Galician photographer Maribel Longueira recently launched her new book, Entremiradas II: Galicia-Cuba, in Havana. The book is an attemped to “exchange glances” between Cuba and the Spanish province of Galicia, homeland of many immigrants to Cuba in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The book, and its companion volume, Entremiradas I: Galicia-Buenos Aires, include Longueira’s photographs and “companion texts” by well-known Cuban and Argentinean writers. Longueira provided the writers with photographs that served as inspiration for the texts included. Among the Cuban writers featured in the book are Mirta Yáñez, Silvio Rodríguez, Miguel Barnet, and Nancy Morejón.

Maribel Longueira was born in A Coruña in 1951. She received a degree in contemporary art from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Her work includes theater, ceramics and painting, and photography. She has been the subject of numerous exhibits in Spain, Cuba, and France.

For more (in Spanish) go to http://www.europapress.es/galicia/noticia-fotografa-maribel-longueira-publica-dos-libros-cruzar-nuevas-miradas-galicia-argentina-cuba-20090618183103.html

For additional information (in Galician) go to http://avozdevilalba.blogspot.com/2009/06/entremiradas-i-e-ii-de-maribel.html

The latest issue of The Nation includes a review of Red and Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict, and Political Change, 1934-1957  by Matthew Smith, which ofers “a minutely detailed examination of the period from 1934 to 1957, when Haiti emerged from the years of US occupation and moved, inexorably or not, toward the Duvalier dictatorship.” Here are some excerpts. The entire review can be accessed through the link below.

In the Haitian context, black often stands for African and red for milat, the Haitian word for people of mixed European and African blood. This color symbolism dates to the declaration of independence in Gonaïves on January 1, 1804, when Haiti’s first head of state, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, ordered the white band to be removed ceremoniously from the tricolor of the vanquished French and the red and blue bands to be sewn back together to create a new and uniquely Haitian flag. The flag alteration represented the eradication of the white race as a concept and suggested a new, firmer unity of the black African and milat populations. Indeed, the Constitution issued by Dessalines in 1805 stated, “The national colors shall be black and red.” (Smith uses the statement as the epigraph to his introduction.) Under Dessalines, the Haitian flag was modified accordingly, but subsequent rulers restored the red and the blue. Duvalier père, who inhaled a great gust of inspiration from Dessalines’s remarkable ruthlessness, brought back the black-and-red flag after seven years of rule, as Smith reminds us in his conclusion.

For the complete review go to http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090803/smartt_bell

 Selling online 2.0 : migrating from eBay to Amazon, Craigslist, and your own e-commerce website / Michael Miller

 Guardian of lies / Steve Martini

Peter gives us a preview of Johan Theorin’s next book, The Darkest Room (or, as they say in Sweden, Nattfåk, which means something quite different, but then so it was for the title of his first book, Echoes from the Dead; I like his Swedish titles better). Peter recommends it highly, concluding

The Darkest Room is well written, full of mysteries, and told in a style that evokes a feeling of that there is something mystical, perhaps super-natural, going on. The plot is rich and has lots of neat features, and Theorin very skillfully shows his cards one at a build while gradually build more and more suspense. As well, this is book which displays a deep understanding of human vulnerability and grief.

Maxine thinks The Preacher is a ripper of a yarn, and an exellent followup to Camilla Lackberg’s Ice Princess. Word on FriendFeed is that Patrick is less of a drip, causing relief all around. She concludes:

The Preacher is a good mystery story, very well translated. Although there are too few characters to make the ending a complete surprise, Camilla Lackberg (pictured) keeps all the balls juggling in the air to keep the reader guessing as to the details almost right to the finish. Although the ending of the book is exciting, it is also very bleak, and I found the details of the motivation of the criminal not all that convincing. These are minor disappointments, though. In the main, the book is a great read: as well as tight plotting, the author is particularly strong on her depictions of small-town dynamics, the interactions among the police, and the domestic story of Patrick and Erica, which is left nicely balanced for the next novel in the series.

What she says about the ending is intriguing; our copy just arrived in my library, so I may have to pick it up, particularly if the drip-factor is ameliorated.

