11. Under no circumstances should you put the sex manuals in the free baskets. Parents will show up.
18. People use whatever is close at hand for bookmarks--toothpicks, photographs, kleenex, and the very ocassional fifty dollar bill, which will keep you leafing through books way beyond the point where it's pr0ductive.
23. Everyone has a little Nancy Drew in them. Stock up on the mysteries.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Book Mark: 25 Things I Learned From Opening a Bookstore
Interested in opening a bookstore? jlslarthe over at Salon pulled together the 25 things she learned while opening her bookstore. While I have never contemplated opening a bookstore, the following 'things' definitely caught my attention as a overly frequent visitor of said stores:
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Book Mark: Day 2 of Canada Reads 2012
Down to three books in the Canada Reads competition, following a rather disappointing debate today. The second casualty was John Valliant's The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. The debate was disappointing in that the advocate for this book was, well, off-putting. And reading other blogs and forums, it seems that it was not just me who found the book's champion overly abrasive and a tad condescending. Unfortunate that the advocate may have been this book's undoing. Oh well--bring on Day 3 (go Shad)!
Outside a remote village in Russia’s Far East a man-eating tiger is on the prowl. The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s murdering them, almost as if it has a vendetta. A team of trackers is dispatched to hunt down the tiger before it strikes again. They know the creature is cunning, injured, and starving, making it even more dangerous. As John Vaillant re-creates these extraordinary events, he gives us an unforgettable and masterful work of narrative nonfiction that combines a riveting portrait of a stark and mysterious region of the world and its people, with the natural history of nature’s most deadly predator.
Outside a remote village in Russia’s Far East a man-eating tiger is on the prowl. The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s murdering them, almost as if it has a vendetta. A team of trackers is dispatched to hunt down the tiger before it strikes again. They know the creature is cunning, injured, and starving, making it even more dangerous. As John Vaillant re-creates these extraordinary events, he gives us an unforgettable and masterful work of narrative nonfiction that combines a riveting portrait of a stark and mysterious region of the world and its people, with the natural history of nature’s most deadly predator.
First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday
Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the sea posts the opening paragraph (maybe two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). This is the First Chapter First Paragraph meme.
My entry this week comes from Jay McInerney's The Good Life
Women blame themselves; men blamed anything but.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Book Mark: Day 1 of Canada Reads 2012
The annual CBC Canada Reads competition officially started today, and as a surprise to many listeners Marina Nemat's Prisoner of Tehran: One Woman's Story of Survival Inside an Iranian Prison was the first book voted out. After my participation in the Nazanin Afshin-Jam presentation last week on child executions in Iran, I am a little disappointing that the panel did not feel this book deserved to last longer in the competition. But c'est la vie; this is Canada after all and it is likely that it will all come down to hockey and a rock band. On to Day 2!
What would you give up to protect your loved ones? Your life?
In January 1982, Marina Nemat, then just sixteen years old, was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death for political crimes. Until then, her life in Tehran had centered around school, summer parties at the lake, and her crush on Andre, the young man she had met at church. But when math and history were subordinated to the study of the Koran and political propaganda, Marina protested. Her teacher replied, "If you don't like it, leave." She did, and, to her surprise, other students followed. Soon she was arrested with hundreds of other youths who had dared to speak out, and they were taken to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Two guards interrogated her. One beat her into unconsciousness; the other, Ali, fell in love with her.
Sentenced to death for refusing to give up the names of her friends, she was minutes from being executed when Ali, using his family connections to Ayatollah Khomeini, plucked her from the firing squad and had her sentence reduced to life in prison. But he exacted a shocking price for saving her life -- with a dizzying combination of terror and tenderness, he asked her to marry him and abandon her Christian faith for Islam. If she didn't, he would see to it that her family was harmed. She spent the next two years as a prisoner of the state, and of the man who held her life, and her family's lives, in his hands.
Lyrical, passionate, and suffused throughout with grace and sensitivity, Marina Nemat's memoir is like no other. Her search for emotional redemption envelops her jailers, her husband and his family, and the country of her birth -- each of whom she grants the greatest gift of all: forgiveness.
What would you give up to protect your loved ones? Your life? In January 1982, Marina Nemat, then just sixteen years old, was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death for political crimes. Until then, her life in Tehran had centered around school, summer parties at the lake, and her crush on Andre, the young man she had met at church. But when math and history were subordinated to the study of the Koran and political propaganda, Marina protested. Her teacher replied, "If you don't like it, leave." She did, and, to her surprise, other students followed. Soon she was arrested with hundreds of other youths who had dared to speak out, and they were taken to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Two guards interrogated her. One beat her into unconsciousness; the other, Ali, fell in love with her.
Sentenced to death for refusing to give up the names of her friends, she was minutes from being executed when Ali, using his family connections to Ayatollah Khomeini, plucked her from the firing squad and had her sentence reduced to life in prison. But he exacted a shocking price for saving her life -- with a dizzying combination of terror and tenderness, he asked her to marry him and abandon her Christian faith for Islam. If she didn't, he would see to it that her family was harmed. She spent the next two years as a prisoner of the state, and of the man who held her life, and her family's lives, in his hands.
