President Clinton stopped by the Today Show yesterday and talked about the books he likes to read. I was surprised and delighted to discover what the President read and to discover that we share the same taste. Image from http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/kids/html/bill.html Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore President Clinton says: “Truly a biography of the city“ Lincoln by David Herbert Donald President Clinton says: “A book you could read if you wanted to read a novel… an astonishing book“ The Way of the World by David Fromkin President Clinton says: “[A] one volume short history of civilization” Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow President Clinton says: This is a book for “anybody who really wants to understand how we started should read“ And I agree President Clinton also likes to read fiction, crime fiction nonetheless. His favorite fictional character is Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon and I must admin that it is mine as well. Check out Daniel Silva’s Amazon Page. I can recommend any of the Gabriel Allon books, but if you’re new to the series try to start at the beginning. As well as Gabriel Allon, President Clinton also said he enjoyed the Alex Cross series as well as books by…

Local businesses, like everyone else, are entitled to make a living. What they are not entitled to is my money. They need to sell an experience!

Something has to be done to make “smart” cool. I remember in my high-school when someone readily admitted to getting a “D” but the “A” students were embarrassed

This is a post I wrote a few years back for NJ.com titled ” Thanksgiving Myth vs. Fact“. I thought it would be fun to re-post it today with pictures from a trip my family and I took to Plymouth MA a few years back.. Hope you enjoy it even though it isn’t a “bookish” post. ====================== Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for many reasons. It’s none secular (which means everybody celebrates it), it’s not commercialized, the food is good and the idea behind the holiday is fantastic. We all learned about this holiday at school, and if we didn’t I’m sure after a year or two in America you learned all you think you should. A few weeks ago I took my family to Plymouth, MA for a long weekend, a great trip if you’ve never been. I bought my 4 year old daughter a book about the Mayflower so she’ll know what she’ll be looking at (and hopefully get her a bit excited) and learned a few things myself. Myth: The first Thanksgiving was a religious based occasion Fact: The first Thanksgiving was a three day festival which included drinking, gambling and sports. If it was a religious…

The purpose of the article though is to give parents some tips to get their kids to read. There are some excellent tips at the bottom

Amazon can offer authors something publishers can’t in terms of value created, however publishers have the added value of experience

In 2009 there were rumors abound that at this time (November 2011) the Amazon Kindle eReader might be free. The steady and drop in price (about $50 every few months) led many to believe that this will be the case. Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, didn’t confirm or deny those rumors. Picture from The Technium Now we are here and the Kindle isn’t free – but it’s $79 which is a huge markdown from its original price. Will this be the beginning of eReader wars? Will giving out free eReaders will be a way to combat the iPad2? Now we know that Bezos had under his Amazonians sleeves the Kindle Fire – which to be honest the more I see the more I like. But there is one thing we have to keep in mind: the goal is not to sell devices, but to sell content. Much like video games, believe it or not. The video game systems are sold at cost (which is why they never go on sale), the companies make their money selling games (content). I don’t know how much it costs to make a Kindle, nook or any other eReader but I’m sure the markup on it…

This week is “Banned Books Week” and I’ve seen a lot of posts against the practice of banning books. As a long time reader I often scoffed at those trying to ban books, however, now that my beloved daughter entered first grade I see things differently. 1 ) Books can give you paper cuts. 2 ) Books can make you angry and sad 3 ) Romance books gives a young, impressionable lady unrealistic view of life 4 ) Mysteries hurt the brain too much 5 ) Paranormal is just … freaky and G-d knows I need my sleep and wake up enough times without being woken up more times than I should. 6 ) Biographies are scary 7 ) History books are boring and really, who needs to know about the past when the future is so bright? 8 ) Stopping to read books will free up some time for her to help around the house (wishful thinking), watch wholesome TV shows and practice her hand/eye coordination with video games. 9 ) Reading can give her the unrealistic idea that life is “fair” and that the good guys actually win. Of course banning books has many other benefits:…

I’m going to tell you right off the bat that I’m going to cheat. This weeks marks the 2011 Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Yes, I have my favorite book bloggers and they know who they are. There are several which I follow religiously but mostly I simply enjoy looking at my RSS feed knowing that there are many other bookish people out there who like to share their experience reading. I’m a firm believer that reading was, and could be again, a social activity. In days of yore people use to sit around the fireplace taking turns reading passages out loud and discussing them. Those days were gone but they’re coming back. Instead of a glowing fire (sounds romantic but imagine the dirt, cinder and smoke) we have glowing computer screens and we don’t read out loud anymore but we certainly discuss the books. The beauty of it is that we can get opinions of people across the ocean and, based on our own depiction of reality, discuss how a certain book affected us in different ways. Book blogging also takes a huge amount of time, several hours a day to maintain a consistent blog (lots of reading and writing)….

Award winning author Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002). A scholar as well as an author, Mr. Gould won many awards for his work.