Bernadette reacts very well indeed to reading Karin Alvtegen’s Missing and finds the heroine, a resourceful but troubled young woman who is homeless in a semi-voluntary way (and the layered timeframe of the narration explains why).

One of the things that struck me was that, unlike so many books these days, it didn’t delve deeply into every minute detail of Sybilla’s life and in fact left quite a few things up to the reader’s imagination. This is such a contrast from some of the detail-laden books the size of house bricks that I’ve read lately that I had almost forgotten that great stories can be told in less than 600 pages and that blood and gore aren’t necessary to create atmosphere . . . Missing is wonderfully sparse, genuinely exciting (I don’t stay up into the wee hours for just any old yarn) and quite thought provoking at the same time in the way it dealt with the issue of life’s outsiders.

I must say that while I felt the same way about Missing, I found Alvtegen’s Shadow, which I have just finished, to be entirely too detail-laden and without enough action at the front end  to make me care much about the unhappy and deeply introspective characters. My imagination twiddled its thumbs wondering when the gripping opening scene would pay off. While the theme of the novel – that the desire for acceptance and for recognition can drive people to squander their creativity and their humanity and creates competition and jealousy that devours writers and those around them – I think I’m much more interested in life’s outsiders, especially when they involve murders before page 10,000. (Well, that’s how it felt . . . sorry.) It does pick up toward the end, but I’m afraid I’d already taken a deep dislike to all of the characters and had repeated urges to smack them silly. All except for the patient social worker who, once again, makes me think moving to Sweden would be a very good plan. Like anyone official in the US would take the trouble to arrange a nice memorial service and look for friends and family when an elderly person dies alone. If we can’t find someone to make arrangements and pay the bills, we have a few square feet in a potter’s field for you. You’re welcome.

I will adopt the Australian mob’s excellent practice of linking to other reviews here, especially since I am a minority of one on this book. Everyone else found it brilliant. So look for more appreciative reviews from Maxine at Euro Crime (who found it compelling and brilliant)  kimbofo (who says “psychological crime thrillers don’t come much better than this”) and Kerrie (who likens it to a orchestral concerto and says she’s “staggered by the power of this book”). Not to mention the CWA panel that nominated it for an International Dagger. So don’t mind me. Just not much for psychological thrillers with quite this pyschology-to-thrill ratio. I’m shallow that way.

Last week, I got a 5-Euro-off coupon (need to shop for more than 25 €) from my most often used online book shop. The reason? Because it’s been a while since I shopped there!

Huh?

I checked. The last time I ordered books there was in May.

If they see it like that, they don’t have to ask twice.

Here’s what I got (I ordered them last week):

• Ally Blake – Dating the Rebel Tycoon
  I really liked Ally Blake’s voice when I read The Magnate’s Indecent Proposal and enjoyed the novel quite a bit, so I wanted to read more. Excerpt on Ally Blake’s website
• Ally Blake – A Night with the Society Playboy
  see above; Excerpt on Ally Blake’s website
• Jeaniene Frost – Halfway to the Grave
  Jace recommended it most persuasively.
• Jennifer Haymore – A Hint of Wicked
  reviews
• Kris Kennedy – The Conqueror
  reviews
• Kristin Landon – The Cold Minds
  I read the first part in this trilogy, The Hidden Worlds, really liked it, and now I have to find out what happens next. Excerpt on Kristin Landon’s website
• Sarah Mayberry – All Over You
  I’m on a quest to get my hands on as much Sarah Mayberry novels as possible. I might even resort to ebooks for that.
• Sarah Mayberry – Amorous Liaisons
  see above (though I doubt that this one is still available despite it being listed)
• Sarah Mayberry – Hot for Him
  see above
• Cindi Myers – The Man Most Likely
  review
• Kaitlin O’Riley – When His Kiss Is Wicked
  review

More Books!

Then two days ago, I saw a bargain bin with books in English. You rarely find English books that are reduced in price here, I couldn’t resists, no matter the likelihood of me reading them all.

• Martin Amis – Experience
• Margaret Atwood – The Penelopiad
• Michael Cunningham – Specimen Days
• Sherrilyn Kenyon – The Dream Hunter

I was rather surprised to see a Sherrilyn Kenyon book. The other three books give you a much better idea of what kind of English books you find in book shops here. So I snatched the Kenyon even though I’ve never read a novel by Kenyon and I didn’t have any idea how this one fit into the series.