Lyrical, passionate, and suffused throughout with grace and sensitivity, Marina Nemat's memoir is like no other. Her search for emotional redemption envelops her jailers, her husband and his family, and the country of her birth -- each of whom she grants the greatest gift of all: forgiveness.
Book Mark: Brontë Sisters Book Set
For all you Brontë and classic literature fans, this offering from Juniper Books may be something you just have to have: "a complete set of the Sisters Brontë books in custom purple jackets with a subtle Arts + Crafts movement design."
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Book Trailer: R. J. Palacio, Wonder
Born with a severe facial deformity that shocks even well-meaning adults, Auggie — in many ways a regular boy with a sharp sense of humor and an obsession with Star Wars — takes the plunge from being home-schooled all his life to mainstream Beecher Prep, where he encounters the type of cruelty and bullying only found in middle school as well as genuine kindness.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Saturday Snapshot: International Awareness
Saturday Snapshot is a weekly meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books.
The guidelines are to post a photo that you or a friend or family
member have taken and then link it back to Alyce's original post for the
week. Photos can be old or new and be of any subject as long as they
are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see.
This past Thursday I attended two different events, both part of the International / Global Awareness weeks at two local universities. The first was a presentation from Nazanin Afshin-Jam, a international human rights activist, singer/songwriter, actor, former Miss World Canada, and President and co-founder of the Stop Child Executions organization. Her presentation centered on her work with the Stop Child Executions organization, describing how she came to found the organization, some of the her activist activities, and her thoughts on the human rights future of Iran.
Afshin-Jam's most famous activist undertaking came in 2006 when she successfully ran an international campaign to save the life of Nazanin Fatehi, a juvenile sentenced to death in Iran for stabbing in self defense one of three assailants that tried to rape her. If you have not heard of this story, I urge you take the time and Google it. Or wait for her book which is being published later this year. The story is incredible from all perspectives and I greatly applaud the work of Afshin-Jam and her organization. One of the highlights of her talk was the repetition of the following statement: "If not now, when? If not you, who?" Indeed, when and who. Very inspiring.
The second event was a lecture by John Gastil, a professor from Penn State. He presented on "Glimpsing Democracy's Future: Deliberative Innovations in India, Brazil, Canada, and the United States." The theme of the presentation was deliberative democracy, and how each of these country's finds ways of bringing citizens' voices more directly into public policy debates by connecting small face-to-face deliberation with larger mass political events. I participated in the webinar, as it was in the evening and I had a few other things I needed to do at the same time. I snapped this of one of the slides:
After attending the Afshin-Jam talk about an hour before this lecture, this quote really tied everything together for me. We do take democracy for granted, that it is something we have the right too. But, democracy is a privilege for those of us who live within its purveyance and/or have only ever known it. It may be our way of life, but it is not a right; life moves quickly and democracy can falter and crash just like all the regimes we witnessed during the Arab Spring. We need to actively contribute to democracy's evolution and sustainment within our own democractic lives; it is not just something to "bring" to other countries and states.
This past Thursday I attended two different events, both part of the International / Global Awareness weeks at two local universities. The first was a presentation from Nazanin Afshin-Jam, a international human rights activist, singer/songwriter, actor, former Miss World Canada, and President and co-founder of the Stop Child Executions organization. Her presentation centered on her work with the Stop Child Executions organization, describing how she came to found the organization, some of the her activist activities, and her thoughts on the human rights future of Iran.
Afshin-Jam's most famous activist undertaking came in 2006 when she successfully ran an international campaign to save the life of Nazanin Fatehi, a juvenile sentenced to death in Iran for stabbing in self defense one of three assailants that tried to rape her. If you have not heard of this story, I urge you take the time and Google it. Or wait for her book which is being published later this year. The story is incredible from all perspectives and I greatly applaud the work of Afshin-Jam and her organization. One of the highlights of her talk was the repetition of the following statement: "If not now, when? If not you, who?" Indeed, when and who. Very inspiring.
The second event was a lecture by John Gastil, a professor from Penn State. He presented on "Glimpsing Democracy's Future: Deliberative Innovations in India, Brazil, Canada, and the United States." The theme of the presentation was deliberative democracy, and how each of these country's finds ways of bringing citizens' voices more directly into public policy debates by connecting small face-to-face deliberation with larger mass political events. I participated in the webinar, as it was in the evening and I had a few other things I needed to do at the same time. I snapped this of one of the slides:
After attending the Afshin-Jam talk about an hour before this lecture, this quote really tied everything together for me. We do take democracy for granted, that it is something we have the right too. But, democracy is a privilege for those of us who live within its purveyance and/or have only ever known it. It may be our way of life, but it is not a right; life moves quickly and democracy can falter and crash just like all the regimes we witnessed during the Arab Spring. We need to actively contribute to democracy's evolution and sustainment within our own democractic lives; it is not just something to "bring" to other countries and states.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Book Beginnings on Friday
Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Katy from A Few More Pages. Instructions are pretty clear: just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.This week's entry - Robert Olen Butler's A Small Hotel
On the afternoon of the day when she fails to show up in a judge's chambers in Pensacola to finalize her divorce, Kelly Hays swerves her basic-black Mercedes into the valet spot and thumps hard into the curb and pops the gearshift into park, and then she feels a silence rush through her chest and limbs and mind that should terrify her.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)