The Book Stacks

Welcome to this week’s A Book By Any Other Name!

The game works like this: Each week I will choose a word and offer a few titles that I’ve come up with containing that word in the title. Then it’s your turn to come up with book titles containing the same word, without duplication (yes, that includes my titles.) I would also like the author, but that is just so I can find the book if I want to read it.

The current challenge: I challenge you all to reach 32 titles containing the weekly word by midnight Friday, (with no more than 10 titles commented per person and not including *my* titles in the total.)

My forfeit? For this challenge I’d like to do a little something different that will hopefully have the both of us smiling. If you all work together and reach the goal, I will send each of you who participate a post card.

Whoo-hoo right? Right! For those of you who don’t know, I live in Australia so you will be getting a postcard featuring the lovely, lovely city of Melbourne. (If you’re willing to give me your postal address, which I promise to delete as soon as I write it on the postcard.)

So if you’d like a post card, join in!

If you don’t reach the goal, we’ll try again next week. If you reach the goal, I’ll have a brand new challenge for you next Monday where you’ll get another chance.

(If you’re feeling pouty about the ten titles per person limit, why not get a friend to come and comment as well? The more, the merrier.)

The word this week is:

Time

I Say: Nick of Time by Ted Bell

You Say…

Welcome to this week’s A Book By Any Other Name!

The game works like this: Each week I will choose a word and offer a few titles that I’ve come up with containing that word in the title. Then it’s your turn to come up with book titles containing the same word, without duplication (yes, that includes my titles.) I would also like the author, but that is just so I can find the book if I want to read it.

The current challenge: I challenge you all to reach 32 titles containing the weekly word by midnight Friday, (with no more than 10 titles commented per person and not including *my* titles in the total.)

My forfeit? For this challenge I’d like to do a little something different that will hopefully have the both of us smiling. If you all work together and reach the goal, I will send each of you who participate a post card.

Whoo-hoo right? Right! For those of you who don’t know, I live in Australia so you will be getting a postcard featuring the lovely, lovely city of Melbourne. (If you’re willing to give me your postal address, which I promise to delete as soon as I write it on the postcard.)

So if you’d like a post card, join in!

If you don’t reach the goal, we’ll try again next week. If you reach the goal, I’ll have a brand new challenge for you next Monday where you’ll get another chance.

(If you’re feeling pouty about the ten titles per person limit, why not get a friend to come and comment as well? The more, the merrier.)

The word this week is:

Quote

I Say: Quotable Quotes by Readers Digest Editors

You Say…

Want to get published? Do it yourself – and make a living from it!

Novice or Seasoned… New to the publishing game? TWFSP takes you step-by-step through every stage of your publishing success story. Been around the block a few times? You’ll walk away with a whole host of new tools and insights. Far from theoretical, TWFSP is one big case study: the author’s own “real-world� success chronicle.

In this how-to book from Peter Bowerman, nothing is hidden and no resources are withheld. Bowerman lays it all out for you so you have a true step-by-step guide instead of only the bits and pieces of what he wants to share.

TWFSP is an excellent book if you’re looking for a resource book in pursuing self-publishing. It’s easy to read and can probably answer any questions you have. Bowerman has a way of talking to you rather than at you about things so you can’t help but start feeling excited about the future possibilities for your book(s).

You have to be careful with charisma, though, because it’s easy to get caught up in an idea. While he does mention it in the first chapter, Bowerman could have spent more time emphasizing that it takes a lot of hard work to sell a book on your own and it also takes your own money to make things start happening.

Overall, this book is a great resource. It’s full of websites, examples, to-do lists, and much much more that any author or would-be author would benefit from having around.

Peter Bowerman’s Website

Hello everyone!

As you have all probably well and truly noticed by now, 451press blogs have been having a few… problems lately. The sites take a long time to load sometimes and it’s not always easy to comment.

I want to apologize for all the problems and let you know that you aren’t the only ones having difficulties. It’s not just you, not just your computer. Even we bloggers are having difficulties just posting.

Why is it happening? Well, going by the amount of spam comments I have to clean off my sites every day, I think being attacked by one or more spam monsters is driving our servers down into the dumps a bit. Day in and day out of offers to increase the size of your man parts and show you free cartoon porn would do that do anyone, I think.

Hopefully we’ll have everything sorted out very soon and will be back up and running normally soon.