When it comes right down to it,anyone wanting to build a website with an online store or anything out of the normal human capabilities
must depend on someone who does indeed have the skills and the aptitude to do such a chore.

However when you must depend on an archaic form of code such as html( hyper text markup language for those who really did not want to know what it was) and you do not have the luxury of someone who can do this form of the computer world’s many languages, you are stuck. You either learn it your self to best of your abilities or you sit and rant and possibly even throw bits here and there. I was the earlier and although I have been the latter at times in my younger days, I am not now. What am I saying here?  I now have an online bookstore to help in the sales of my children’s books and later other goodies that will be for sale in this new bookstore.

The troublesome coding and graphics formatting that I had to do was not only frustrating, but on the positive, most educating. That even though programs like Adobe DreamWeaver are state of the art, they are just the same subject to the codes that are being written by the people who must program this massive workhorse. Cudos to those behind the scenes. I do like  the app despite its flaws.

On top of that, when you are setting things up at the beginning of a new site I found that it sometimes does not keep your settings until you hit it with a hammer several times. So I finally took out my hammer  and simply scared it a bit.It then by some magical universal stroke of luck and a lot of trial and error and some guessing as to what the code actually meant, worked.

All I wanted to do was make the images that come up in the shopping cart show up in a reasonable size so they would not take up a ton of space on the receipt. It took two and half days to decipher this problem and to my surprise it was because when DW wants an image to be placed into the default image folder it puts it somewhere else, maybe,causing the designer to hunt down the image in other folders throughout the entire site folder.

I will continue to use DW for future sites because it is still the one to use if you don’t want to have learn a bunch of computer gobbledy gook and just get to work if you want to make a customized site. Most others that do have their place mind you are template based.
So here’s to Adobe DW for helping me sell my children’s books. I salute you.

And now for those who read this go buy my books. School is starting. Birthdays are happening.A Gift for a special Friend. Christmas is coming. Make up a reason. Whatever it takes.

Everyone deserves to read great books. They aren’t blood and guts. They are the quality that should be out there. Just as there are many others who are also doing their best to promote themselves. Check them out to. The advantage here ,as opposed to any other big chain online bookstore, you can ask for your books to be autographed. I think that is a cool thing.  Go to www.tewatsononline.com/bookstore.html to check em out. Buy one buy several . It’s a great thing to do.

Take Care and Be Well

All The Best,

Award Winning Children’s Author T.E.Watson FSA Scot

Written by Account Executive, Jeff Lohnes…

There are various precious moments we all take from our childhoods, we subconsciously allow a few of these occurrences to play a large role in our lives and they elicit certain excitement when references to them bring about a wonderful nostalgia.  What were some of those moments, events, and feelings for you?

For me, and I believe many would be of the same mind; it was those pleasant conversations with my grandparents, soaking up every word they had to share with me. Though often these conversations got in the way of more important things like biking and building ‘cool stuff’, still there are few things I reflect on more today than those conversations and the transfer of knowledge and wisdom from their wise words to my growing mind.

Peter Sheahan

Yesterday, I got a real taste of my childhood when we hosted a breakfast with Peter Sheahan. Possibly one of most unlikely people to bring about those feelings, as he has not yet hit age 30, but as I reflected on Peter’s talk, I realized he…well… has it. He is a business genius, a people genius and he simply gets it, and it’s all delivered with poise and energy, but with that familiar wisdom of grand-parental persuasion.

 
Peter’s remarks are storied in historical economics and business cases, blending in appropriate psychological theories to make some of the most complete and compelling arguments for succeeding in business that exist today.  As a generational expert, Peter offers actual facts rooted in realistic HR practices that can help flip your thinking, flip your company’s thinking, and flip poorly trending results to positive ones…. Appropriately, the name of his most recent book is ‘Flip’.

One of Peter’s principal take-home messages for businesses, service providers, associations and essentially any organization looking to earn anyone’s time, thought or money is: Simply being the lowest price, offering the fastest service or offering the best product is no longer good enough (more simply put, you need to be “Fast, Good, Cheap”) – the minimum requirement now is to have all three and then add to those characteristics to differentiate and earn your share of the market.

As I compare Peter’s style to that of the wisest of people I ever listened to, I think about his message, and it truly is as basic as some of those messages my grandparents and other community elders used to share with me. Those basic principles about gaining respect by your actions, being honest and treating others as you wish to be treated. Peter’s message, like theirs, is completely simple. He does not act as if any of his thoughts are wild futuristic theories that will blow your mind, they are simply the basic, yet terribly underused and often misunderstood practices and constructive mindsets that will allow your organization to flourish.

NSB Team with Peter Sheahan

So, it was a real pleasure listening to a man, a very young man, deliver a talk on a subject with such a deep understanding and passion that few people have today. The sheer brilliance he exemplifies when speaking about how to really make your business successful, is parallel only to a woman or man teaching you about respect, when you know they truly have earned it honestly before in their lifetimes.

The Southern African Regional Universities Association(SARUA) recently published Southern Africa’s first regional guide to its universities. The guide provides information about the institutions while also showing how historical trends over the last 50 years have influenced the development of higher education. 

The full text of the guide is available for free on SARUA’s site. Click Here!

 ”Around the world in 80 gardens” by Montague Don

Monty Don visits each continent in this landmark series on gardens of the world. We are introduced to the unique floating gardens of the Amazon and the colourful alpine flower meadows of Norway, modest domestic gardens in Havana and Bali, Monet’s world-famous Giverny and the Dutch tour-de-force Het Loo, the formal magnificence of Renaissance Italian water gardens, the tropical planting traditions of Thailand, and the intriguing fusion of indigenous and colonial garden cultures in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Each garden is placed in context, horticultural preconceptions are abandoned and Monty is constantly surprised by the unexpected locations where gardens thrive. A vivid account of travel, adventure, beauty and the pursuit of knowledge. [Cover]

 “Limestone” by Fiona Farrell

Clare Lacey is on a quest. In Ireland to attend an Art History conference, she sets out to find her father who walked out one day to buy a pack of cigarettes when she was a child, and disappeared. She is urged on her way by chance encounters: with a woman in a high tower, a blind man at a crossroads, a couple of rotund earthlings, a singer whose song she does not understand . . . Clues lie all around on a labyrinth of walls – but the final clue lies deep within. With Irish roots and a nod to the Irish classic, The Year of the Hiker by John B. Keane, this is a contemporary novel about inheritance, belief, art, love . . . and limestone. [Cover]

 “Dead and gone” by Charlaine Harris

In Bon Temps, Louisiana, a race of unhuman beings – older, more powerful and far more secretive than vampires or werewolves – is preparing for war. And Sookie Stackhouse will find herself an all-too human pawn in their battle as she investigates the murder of a were-panther. [Cover]

 “Shed chic” by Sally Coulthard

Sheds are no longer neglected outbuildings or decorative afterthoughts at the bottom of the garden. While the traditional garden shed was once a great place to escape to, these places have become the latest area of the home to be discovered by creative designers who see the garden as an extendable space, whether in the heart of the city or in a larger rural setting. Shed chic is all about making space. Outdoor buildings can double as additional rooms for over-crowded homes, they offer flexible and usable spaces that are versatile and practical converted into a neat and tidy office in which to welcome clients, an artist’s studio filled with inspirational clutter, a teenage den or a garden room for entertaining. [Cover]

 ”Poles apart” by Gareth Morgan

Gareth Morgan couldn’t decide whether he believed in climate change or not, so he hired the best international scientists to answer his questions and these are his findings. Combined with anecdotes from his own recent trips to Antarctica and the Arctic this is something completely unique in books about climate change – somebody who has approached the topic with an open mind, somebody who has the resources to explore such a topic and somebody who has personally investigated all of the issues. So what was his conclusion? Read the book to find out. In conjunction with excellent researcher and writer Dr John McCrystal, this is an accessible and fascinating exploration of one of the biggest topics of the 21st century. This book defines climate change, explains the science of taking the earth’s temperature, looks at the respective cases of the alarmists and the sceptics, examines the anecdotal evidence and the politics of this dialogue, and then comes to a conclusion based on all this research. [Cover]

