your First Love
Teresa R. Jones, author of the religious self-help book, Return to Your First Love (Waverly Media Group), will be visiting The Story Behind the Book! Return to Your First Love is not the typical self-help/relationships book filled with anecdotes and quotes from experts. Readers are invited to sit in the front row to experience actual events that dig deep and expose carnality and misconstrued ideas about Christianity, which will in turn guide them to a path of true intimacy with God. You can visit Teresa’s website at www.revelation2-4.com.
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The Right to Know
Jacqueline Klosek, author of the nonfiction, The Right to Know: Your Guide to Using and Defending Freedom of Information Law in the United States (Praeger), will be visiting No Stop Today! The Right to Know is a resource book for citizens seeking to understand, use, and defend their right to know their rights under the freedom of information laws in the United States. It educes practical lessons from dozens of case studies of how the reader can use our freedom of information laws in order to protect the environment, public health and safety and to expose governmental and corporate crime, waste, and corruption. You can visit her website at http://www.jacquelineklosek.com/.
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Magnificent Man
Randall Lang, author of the contemporary romance, Magnificent Man (Midnight Showcase), will be visiting As the Pages Turn! Beauty queen Cassandra Taylor sought the glamour of Hollywood, but when she is abandoned on a desert highway, a handsome man on a motorcycle rescues her. On her journey home, she finds herself falling in love with Coyote, the spirit rider and her ‘Magnificent Man’. You can visit Randall on the web at http://www.randalllang.com/.
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Double Out and Back
Lisa Lipkind Leibow, author of the mainstream novel, Double Out and Back (Red Rose Publishing), will be visiting A Journey of Books! Three women’s lives are intricately intertwined, as Amelia Schwartz and Summer Curtis struggle with the complex dynamics of intrafamily embryo adoption, and Chandy Markum strives to make her patients’ dreams a reality. You can visit Lisa’s website at http://www.lisalipkindleibow.com/.
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Cleopatra's Daughter
Michelle Moran, author of the historical fiction novel, Cleopatra’s Daughter (Random House), will be visiting Bibliophiles ‘R’ Us! Based on meticulous research, Cleopatra’s Daughter is a fascinating portrait of imperial Rome and of the people and events of this glorious and most tumultuous period in human history. Emerging from the shadows of the past, Selene, a young woman of irresistible charm and preternatural intelligence, will capture your heart. You can visit Michelle’s website at http://www.michellemoran.com/.
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Freedom of Press
Balthazar Rodrigue Nzomono-Balenda, author of the book of poetry, Freedom of the Press: The Sitting Duck (I-Proclaim), will be visiting Publishing Secrets of Authors! Balthazar uses poetry as a tool in his book, Freedom of press the sitting duck to express himself about circumstances journalists can face, when they do their reporting in their countries or overseas. He was inspired by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour’s message on Youtube about journalists getting, kidnapped, tortured or even killed for their works. He learned that most of the time, journalists are silenced by killers who are hired by those who cannot stand the idea of an independent press. You can visit Balthazar on the web at http://www.redroom.com/author/balthazar-rodrigue-nzomono-balenda.
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Distant Thunder
Jimmy Root, Jr., author of the Christian fiction novel, Distant Thunder (American Book Publishers), will be visiting The Plot, Mozi Esme and In My Youth! Ty Dempsey is a young American pastor who finds himself in a trial of grief after the loss of his younger brother to the war in Iraq. During his darkest hours, God brings to life a series of passages Bin the Bible that Ty had always considered allegorical in nature. They aren’t. With a strong sense of urgency that the message must be preached to his congregation, Ty dares to go beyond anything he has ever done before. Most of his people are intrigued, but others begin to stir trouble. The result is a church conflict that threatens to destroy his ministry. His only reprieve is found in a budding romance with talented and beautiful singer, Blake Sieler. You can visit Jimmy’s website at www.lightningchronicles.com.
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Coming for Money
F.W. Vom Scheidt, author of the literary fiction novel, Coming for Money (Blue Butterfly Book Publishing), will be visiting No Stop Today! How much money is too much? And how fast is too fast in life? International investment firm director and author F. W. vom Scheidt, writes from his first hand-hand experience of the world of global money spinning with candor and authenticity in his remarkable literary novel Coming for Money. You can visit his website at http://www.bluebutterflybooks.ca/titles/money.html.
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Meggie's Remains
Joanne Sundell, author of the historical fiction novel, Meggie’s Remains (Five Star), will be visiting Starting Fresh and The Book Rack! Hired as a teacher, not in Denver, but in an isolated mountain town in rugged Ute country, Meggie is determined to make a home for herself in Hot Sulphur Springs. There she keeps up her masquerade as Rose Rochester, yearning for a normal life–for companionship and even love–all the while knowing it’s only a matter of time until the monstrous changeling from her nightmares will find her, killing any possibility of a life at all. You can visit her website at www.joannesundell.com.
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Indigo Awakening
Janine Talty, author of the new age spiritual healing book, Indigo Awakening (Energy Psychology Press), will be visiting Bibliotica! This book is the inspiring story of how she overcomes these challenges, finds her voice and identity, and discovers a channel for her healing abilities as an osteopathic physician. She speaks directly to the experience of fellow indigos, and shows them that some of their biggest challenges can be their most powerful gifts. You can visit her website at www.indigoawakening.com.
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A Note from an Old Aquaintance
Bill Walker, author of the romance novel, A Note From an Old Acquaintance (iUniverse), will be visiting Cheryl’s Book Nook! Brian Weller is a haunted man. It’s been two years since the tragic accident that left his three-year-old son dead and his wife in an irreversible coma. A popular author of mega-selling thrillers, Brian’s life has reached a crossroads: his new book is stalled, his wife’s prognosis is dire, and he teeters on the brink of despair. You can visit Bill on the web at www.billwalkerdesigns.com.
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Extreme Dreams Depend on Teams
Pat Williams, co-founder of NBA’s Orlando Magic and author of the motivational business and team leadership book, Extreme Dreams Depend on Teams (Center Street) will be visiting No Stop Today! In his new book , Orlando Magic co-founder and Senior Vice President Pat Williams says that teamwork is the key to making extreme dreams a reality. Named one of the 50 most influential people in the NBA (National Basketball Association) after following his dream and helping to build the Orlando Magic from the ground up, Williams gives inspiring accounts of the power of teamwork—many of them personal—in a book that leadership guru Patrick Lencioni calls “the most comprehensive and interesting collection of wisdom on teamwork I have ever read.” You can visit Pat on the web at www.PatWilliamsMotivate.com.