Always remember that you can feel free to contact me using the ‘contact me’ button under the site description. I’m not sure if anything would be so urgent that you would need to let me know, but hey, I’m always up for a casual chat as well.

Please bear with me as all this stuff is happening. It’s not fun for any of us and we certainly don’t like it when our readers are unhappy.

And, just to occupy your time, here is a link to one of my favourite web comics:

Questionable Content

I’m trying to focus on being positive. I find it too easy to slip into a negative mindset, and that’s definitely not a good thing. I want to be more positive. Happy. Optimistic.

Think it’ll work?

You may have noticed that a couple books have moved back from the ‘reading’ list to the ‘going to read’ list. That’s because of a combination of things including having reviews that have to be put up by certain dates and not being able to focus on the book. I will be getting back to them, though.

Remember to play the Monday game for your chance to win an Aussie postcard from me.

If you would like to try your hand at reviewing, please feel free to contact me using the contact me button under the site description on the right. I’m more than happy to put up guest reviews. I’m also thinking of a best book review contest, but it’s just an idea floating around in my brain at this point.

Reading:
Savage Survival – Darrell Bain
In Bad Dreams – Horror Anthology – Edited by Mark Deniz and Sharyn Lilley
Xenocide - Orson Scott Card
Eon – Greg Bear
Janeology – Karen Harrington

Going to Read:
Supernatural – Graham Hancock
Marwan: The Autobiography of a 9/11 Terrorist – Aram Schefrin
Sabriel – Garth Nix
Neutron Star – Short story collection – Larry Niven
Firebirds – Fantasy/Sci-fi Anthology – Edited by Sharyn November
The Lab – Jack Heath
Remote Control – Jack Heath
The Foreshadowing – Marcus Sedgwick
The Jaguar Legacy – Maureen Fisher
Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hilary Clinton – Kathleen Willey
To Truckee’s Trail – Celia Hayes
The Redemption of Althalus – David and Leigh Eddings
The Serpent Bride – Sara Douglass
Loving the Goddess Within – Nan Hawthorne
Bad Girls Club – Judy Gregerson
Stand – Debbie Williamson
Season of Sacrifice – Tristi Pinkston

Upcoming Reviews:
Crash! – Mayra Calvani
The Well-Fed Self-Publisher – Peter Bowerman

So what’s on your list?

Welcome to this week’s A Book By Any Other Name!

The game works like this: Each week I will choose a word and offer a few titles that I’ve come up with containing that word in the title. Then it’s your turn to come up with book titles containing the same word, without duplication (yes, that includes my titles.) I would also like the author, but that is just so I can find the book if I want to read it.

The current challenge: I challenge you all to reach 32 titles containing the weekly word by midnight Friday, (with no more than 10 titles commented per person and not including *my* titles in the total.)

My forfeit? For this challenge I’d like to do a little something different that will hopefully have the both of us smiling. If you all work together and reach the goal, I will send each of you who participate a post card.

Whoo-hoo right? Right! For those of you who don’t know, I live in Australia so you will be getting a postcard featuring the lovely, lovely city of Melbourne. (If you’re willing to give me your postal address, which I promise to delete as soon as I write it on the postcard.)

So if you’d like a post card, join in!

If you don’t reach the goal, we’ll try again next week. If you reach the goal, I’ll have a brand new challenge for you next Monday where you’ll get another chance.

(If you’re feeling pouty about the ten titles per person limit, why not get a friend to come and comment as well? The more, the merrier.)

The word this week is:

Dead

I Say: Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

You Say…

Relationship Magic invites you on a journey that moves away from childhood habits of reacting and moves towards gaining control of your personal power. Enjoy the tale of Prince James and Princess Cinda while you learn the basics of Imago Relationship Therapy. This couple, and their mentor, teach you how to be your own best friend rather than your worst enemy.

Being married just over a year and having everything still going very well, I wasn’t sure how I would react to a relationship book. However, I decided to go in with an open mind, and I’m glad I did.

Relationship Magic takes you through the lives of Prince James and Princess Cinda as they work through their issues and try to rebuild their crumbling marriage. While the reader (as I did) may at first feel ‘talked down’ to when having the subject of a deteriorating marriage put into a fairy-tale-esque type story, it makes the story easier to get into and the messages the author wants to get across easier to understand.