To reserve any of these items please contact your local library or email info@hurunuilibraries.govt.nz

 Avril

Frantz-Antoine Leconte’s essay collection, Josaphat-Robert Large: La fragmentation de l’être, explores the diverse literary production of the prolific Haitian writer Josaphat-Robert Large. Through detailed analysis, Leconte invites readers to explore the richness of Large’s writing, the variety of genres, stylistic finesse, and the fundamental concepts that underlie his works. The collection surveys his works of poetry, a “luminous poetry that engages the entire being— heart, soul, and senses— and ties reflexes with reflection in engrossing texts like Nerfs du vent (1975) and Chute de mots (1989).” Attention is equally given to his novels, a “dazzling novelistic universe, an affirmation of Caribbean and Haitian literary success” in works such as Les Sentiers de l’enfer (1990), Les Récoltes de la folie (1996), Les Terres entourées de larmes (2002), and Partir sur un coursier de nuages (2008).

Haitian-American poet, novelist, and art critic, Josaphat-Robert Large was born in Haiti in 1942. He left Haiti in 1963, after being arrested during a student strike against the regime of Papa Doc Duvalier. He studied English at Columbia University and photography at New York institute of Photography. After receiving the Prix Littéraire des Caraïbes in 2003 for his novel Les terres entourées de larmes [Lands Surrounded by Tears], he was nominated for the Haitian Grand Literary Prize of 2004 (along with writers such as Edwige Danticat, Dany Laferriere, René Depestre, and others). He is a founding member of La Troupe de Théâtre Kouidor and frequently writes for Haitian newspapers.

Contributors to this edited collection include Frantz Large, Gérard Campfort, Pierre-Raymond Dumas, Frantz Minuty, Jonel juste, Anjanir Ghaminêl, Jean L. Prophète, Robenson Bernard, Jean-Claude Charles, ]ean-Robert Léonidas, Edith Wainwright, and Hugues Saint-Fort. Specializing in French literature, Leconte has taught for over 30 years and is presently coordinator of French Studies at Kingsborough Community College (CUNY).

For purchasing information, see http://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=28113

For full article, see http://www.lenouvelliste.com/article.php?PubID=1&ArticleID=69336

Read the book Free: the future of a radical price by Chris Anderson yet? Anderson, whom you’ll recall as the erudite author of The Long Tail in which he examines the Internet’s effect on the economy and concludes that the real money to be made in publishing is not from a few blockbuster titles but from a large catalog of ’small’ titles, is once again on the outer edge of the envelope proposing that the real revenue in retail now is to be found by giving things away. The book has elicited reviews from Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker and Jeremy Philips in The Wall Street Journal, among others.  Publishers Weekly reviewed the book and said about it, in part: “Anderson provides a thorough overview of the history of pricing and commerce, the mental transaction costs that differentiate zero and any other price into two entirely different markets, the psychology of digital piracy and the open-source war between Microsoft and Linux. As in Anderson’s previous book, the thought-provoking material is matched by a delivery that is nothing short of scintillating.”

Put the book on hold through the Library’s catalog here. And for more of his forward thinking, take a look at what he has to say on his blog.

Stated and Defended by Bahnsen, Greg

Recommendations

“This book is an important part of the historical record. It is authentic Bahnsen, vintage Bahnsen. It displays brilliantly his intellectual gifts and his devotion to the Lordship of Christ in all areas of life. Despite my differences with Bahnsen, I revere him yet today as a great blessing of God to the church and as one of the most brilliant apologists I have known. He seeks to set forth the comprehensive lordship of Christ over the human mind as over everything else, and he does that effectively. In that goal we should all be in agreement, and we should seek Bahnsen’s help to become more consistent in our commitment to the Lord. So I commend this book to all who seek to think God’s thoughts after him.”

- Dr. John M. Frame, J. D. Trimble Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL.

Eoin Purcell

The Herald today has a smashing review of one of Mercier’s new books: Petticoat Rebellion: The Anna Parnell Story:

During the reign of Queen Victoria, women wore corsets to thrust breasts upwards and nip in waists, and crinoline hoops to make their buttocks and hips wider. They had problems walking freely, and often fainted.

