Check out some book recommendations to be gifted the 2024 holiday season. I’d like to think that these books will cover a wide variety of interests

Happy Thanksgiving. The spirit of the holiday, however is the same regardless, take one day a year to appreciate all you have.

Happy Thanksgiving. The spirit of the holiday, however is the same regardless, take one day a year to appreciate all you have.

Happy Father’s Day to all. While moms get much literary and live love, and rightly so, father’s are no slouches either. The media gave fathers a reputation for being bumbling, grown up kids, but we all know that’s not true, even though some of us have lovingly embraced the stereotype. This Father’s Day I thought I’d do some mental exercises and come up with 5 famous fathers in literature. Bob Cratchet – At first Mr. Cratchit comes off as a weak man who is not able to stand up to his boss, Ebeneezer Scrooge in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. However, when you have several mouths to feed you sometimes, most of the time, have to shut up, grin and bear some of life’s challenges. This is especially true in the when society has no social safety nets. Vito Corleone – Don Corleone, from Mario Puzzo’s Godfather books might not be a model citizen but he certainly loved his family. Loving his family didn’t stop him from putting them in harm’s way of course, but that’s what makes him so memorable. Otto Frank – Mr. Frank survived the Nazi occupation of Europe, the only one of his family and thanks to him future…

I see many bloggers get up in arms, and justifiably so, when an author goes ape-shit because of a bad review, but here we are finding that we are just as petty/sensitive as those we write about.

The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them.

Classic books are intimidating, I know because they intimidate me. One has to get over the issue that we were forced to read them. Who wants to read a book that you hated in high-school? Hated it because you were too immature to understand it. Hated it because you couldn’t wrap your hormone riddled head around the petty lives of characters who make a big deal out nothing (so, you’re a bastard – big deal). Hated it because it wasn’t relevant to you and your trivial problems. Hated it because it wasn’t “cool” to like it. Or simply hated it because you were forced to read it. My advice – screw them, you’re not in high school anymore, get over it. You have to get over your fear of legitimately hating a classic. Are you not smart enough to like it? Are you not intelligent enough to understand the complex undertone of humanity involved? Maybe you simple don’t have the right vocabulary to enjoy it? And maybe, just maybe, it’s a crappy book – classic or not. My advice – Don’t worry about it. So you didn’t like a classic. Guess what? Nothing will happen and no one will think…

I found out two weeks ago that Google might, or might not, shut down Feedburner. Since we don’t know, I’d go with the assumption that it will. I have had my issues with Google, in which I blogged a bit in the past, and still cannot get access to my account – even if it’s just to transfer information out. Google has dropped support for Feedburner and closed its Twitter account, I know many bloggers rely on this service, unfortunately we can no longer reliably do so. In my search for an alternative I found a few good ones, all have their merits and several are much better. I chose FeedCat.net, if you notice the RSS button on the upper right hand side of the screen. I feel comfortable enough with my move, I think it was the right decision. I might move to a paid service, but that depends – right now I don’t have access to my old Google account to transfer the subscribers. Google is pushing everyone to go on Google+, maybe that’s why they are not supporting Feedburner anymore – they see it as a redundant service. To be honest I used G+ (until my account…

When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very real As I was watching the Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies I couldn’t help be impressed with the presentation, scope, audacity and vision of the program. While some of my friends didn’t care for the program I thought it was brilliant. The ceremony was not meant to glorify the Olympic Games but for the English to boast about their country, promote tourism and welcome nations while navigating the viewers and guests through exciting numbers which include history, culture and literature all set to a wonderfully rich soundtrack. It was heartwarming to see the program recognize the great contributions to literature which have come from England. Starting with J.K. Rowling reading a favored selection from Peter Pan mentioned above (and doing a beautiful job, by the way) to Danny Boyle, the director, including many children’s books in the segment. I recognized characters from Lord Voldemort – main villain in the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, Captain Hook from Peter Pan, Mary Poppins – heroine of the books by P.L….

I bought The Puppy Place #22: Bella by Ellen Miles (website) as part of the nook Daily Find, which I check out daily…being an owner of a nook. My daughter, 7, loves dogs and have been begging for one for years. One day we’ll get one. Buy this book in paper or in elec­tronic for­mat through the Man of la Book Affil­i­ate Account More Books in The Puppy Place series Combined my daughter’s love of dogs, love of reading, price deal and the title of this book which happens to be her nickname, how could I pass it up? I didn’t and I’m glad I bought it. Even though my daughter had an amazing improvement in her reading during first grade (going from level 1 to chapter books and top of her class in mere four months) she brings home books because she “has to” not want to. Of course we make a big deal about books and her reading, but it seems more like a chore. Her school is part of the LINKS program; the students must bring a new book every night and read it with the parents. This is not only important for the children, but has the added benefit of…