I was surprised to find myself so easily drawn into the relationship of the characters and applying it to my own relationship. Some lessons weren’t of interest to me, but I could see current behaviours of mine and childhood traumas that could easily lead to some of the problems James and Cinda were facing.

In the back of the book, there are also sections to help you get started with your own ‘relationship magic’ as well as a section for all the questions posed previously in the book.

I definitely recommend this book whether you ‘need’ relationship help or not. My husband and I don’t, but I still found things in the book that I could apply to my marriage and think about.

It’s time for Booking Through Thursday!

Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose (or, if you haven’t been, what do you think is the best way to choose) the next book and who would lead discussion?

Do you feel more or less likely to appreciate books if you are obliged to read them for book groups rather than choosing them of your own free will? Does knowing they are going to be read as part of a group affect the reading experience?

I was a member of a book club in high school, but it didn’t last for long due to lack of interest outside the little group of friends. We chose books by vote, really. We took suggestions and then voted on them. It was all pretty simple. As for who led discussions, it was the teacher who oversaw the club who would start things off, but we were a pretty talkative group of girls anyway, so it was easy.

I don’t think my appreciation for a book is influenced by if I have to read them or choose to read them. It’s the book that counts. In fact, I have ‘had’ to read certain books I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise and completely fallen in love with them.

Knowing that it is group reading influences my reading a bit because I tend to think about the book a bit more than usual. It’s not intimidating or otherwise distracting, though. It goes along the same lines of knowing I’m going to review a book on this site.

I started out keeping a journal. I was on my fourth year with this journal when I decided to make it a memoir. It wasn’t really my decision to write a book; it was a message from the other side. I had been ill and one evening while I was in bed, I was trying to finish my journals for my children. I wasn’t sure if I would be around much longer.

I had a visit from my grandmother on the other side; she told me I was going to write a book. She told me to put my life stories along with hers and mom’s in a book. She said it would not only help my children, but it would help a lot of people understand what forgiveness really means. She said I was meant to do this and I needed to just believe in the message.

My journals were much more personal and detailed then the book and they were also addressed to my children. So when I started to feel better I began the process of putting my words into a book. The chapters about my childhood were the most difficult part to write about. It is a part of my life that I am not fond of reliving and to write about it you relive it. This was never in detail in my journals and I ended up hiring a ghostwriter to interview me and help me transform my memories into words on paper.

My journal entries about my adult life were in detail and it was not difficult to transform them into the book. It was actually healing to watch the book take form and realize with clarity what an incredible life I had. The gifts that I had been given I could now share with people and hope that the message of forgiveness would be understood. The dream of writing “Stand� was always about the message of forgiveness.

It took me a long time to convince my mother to help me with her part of the book. She wasn’t ready to share her personal life with the world and she had not even begun to heal from the abuse she had lived with. I told her about grandma coming to see me and it was months after that she told me she had prayed about the book and the answers she received were, to just do it. She finally agreed to write the book with me.

We were going to interview her about her childhood because the memories were so very hurtful and this process helped me get through them. When it came time to start that process she passed away and left me with her journals. She also made me promise her that I would finish the book and not give up. She said she believed in my visit from grandma and she knew how important this book would be. I kept my promise and started the process of reading all her journals.

She had always kept journals and they were in meticulous detail. She had about sixty journals that I read through looking for the information I needed. It was not an easy task for me, reading about my mother’s childhood horrors nearly took its toll on me. I came very close to giving up several times.

I kept a clear focus on the message I had to share and when the first draft was done I sat alone in my office, and the impact of missing her finally set in. I was glad I kept my promise to her; somehow she knew that her journals would be devastating for me to read. The book was compiled from mine, my mother’s and a few of my grandmother’s journals. I have often thought about those journals and what to do with them. I decided to leave them for my grandchildren, and although some of them are heartbreaking, there is a lot of history in them.

The message of forgiveness has been misunderstood in the past and the impact it could have on our world is important.

I never understood how profound the meaning of forgiveness was until I went through it. Forgiveness can change the cycle of abuse and stop it from passing to future generations. I believe this with all my heart and I am proof that you can change your family and stop abuse from continuing on in its vicious cycle.

Healing yourself through forgiveness will change our world!

More about the author and her virtual tour can be found here.