Patricia Groves’ new book, Petticoat Rebellion; The Anna Parnell Story (Mercier Press, E14.99), offers a fascinating insight into the social restrictions and mores that threatened to hamper a radical female activist in the 19th century.

You can read the rest of Anna Coogan’s review here and you buy the book from Mercier here.

I have to say that I am biased as this was a book I commissioned early enough after arriving at Mercier Press, but the story is a wonderful forgotten episode in Irish history and well worth reading. The author is Patricia Groves and you can read her profile here. The Parnells were a truly international family, Anna’s grandfather was an American
Eoin

Thanks to the wonderfully enthusiastic  blog posts and tweets about my Everything Austen challenge, we now have over 200 people participating!! 

From now until the end of the challenge, you can click on the green Everything Austen tab at the top of my blog to link to your reviews or leave comments about your progress. There is also a complete list of participants there so you can see who else has made the commitment to Everything Austen. Make sure to check back here often as I will be posting about Everything Austen often!

Now for the winners of my first two giveaways!

The winners of the three copies of Ms. Taken Identity by Dan Begley are:

Mike B. @ Liquid Thoughts

BeastMomma   

Lisa of Lit & Life

And the grand prize winner of the DVD Lost in Austen is:

Vicky of Reading and Stitching

Congrats to all the winners! Make sure to e-mail me at wordblog(at)optonline(dot)net with your addresses and I will make sure to get those prizes out to you very soon! Don’t fret – if you didn’t win this time, there will be plenty more chances through the challenge as publishers and authors have been very generous in their contributions for Everything Austen!

Also, check out Debbie’s World of Books as she is currently hosting a giveaway of Mr. Darcy, Vampyre!

Sea Monsters?

Yes, Quirk Publishing has done it again – taken a Jane Austen classic and made it, well, quirky.

From the Quirk website (publishers of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies): 

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities. As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels?  This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen’s biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of sea monsters biting. It’s survival of the fittest-and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!

For those of you who can’t wait for the September 15th release date, take a quick peek at the book trailer here!

In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion by DeYoung, Kevin; Kluck, Ted

Endorsements

“An attitude of indifference to the church has become tragically common within American Christianity. As a result, many people fail to make a solid commitment to congregational life and responsibility. The New Testament is clear – to love Christ is to love the church. Kevin and Ted provide a powerful word of correction, offering compelling arguments and a vision of church life that is not only convincing, but inspirational. This book will deepen your love of the church – and for Christ.”

- R. Albert Mohler, President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“If you’ve written off the church, I dare you to read this book.”

- Joshua Harris, author of Stop Dating the Church

“Jesus loves the church. Yes, the church is imperfect, and we have made mistakes. But if we love Jesus, then we will love what Jesus loves. This book moves us to a thrilling portrait and future of what the church that Jesus loves and builds can look like and the hope we can bring to the world.”

- Dan Kimball, author of They Like Jesus But Not the Church

“Well, they’ve done it again. The two guys who should be emergent, but aren’t, have followed up their first best seller with what I hope and pray will be a second. In Why We Love the Church DeYoung and Kluck have given us a penetrating critique of church-less Christianity and a theologically rigorous, thoroughly biblical, occasionally hilarious, but equally serious defense of the centrality of the church in God’s redemptive purpose. In spite of her obvious flaws, DeYoung and Kluck really do love the church, because they love the Christ whose body it is. You don’t have to agree with everything they say to appreciate and profit from this superbly written and carefully constructed book. This is a great read and I recommend it with unbridled enthusiasm.”

- Sam Storms, senior pastor, Bridgway Church, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

“If you’re looking for reality, authenticity, and honesty, you’ve found it in this book. Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, shrewd observers and faithful practitioners, have once again written a book that is like the best of foods – good tasting and good for you. Their style is easy, creative, and funny. They are theologically faithful, fresh, and insightful. They are sympathetic with many concerns and even objections to much in the church today, yet are finally defensive, in the best sense of the word. They are careful critics of the too-popular critics of the church. They are lovers of Christ and His church. I pray this book will help you love Christ’s church better, too.”

- Mark Dever, author of 9 Marks of a Healthy Church

“Two young men, a pastor and a layman, here critique the criticisms of the institutional church that are fashionable today. Bible-centered, God-centered, and demonstrably mature, they win the argument hands down. As I read, I wanted to stand up and cheer.”

- J. I. Packer, professor of Theology , Regent College

“If Jesus thought the church was worth dying for, it may just be worth living in. While not ignoring the sins of the church, DeYoung and Kluck remind us why church bashing is often shallow, and why the institutional church remains the most authentic place to encounter the good news of Jesus Christ.”

- Mark Galli, senior managing editor, Christianity Today

Well, new blog and joining my first challenge. The goal is to who can read the most books in August. Check out the sign up at Pizza’s Book Discussion!!!

In other news:

Awards: International Thriller Writers

Recipients of this year’s International Thriller Writers literary awards were named during Thrillerfest in New York City over the weekend. The winners are:

• ThrillerMaster Award: David Morrell, in recognition of his vast body of work and influence in the field of literature.
• Silver Bullet Award: Brad Meltzer, for contributions to the advancement of literacy.
• Silver Bullet Corporate Award: Dollar General Literacy Foundation, for longstanding support of literacy and education.
• Best Thriller of the Year: The Bodies Left Behind by Jeffery Deaver
• Best First Novel: Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
• Best Short Story: “The Edge of Seventeen” by Alexandra Sokoloff

And…

Ernest Hemingway with his fourth wife, Mary. A new, ‘restored’ edition of Hemingway’s memoir A Moveable Feast — originally completed for 1964 publication by Mary and an editor — softens the posthumous book’s harsh treatment of Pauline Pfeiffer, Hemingway’s second wife.
Read the rest of the story of Scribner’s reissuing of all of Hemingway’s novels for the 110th anniversary of his birth. The main event of this Hemingway summer is the appearance of what’s being called “the restored edition” of what might just be his greatest book, his memoir, A Moveable Feast.

Finally…

A Hunter S. Thompson finger puppet available here.

Larry Gragg’s The Quaker Community on Barbados: Changing the Culture of the Planter Class, published recently by the University of Missouri Press, follows the history of the large Quaker community in Barbados in the 17th century, prior to the group’s large-scale migration to Pennsylvania, a time when Barbados had more Quakers than any other English colony. Bragg focuses on how members of the Religious Society of the Friends “confronted material temptations and tempered founder George Fox’s admonitions regarding slavery on an island that was the first port of call for ships transporting slaves from Africa to the New World.”

Drawing on wills, censuses, levy books, letters, sermons and journals, Gragg describes how Barbados’ Quaker community sought to implement their beliefs in peace, simplicity and equality in a culture ruled by a planter class that had built its wealth on the backs of slaves. He reveals that Barbados Quakers were a key part of a transatlantic network of Friends and explains how they established a “counterculture” on the island to challenge the practices of the planter class.

Gragg is also the author of Englishmen Transplanted: The English Colonization of Barbados, 1627-1660 (Oxford 2003).  

For an article based on an interview with Gragg go to http://news.mst.edu/2009/07/historians_new_book_examines_q.html

Here is a list of new books for geography and environmental studies. Click on the URL for the location and call numbers and the option to export to your RefWorks account.

Title: Modelling urban development with geographical information systems and cellular automata
URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2534923

Title: Urban transformation: understanding city design and form

URL:http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2533444

Title: Resilient cities: responding to peak oil and climate change

URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2534936

Title: Time’s up!: an uncivilized solution to a global crisis

URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2548024

Title: Unbuilt Toronto: a history of the city that might have been

URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2523926

Title: Protecting wild nature on Native lands: case studies by Native peoples from around the world

URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2509185

Title: Emotion, place and culture

URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2548026

Title: The everyday resilience of the city: how cities respond to terrorism and disaster

URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2533432

Title: The body of nature and culture

URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2524018

Title: Infill: new houses for urban sites

URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2542907

Title: Evolution’s edge: the coming collapse and transformation of our world

URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2523412

Title: The logic of environmentalism: anthropology, ecology, and postcoloniality

URL: http://catalogue.library.carleton.ca:80/record=b2522553