2007 Books Read- Part Three!

(Part Two can be found here!)

53. An Unquiet Mind


52. The Art of Possibility


51. How to Raise an American

Free Children's Book from Barnes and Noble

1. Kids read any eight (8) books of their own choosing - library books, books borrowed from friends, or books bought at Barnes & Noble.

2. Ask them to write about their favorite part of each book in the Summer Reading Journal. A parent or guardian must sign the journal after each entry.

3. Bring the completed Summer Reading Journal to a Barnes & Noble bookstore between May 29th and September 2nd, 2007.

4. We'll give them a coupon for a FREE book! They can choose from a list of exceptional paperback titles.

Source: Barnes and Noble

Book Donation Challenge!

As found on First Book Blog.

Help Cheerios donate 100,000 copies of Eric Carle's The Tiny Seed. YOU can decide where they will be donated by answering the question below correctly. The more questions you answer, the more votes you get!

In The Very Hungry Caterpillar, what does the animal turn into?

• a wombat
• a monkey
• a butterfly

The more you get right, the more votes you get.

:)

My friend Katie (who is currently a lawyer) wrote a book and is shopping around to get the materpiece published. Legal thriller.

The kind of book that Lisa Scottoline (her favorite author) writes.

So it was VERY COOL to see that a picture of Lisa and Katie made it to Lisa's website.

Tis only a matter of time until I get to travel with Katie on HER book tours, I just know it!

CONGRATS Katie on a HUGE accomplishment!

From Slate.

My Favorite Font

My favourite is Papyrus.

Although I use Book Antiqua, Bradley Hand, Harrington, Perpetua and Poor Richard as well.

And you?

America’s Best Places for Artists

Los Angeles
Santa Fe, N.M.
Carson City, Nev.
New York City
Kingston, N.Y.
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Calif.
Nashville
Boulder, Colo.
San Francisco
Nassau-Suffolk County, N.Y.

But check out the Creative Class Heat Map.

Looking at this, the answer must be "go east, young man".

Podcasts

For the Creative Class

For the artist: smARThistory

These video and audio podcasts, by art history professors Beth Harris and Steven Zucker, place great works of art in context. If you can't get to a museum, you can still get your art-fix by listening to their discussions of pieces such as Duchamp's Readymades and Bernini's Ecstacy of St. Theresa. New York-based Harris and Zucker focus primarily, but not exclusively, on art from the Metropolitain Museum of Art and MoMA, sharing their insights about paintings and sculptures from all eras. While some smARThistory podcasts provide only an audio commentary one can listen to while looking at a static image of the artwork, others are more dynamic and include supplementary materials.
smARThistory

For the musician: Uncensored Blues

If you've got the blues, this podcast might just cheer you up. Produced in association with the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale Mississippi, Uncensored Blues shares tracks from rare pre-war blues albums. With music from Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly, and other blues legends, each podcast explores variations on a musical theme, such as "Hard Times" or the "Black Snake Moan."
Uncensored Blues

For the chef: ReMARKable Palate

This podcast, part of the Gilded Fork's Culinary Podcast Network, is hosted by personal chef Mark C. Tafoya. Besides sharing recipes, Tafoya interviews chefs, food writers, and gourmets, and takes listeners behind the scenes of popular restaurants.
ReMARKable Palate

Books

Who can resist a multi-colored book meme? Thanks Stacy

All I have to say is holy crap, what are some of these books and who reads them?

New and Improved Book Meme

Directions:

• Use blue font for everything you’ve read
• Use red font for everything you’ve started but never finished
• Use purple font for everything you’ve read but wish you hadn’t
• Use yellow font for everything you’d never read, even you and that book were the only things to survive the apocalypse
• Use black font for things you’ve never read
• Use green front for things you want to read
• Use orange font if you’ve read the author but not that particular work

The Bible
Medea, Euripides
Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
Odyssey, Homer
The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
The Inferno, Dante Alighieri
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare
Tartuffe, Moliere
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Eve of St. Agnes, John Keats
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Little Women, Louise May Alcott
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Ulysses, James Joyce
Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Joyce Carol Oates
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
White Noise, Don DeLillo
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
White Teeth, Zadie Smith
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

And now for the original meme (which I actually like better, since I have not heard of or care to read many of the books above.)

· Use blue font for everything you’ve read
· Use red font for everything you’ve started but haven't finished (yet)
· Use purple font for everything you’ve read but wish you hadn’t
· Use yellow font for everything you have no desire to read.
· Use black (or white) font for things you’ve never read
· Use green front for things you want to read
· Use orange font if you’ve read the author but not that particular work

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Your turn!

I haven't read it, but...

I agree that this as a favorite book, does say something.

Mitt Romney's Adolesecent Reading Tastes

Fifty Writing Tools

Fifty Writing Tools: Quick List

Use this quick list of Writing Tools as a handy reference. Copy it and keep it in your wallet or journal, or near your desk or keyboard. Share it and add to it.

Jeremy Gilbert/The Poynter Institute

Poynter Online - WritingTools: The Musical Lyrics 7 minutes, 9 seconds

Listen | Download Drag to iTunes

Did you know?

You can order Oprah's next book selection without even knowing what the title is?

Another List!

Hot Books for Summer!
Just some of the ones from the review above.

1. Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini returns to Afghanistan in his much-anticipated second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns (Riverhead, May 22). It's the story of two women who are both married to a man hardened by his culture's misogyny. "I haven't witnessed such unanimous inhouse enthusiasm since Life of Pi," says Parsons. "It reminds me of how Jeffrey Eugenides exceeded sophomore expectations with Middlesex. The film version of The Kite Runner in late 2007 will also help make this the year of Hosseini."