Hello and happy Tuesday everyone. Today I’m going to do something a little different and share with you an excerpt from a book. I’m hoping to make excerpts a regular thing here at The Book Stacks. I hope you like it.

Excerpt from…

The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900
(Forge, 2008) by Mike Cox

On the second day of his journey along the Colorado, he heard a loud Indian war whoop. Startled back to reality, Austin reined his horse. A tall Indian, followed by fourteen warriors, emerged from the high, thick Arundinaria (bamboo cane) along the river and walked slowly toward the American horsemen.

“These Indians were well formed and apparently very active and athletic men,� Austin later noted. Each warrior, his body smeared with alligator grease to ward off mosquitoes, carried a cedar bow nearly as long as he stood tall. Austin saw that the deerskin quivers hanging from the Indians’ muscled shoulders bristled with arrows. Signing friendship, the Indian in the lead moved toward Austin and his party.

Telling his men to get ready to fight, Austin nudged his horse with his boots and rode about twenty yards ahead to meet the Indians. He had never fought Indians hand to hand, but as an officer in the Missouri militia during the War of 1812, Austin had learned something of military strategy and tactics. A show of determination, he knew, could be as effective as resorting to arms. Talk would come before gunfire.

In Spanish, the chief asked Austin where he was from and where he was going. Austin explained that he was an American with permission from Spain to bring families to settle between the Colorado and Brazos rivers. Accepting that, the chief identified himself as a Coco, which Austin knew to be a branch of the feared Karankawas. Wary of the chief’s invitation to follow the Indians to their camp, Austin refused. Holding his flintlock rifle across his chest, the young American warned the Indians not to come closer.

Visit the author at
www.mikecoxonline.com
www.lonestarbooks.blogspot.com
www.saddlebagbooksonline.com

Welcome to this week’s A Book By Any Other Name!

The game works like this: Each week I will choose a word and offer a few titles that I’ve come up with containing that word in the title. Then it’s your turn to come up with book titles containing the same word, without duplication (yes, that includes my titles.) I would also like the author, but that is just so I can find the book if I want to read it.

The current challenge: I challenge you all to reach 32 titles containing the weekly word by midnight Friday, (with no more than 10 titles commented per person and not including *my* titles in the total.)

My forfeit? For this challenge I’d like to do a little something different that will hopefully have the both of us smiling. If you all work together and reach the goal, I will send each of you who participate a post card.

Whoo-hoo right? Right! For those of you who don’t know, I live in Australia so you will be getting a postcard featuring the lovely, lovely city of Melbourne. (If you’re willing to give me your postal address, which I promise to delete as soon as I write it on the postcard.)

So if you’d like a post card, join in!

If you don’t reach the goal, we’ll try again next week. If you reach the goal, I’ll have a brand new challenge for you next Monday where you’ll get another chance.

(If you’re feeling pouty about the ten titles per person limit, why not get a friend to come and comment as well? The more, the merrier.)

The word this week is:

Speak

I Say: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

You Say…

Interested in reviewing books on your blog? Would you like to interview authors?

We are seeking qualified bloggers who would like to become tour hosts for our clients. If you are a blogger who would be interested in either interviewing our authors, letting them guest post on your blog or would be willing to review their book and posting their review on your blog (or any other type of promotion) on a certain day that both you and we set up together, we would be interested in talking to you.

We are only looking for blogs who receive substantial traffic and are updated frequently.

All our tour hosts receive a link on our sponsors’ page (if you prefer hosting your banner, that’s fine, too), links on our in house blogs, and will receive copies of books where applicable for their time and effort in hosting our authors. You will also receive substantial traffic on your blog while the author is touring as we highly publicize each and every one of our tour stops.

We also spotlight our tour hosts at random in our monthly newsletter. All tour host spotlights will include blog information and an interview with the blog host as part of their feature in the newsletter. More added exposure! And…not only that…we will include your link on this page so that others can see what an outstanding blog you have.

If you are interested, you can visit Virtual Book Tours for Authors, look in the right hand sidebar for the list of authors touring, and let us know which author you would prefer to host.

Once you have decided which author you would like to host, copy and paste the below information into an email and send it to us at thewriterslife(at)yahoo.com. Please put “I Want to Be a Tour Host” in the subject line of your email.

Ashley was not prepared for the turmoil and disasters this baby chimpanzee would create. At times, she wished she had left baby Tina at her home in Africa.

