Archive for the ‘Books. Elctronic Reader’ Category

You ever have one of those moments. You feel like you can not hold it in for another second, that it feels like it will just spill out, then it does…

I need a book club!! I miss a good book club. Not a group where all the members get together like a tea party, gab about whatever but a real true blue book club.

You read a book, you review the book then you find out if there are other books you might like. You find out if there are authors you have missed or new writings to explore. And the new writings can be old writings, like I got obsessed with John Buchan who began writing in the early 1900s.

John Buchan

But when I discovered him I was simply amazed that I was missing these good books. I found him through the Kindle online book club. Then realized I had one of his books on my bookshelf! Needless to say I now have read quite a few of his books.

And who hasn’t heard of Stephen King?

Stephen King

The great thing about King is he can appeal to just about anyone. I have my eye on his latest book, “11/22/63”. Being a history buff (why I like John Buchan) I am looking forward to how he ties together when JFK was slain and what happens when LBJ became President, only as Stephen King can tell a story.

I miss the kind of explorations that come from real serious book clubs. One time I went to a book group in Salt Lake City Utah. It was great! We read several books by local Utah writers. Each book was read for about a two week period then the group met with the author who shared what they were inspired to communicate to the reader and then the reader was inspired to share too. The readers were both men and women.

Then there are the other kind. This might be a fit for you. For me it is not. A group that is only women who get together and gab about anything but the book. Plan little get togethers, outings, etc that have nothing to do with the book. If you are looking for a book club that offers this kind of thing then this is for you!

In this space of my life I am busy with so much that I do not have to play like that. But I still crave a good group discussion of a book. I joined the Kindle Book Club but can not find my niche there yet. I hope it works out. I don’t mind doing an online book club but I would like to go hear authors speak. Actually I want to be in a book store or library surrounded with the written word. There is an ambiance that feels, smells, and looks like a place that readers will go.

I love libraries and book stores. People from all walks of life are there perusing books. The one thing all the people have in common is the love of a good read. I think what got me missing a good book club is I miss talking to others about what I am reading. When a author writes to me they are inviting me into a place that will transport my mind to travel in time and space to another world, their world. I love that about books. From Stephen King to John Buchan, no matter!

It is time to actively pursue a good book club…I think I will see what I can find! Wish me luck!

As I was browsing today on one of my favorite subjects, history, I ran across this interesting factiod regarding pen names for authors. Many times an author will write under a assumed name. That got me to thinking about a pen name to write under myself. What authors do you know (besides Mark Twain) who used assumed pen names?

And you thought Laura Lee Hope wrote The Bobbsey Twins. Well, yes and no. Hope was the pen name of Edward L. Stratemeyer, born on this day in 1862. Stratemeyer used over 60 different names to pen over 800 books.  Stratemeyer created the Stratemeyer Syndicate in 1906 to produce such popular teenagers’ reading material as The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mystery series. Under the name Arthur Winfield, Stratemeyer penned twenty books from 1899-1917 about the adventures of The Rover Boys, plus forty books centered around the young inventor, Tom Swift. He wrote the first of many Bobbsey Twins stories in 1904. It was titled Merry Days Indoor and Out and featured the adventures of two sets of twins, eight-year-olds, Bert and Nan and four-year-olds, Freddie and Flossie. Thanks go to Mr. Stratemeyer, or whatever his name was, for many hours of great reading for many, many generations of young people.

(cited: www.440.c0m/twtd/today.html)

I have gotten so use to getting on the Internet to find a sale item before making a purchase that it has become second nature. I wait a couple of days and it shows up in the Post, UPS or by Fedex. It never occurred to me to question this method of shopping as I have done it for so long.

Then I began to wonder where did mail order get started? Today you can buy for yourself, for a third party and even get an immediate shopping experience such as Kindle books or Itunes purchases. But there was a time a mail order catalogue was just that, a catalog.

So off I went to find out where it all started. The first recorded instance I found was when Benjamin Franklin set up a mail order concept in which he sold scientific and academic books. That was about 1744. It took another 140 years before Montgomery Wards started their mail order service. Sears, Roebuck and Company hitched their tail to that star and also began offering goods by mail order.

Prisoner of Tehran

One Woman’s Story of Survival Inside an Iranian Prison

By Marina Nemat

I was handed this book by a friend. At first glance I was prepared to hear the story from the point of a view of a Muslim woman but when I began reading it I realized that Marina Nemat is a Christian.

Much has been written from a historical point of view regarding the period in Iran when the Ayatollah Khomeini’s brutal Islamic Revolution took place. The author was a mere sixteen years old when she was arrested, tortured and sentenced to death for political crimes. She tells her story from the stand point of being a young woman, having her youth ripped apart under a brutal regime of power. This is not the first time that a story like this has been written. I am reminded of the Diary of Anne Frank that was given consideration after the Nazi regime lead by Adolf Hitler fell. In fact, there are many similarities of abuse of power under both Islamic Revolution and the Nazi takeover.

Nemat shares with us her brutal torture, the effect that the torture and death of her peers had on her and her responsibility to her family so as to not implicate them through interrogation. Nemat was well passed this period of her life when the emotions of post traumatic syndrome found root. She was married at the the time she wrote her story and had two children that she needed to consider before she opened up about her life in Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran.