I would like to read this one, I enjoyed the Kite Runner.

2. With 1000 Places to See Before You Die, which has 2.2 million copies in print, Patricia Schultz hit on a golden formula. Now, North America is the focus, in 1000 Places to See in the USA & Canada Before You Die (Workman, July). "Whether planning an actual trip or just dreaming of someday, this is a great way to spend a summer day," says Halley.

Hey, even if I find a few fun ideas this one might be worth glancing through at B&N.

3. For stressed-out parents, actress Christie Mellor calmly explains how to harness the energy of toddlers-gone-wild in Three-Martini Family Vacation: A Field Guide to Intrepid Parenting (Chronicle, June). "Her first book [The Three-Martini Playdate] was hilarious, in an 'I know I shouldn't be laughing at this, but heee!' kind of way," says Halley, "and we did very well with it."

Oooh Three Martini Playdate is FUN STUFF. This should be a good read (and present for my mommy friends!)

4. Hipster alert: Dishwasher by Pete Jordan (HarperPerennial, May), creator of the eponymous zine, tells of his 12-year mission to wash dishes in all 50 states and how he abandoned it for love. "I think it'll do well with the McSweeneys/Found/Postsecret crowd," says Donaghy.

Well, hipster alert indeed. WASH DISHES in 50 states? Um, yeah.

5. Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A Year of Food Life (HarperCollins, May) is the bestselling novelist's memoir of a year spent procuring and cooking local food (HarperCollins, May).

Already out and wishing away on my wish list...

Too busy for books?

Read them by email (or RSS).
Learn more.

More books! From NPR

Under the Radar: Books Not to Miss

"It seems to me that there's frequently neither rhyme nor reason to which books garner tons of readers and which are read by only a few, devoted as they may be. Somehow, books in the latter category don't seem to register on the radar of public awareness. This is a shame, because in this large group of books, you'll find some of the most splendid reading (and writing) around."

Click above title for list of books!

Book Clubs Everywhere!

Book Clubs Everywhere!

1. Still on the impending agenda: Breakfast at Tiffany’s

2. Buffalo News Book Club: Jane Austen Book Club

3. The Big Read: Their Eyes Were Watching God

4. Oprah: The Road (although I better get reading Obama’s books too!)

5. Junior League (Sustainers) Book Club: Glass Castle

Book Banning.

Oy.

I haven't rad this book, but wowsy. Wow. Such strong words over such a simple young adult book, eh? Homophobia scares me. I think I might buy this book and donate it to a library, simply to show that homophobiac scare me.

Imaginary Babydykes Freak Out Teen's Mom

"I'm shocked and appalled at the lack of discretion, and moral decline in the selection of books at the Mid-High library," the woman's complaint begins. "Homosexual content, unprotected sex, underage drinking, and reckless promiscuity are not values that belong in a school library." (Better toss out Romeo & Juliet!) She then explains how she regularly screens her 15-year-old daughter's total media intake, because "there are things she's not mature enough to handle, or are simply wrong for her." Things like The Bermudez Triangle, which "has no moral fiber and wrongly promotes a 'do whomever you want to discover yourself' mentality."

Letter writing campaign starts here:

The committee members and their email addresses:

Mrs. Janet Vernon, Executive Director of Secondary Instruction
UPDATE: Mrs. Vernon’s email box is full, but you can email her assistant, Becky Brubaker, and ask her to pass your thoughts along to Mrs. Vernon
Dr. Richard Rosenberger, Executive Director of Human Resources
Mr. Chuck McCauley, Principal of Bartlesville High School

:)

I love Daily Om.

A Whole New World
Reading For Pleasure

Every book has the potential to touch the human soul deeply, arousing patterns of thought that might otherwise have lain dormant. The pleasure we derive from the written word is unique in that we must labor for it. Other forms of art provide us with stimulus and ask nothing more than our emotional response. Reading is an active pastime that requires an investment of emotion as well as our concentration and imagination. The words we read are merely a starting point for a process that takes place largely within our minds and hearts.

There are few activities as comforting, relaxing, and healthy as perusing the pages of a good piece of fiction or nonfiction. Curling up with a book and a cup of tea is one of the simplest ways we can remove ourselves from the confines of reality in order to immerse ourselves in the drama and intrigue of the unfamiliar. The pleasure of transcending reality is only one aspect of the reading experience, however. Each time we read for enjoyment, whether we prefer the fantastic nature of fiction, the empathy awakened within us by memoir, or the instructive passion of nonfiction, we create entire landscapes in our mind's eye. The books we choose provide us with the inspiration we need to accomplish such a feat, but it is our own creative reserves that empower us to use our imaginations for this unique and beautiful purpose.

The tales you lose yourself in can lead you on paths of discovery that take you out of your own life and help you see that existence can unfold in an infinite number of ways. You can learn so much from the characters and mentors who guide you from page to page. Your emotions are awakened each time you read, allowing you to become vessels of the passion that pours forth from line after line of print. Ultimately, the books you absorb-those that touch you deeply-will become a part of who you are, providing you with a rich and thrilling world within that you can revisit anytime you wish by simply closing your eyes. If you haven't read a book for pleasure lately, try and allow yourself the time-you deserve it.

2007 Summer Books

Ah, just more to add to the neverending "to-read" list!

From USA Today

"It is a spectacular season for book lovers, and literary fiction in particular will take center stage," says Brad Parsons, Amazon's senior book editor.

101 Essential Freelancing Resources!