Would they ever be able to control her? Just how far would she go?

I haven’t reviewed a children’s book here on The Book Stacks and I can’t claim to know anything about the industry or how you do things when writing a children’s book. So if anything I say sounds strange or off track, please remember that.

That being said, I am happy to review a fun children’s book by Grace Riddick.

Riddick takes one childhood fantasy and turns it into a reality for her character, Ashley. Having brought home a chimp from Africa, Ashley quickly realizes that it’s not all fun and games when you care for a pet.

Like a good children’s book, Ashley’s Unforgettable Summer teaches a lesson as well as entertains. Children will love Tina the chimps mischievous all while seeing how much work a pet can be.

While I did notice a few errors in the punctuation, they didn’t take much away from the overall story being told. I would have personally liked to see more illustrations, but that’s purely just me.

I would recommend this story to any parent or child wanting a fun and entertaining read.

by LaConnie Taylor-Jones

It’s been six months since my debut novel hit bookshelves and I’ve run out of fingers and toes trying to count the number of times someone has posed this question to me.
My response has been and will continue to be the same. Why not?

I love romance! Plain and simple. Based on the 2006 report from Simba Information, revenue from romance fiction was estimated at 1.37 billion dollars. With the exception of religion/inspirational books, romance fiction outsold every market category with a whopping twenty-six percent. So, there are a lot of authors and readers who love my addiction to the genre, too.

Romance first captivated my attention when I was a junior in college. As a matter of fact, I flunked an organic chemistry mid-term after staying up the entire night reading my first romance novel, The Flame and the Flower by the late Kathleen Woodiwiss.

That night, I knew then and there, I was hooked on romance for life, but not necessarily as a writer. Twenty-five years came and I was content to be an avid reader. Then I tossed my hat in the literary ring in August 2003, after fifteen years as a technical writer. There was no doubt whatsoever that the final product would be categorized as a romance.

Simply because I love romance doesn’t mean everyone does and that’s okay. A romance novel has the same characteristics as any other novel, except it centers on the love between two people, and provides an optimistic ending. The read is fresh, smart, and diverse.

Regardless of the genre an author pens, I’m willing to bet they write for the passion and sheer enjoyment of telling a good story, period. Frankly, that’s the way it should be.

Will I ever consider writing in another genre? Absolutely! As long it offers the same zeal, if not more than romance, I’m game!

I am coming in to June with a lot going, it seems. Too much, it feels like, but I will keep on keeping on. I apologize for missing last Friday’s review, but I am definitely going to work my rear end off so I won’t miss any more.

Remember:

“Have you ever had a time when you start a bunch of books because you’re just not sure what you want to read? That’s the way I’ve been feeling lately. So please bear with me if my “I’m reading nowâ€? list is getting a bit long.”

I’m feeling that way still, but I have some promised reviews to put up, so I need to get some reading done!

Remember to play the Monday game for your chance to win an Aussie postcard from me.

If you would like to try your hand at reviewing, please feel free to contact me using the contact me button under the site description on the right. I’m more than happy to put up guest reviews. I’m also thinking of a best book review contest, but it’s just an idea floating around in my brain at this point.

Reading:
Savage Survival – Darrell Bain
Supernatural – Graham Hancock
In Bad Dreams – Horror Anthology – Edited by Mark Deniz and Sharyn Lilley
Xenocide - Orson Scott Card
Marwan: The Autobiography of a 9/11 Terrorist – Aram Schefrin

Going to Read:
Sabriel – Garth Nix
Neutron Star – Short story collection – Larry Niven
Firebirds – Fantasy/Sci-fi Anthology – Edited by Sharyn November
The Lab – Jack Heath
Remote Control – Jack Heath
The Foreshadowing – Marcus Sedgwick
The Jaguar Legacy – Maureen Fisher
Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hilary Clinton – Kathleen Willey
To Truckee’s Trail – Celia Hayes
The Redemption of Althalus – David and Leigh Eddings
The Serpent Bride – Sara Douglass
Loving the Goddess Within – Nan Hawthorne
Bad Girls Club – Judy Gregerson
Stand – Debbie Williamson

Upcoming Reviews:
Relationship Magic – Edythe Denkin
The Well-Fed Self-Publisher – Peter Bowerman
Ashley’s Unforgettable Summer – Grace Reddick

So what’s on your list?