Throughout her memoir Nemat struggles with survivor’s guilt. She said “I don’t think a survivor can ever overcome his or her guilt but I have to face it”. She was forced to convert to Islam under threat of torture to her family and marry a man she did not love to protect them. But in spite of that she found a deep love with the Muslim family she married into. She did not love the man she was force to marry but the book ironically shows a strong loving family as opposed to her family of origin.

Her conflicts of right and wrong throughout the book are the conflicts of a innocent child. Her husband was a interrogation officer at Evin, he himself a survivor of torture and imprisonment there. He eventually was assassinated for his views. She blamed him for not doing more to save the many people that were locked inside the prison. As I read this part of the account I was struck with the naïve view of a young woman to believed that this man, Ari, could have that much control. And that she did not see the times he worked hard at helping those within his reach.

On page 127 she states, “Did the world know about us? Was anyone trying to save us? Deep in my heart I knew that answer to both of these questions was no.”. When I read this account I was taken further back to another time and place to the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Much has been written in the history books about the genocide of the Jewish Community. But it wasn’t just the Jews who were targeted by the Nazis. It was anyone and everyone that was not for the Nazis. If you were Christian, atheist or had a lifestyle different that the Aryan dream. If you would not serve as a loyal German Nazi you were targeted for the camps. Many people did not know or want to know about it and in fairness to the international community it has to be said that news propaganda sometimes does not gives us a clear picture of what people were faced with. Many of the horrors of that time we seen in hindsight.

Same held true in Nemat’s memoirs. Many of her friends were communists, Christian or Muslim. At the time of the Iranian Revolution the regime came down hard if you were against the revolution. Propaganda was running rampant with chants drilling hate of the West with control of the media so the Iranians only got to see what the revolutionaries wanted them to see. School were breeding grounds for the new regime propaganda. Women were targets. They had to fit a certain criteria so that they did not manifest “satanic” western lifestyles. They could not wear makeup, paint their nails or could not be seen in public without the proper hijab attire. If they were seen with even a little bit of their hair accidentally free of the head covering that could be a grounds for a good beating. Young people could not show affection, let alone hold hands in public. Everyone feared their actions would land them on the wrong side of the Revolution or implicate their family somehow.

The memoirs are a quick read but intense at times. Memat hopes that her story will open the minds of the international community to speak up about the abuses that women under such oppressive dictatorships live. However, when I read this book I felt that many people already know about the abuses of the women in these situations. Memat requires the reader to engage in a political statement. I believe that reading what she has to say it is a good thing if the reader is enlightened. Not all are suited to be political targets themselves but from her story maybe their compassion will be enhanced.

I felt that Memat lives in a fantasy world that right will win out and the world will see the bad that is happening and eliminate it. That is the voice of a sixteen year old girl. Not the voice a woman who knows there is more in this world than just right and wrong. This book is not for everyone but, certainly is educational. Overall a good read, I felt it was worthy of a book review.

The book is a mere 321 pages. Easy reading and flows well. It has been translated in twenty-two languages and has become an international bestseller. It now available in paperback. It is also available on Kindle at www.amazon.com.

My husband rides a Harley. Some days the call of the road gets to be a necessity and he heads out on the byways of Alabama. So when I saw an article on motorcycling in our local paper I thought if he loves to ride I know there has to be a ton of people enjoy the “ride” with the wind in their face.

“Alabama photographer/motorcyclist, David Haynes’” wrote a book call Motorcycling Alabama: 50 ride loops”. The rides are only about 75 to 150 miles so they are an easy day trip for the weekend rider. His blog covers the rides, he maintains a list of monthly newsletters and offers pictures that will make anyone want to hit the open road.

As a dog-aholic I was pleased to see that he takes his ride with a side car loaded up with his two goldens, Roscoe and Bailey. To add to the cuteness factor is a great story about these two dogs. He says that Bailey once belonged to his neighbor about two miles away. But she met Roscoe and would come a calling regularly. Haynes would let her play and feed her when she came a calling but would take him home after their play time only to find Bailey back on his doorstep. Finally both Haynes and the neighbors agreed that Roscoe and Bailey were smitten with each other and Bailey moved into the Haynes home. So off he goes now riding down the road with these two adorable goldens.

The side car has been expanded to fit Bailey alongside for the ride. Where ever Haynes stops the dogs attract attention. They clearly are in the limelight. In fact when David Haynes starts his rollout tour for his book, Motorcycling Alabama there will be Roscoe and Bailey riding along with him. Probably stealing his thunder!

Website for David Haynes’ blog: http://motorcyclingalabama.info/

“By doing your best over and over, you can master the art of transformation. By doing your best, the habits of misusing your work, taking things personally, and making assumptions will become weaker and less frequent with time.”

Lately there has been an awareness of religion, especially this time of year it brings Islam, Christianity and Judaism together as they each celebrate in their own way the time of the season. But I have found that one practical guide of wisdom is over looked. The philosophy of the Toltec wisdom was founded in early post-classic Mesoamerican chronology. And a man, Don Miguel Ruiz, has brought the teachings into our modern era. When I read the wisdom of the Four Agreements I was hard pressed to ponder why this wisdom is not getting more attention.

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz