Successful Reads

Image Courtesy of wander.lust

The first step in starting a new book club is to decide on a theme of the club.  If you enjoy mysteries you may want to start a mystery book club.  If you enjoy personal development you may want to start a self-improvement book club.

You’ll then want to set a date and time for your first meeting and invite prospective members to that first meeting. Keep in mind that we often tend to look for people that have the same views as us, however that can lead to boring discussions. A book club can be much more interesting if you have people with various attitudes and viewpoints.

The first meeting should be used to decide the clubs guidelines or rules, and to decide which book you will be reading first.

Some of the things you may want to discuss are:

• What are the prospective members expectations?
• What type of book club would they like?
• What types of books do they like to read?  Ask each member to come up with two or three book suggestions.
• Determine who is responsible for what. Each member should take on some of the responsibilities.
• Decide if people who haven’t finished the book would be allowed to attend.
• Determine what will be done about potential problems. Many of these should be decided on ahead of time so everyone knows what is expected of them. Some potential problems that can arise is smoking, allergies to pets, cell phone usage, and tardiness.
• Determine what size your group will be.
• How will membership be selected?
• Can people bring guests?
• When will you meet? Set-up a schedule.
• Where will you meet? Some clubs will meet at a specific location such as a club house, other clubs will rotate meetings between members homes.
• Decide what you will do if your club meeting falls on a holiday, and who makes the ultimate decisions on whether a meeting is cancelled, or moved.
• Is it up to the group leader, or does the group decide by vote? Decide if you would like to limit books to a certain dollar amount or less.
• Determine the meeting format. Will there be food at the meetings? If so, who will be responsible for providing food? What kinds of food will you serve? Do you want to limit it to snacks, or is this a brunch type of meeting with complete with a lunch. Determining a price limit as well is usually a good idea.
• How will the book discussions take place?
• Will one specific person lead the book discussions? One possibility is the person who recommended the book in the first place. Or it may be a permanent leader who is great at getting people to talk about the book.

Finally, set up a schedule of the books you’ll be reading and determine who will host, who will lead the discussion, and who will provide any food or snacks if you are using them.

Have your first book discussion and reevaluate anything that isn’t working.

And, and have fun!

New York Times Advice Bestseller List
Published April 24 for the week ending Apr. 18

Hardcover -  Advice

1. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey with Denene Millner - Relationship tips from the comedian and host of the “Steve Harvey Morning Show.” (12 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
2. Master Your Metabolism by Jullian Michael with Mariska van Aalst. A plan for removing toxins and rebalancing hormones to lose weight, by a trainer and coach from “The Biggest Loser” on NBC.  (12 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list).
3. The Carrot Principle, by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton.  How recognition and incentives drive employees to excel. (1 week on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
4. The Ultimate Depression and Survival Guide by Martin D. Weiss. Strategies for protecting your money in the worst of times. (1 week on the New-York Times Best-seller list) (1 week on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
5. Eight Little Faces by Kate Gosselin. The mother of eight children born with the help of medical fertility treatments shares her thoughts on family and trusting in God. (1 week on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
6. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow.  Thoughts on “seizing every moment” from Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor who died of pancreatic cancer at age 47.   (54 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
7. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. The law of attraction as a key to getting what you want. (119 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
8. In Praise of Stay-At-Home Moms, by Laura Schlessinger.  Advice, support and compassion for mothers.  (2 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
9. The Deen Family Cookbook, by Paula Deen.  Recipes from the extended Deen clan. (2 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
10. 10-10-10 by Suzy Welch.  Evaluating decisions based on how they will affect your life in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years.  (1 week on the New-York Times Best-seller list)

Paperback -  Advice

1. Hungry Girl 200 Under 200 by Lisa Lillien.  Two hundred recipes under 200 calories, for breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack time. (1 week on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
2. The Love Dare by Stephen and Alex Kendrick with Lawrence Kimbrough. A 40-day challenge for spouses to practice unconditional love. (30 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
3. Naturally Thin, by Bethenny Frankel with Eve Adamson. Rules and recipes of escaping the diet trap, fro a start of “The Real Housewives of New York City.” (6 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
4. What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel.  Advice for parents-to-be.  (407 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
5. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  How to communicate love in a way a spouse will understand. (90 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
6. Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin.  Vegan diet advice from the world of modeling. (93 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
7. The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren.  Finding meaning in on’es life through God. (46 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
8. Twilight by Mark Cotta Vaz.  A behind-the-scenes look a the film based on the vampire romance for young adults by Stephanie Meyer. (27 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
9. The Power of Now by Eckhart Toole.  A guide to personal growth and spiritual enlightenment. (66 weeks on the New-York Times Best-seller list)
10. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.  A spiritual teacher prescribes letting go of the ego to help end conflict and suffering.

“Nothing links man to man like the frequent passage from hand to hand of a good book.” ~ Walter Sickers

People are fond of passing objects from one person to another. Perhaps you’ve heard of…

• Flat Stanley ~ A paper doll that travels with a journal from school to school where other students treat him as a guest and journal about his experiences there. This has led to others in the paper arts world creating paper doll versions of themselves to travel from one place to another.

• Travel Bug ~ A travel bug is a trackable item that moves from place to place. People hide them in Geo-caches, and log their travels online. Sometimes the travel bugs will have a specific location they want to get to. Sometimes the owner will request that they be photographed at local landmarks.

• Artist Trading Cards ~ Art cards traded by others. Some end up in personal collections. Other’s end up traveling from person to person.

• Art Journal Round Robins ~ Artistic journals are passed from artist to artist. Each artist completes part of the journal and passes it on to the next participant. Eventually it ends back in the hands of the owner.

And then there is book crossing.  What’s a book crossing you wonder?

According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary it is ” the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.”

BookCrossing.com is a website dedicated to the practice of BookCrossing.   Here’s their instructions on how to participate:

“The “3 Rs” of BookCrossing…

1. Read a good book (you already know how to do that)
2. Register it here (along with your journal comments), get a unique BCID (BookCrossing ID number), and label the book
3. Release it for someone else to read (give it to a friend, leave it on a park bench, donate it to charity, “forget” it in a coffee shop, etc.), and get notified by email each time someone comes here and records a journal entry for that book. And if you make Release Notes on the book, others can Go Hunting for it and try to find it!”

Sounds like a fun way to pass on the books you no longer need.  So I’ve set-up myself up as a user at BookCrossing.com. I’m going to select my book, and then send it on it’s way. I’m hoping to keep track of the book here on my blog as well as at BookCrossing.  I’ll let you know what book I decide to send on it’s way.

With a Book Crossing it’s ultimately true as Walter Sickers said “Nothing links man to man like the frequent passage from hand to hand of a good book.”

How about you?  Have you participated in a book crossing before?
Would you be interested in participating?
What do you do with your used books?

“The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.”

~ James McCosh

I hunger for knowledge and thirst for stimulating thought. I suppose that is why I like reading personal development, business, educational and inspirational books. They usually contain immediate life lessons you can put to use right away.

Naturally, there are many novels which would qualify as stimulating thought as well. Sure I like to read the occasional book purely for the joy of it, but I prefer a good novel that not that not only entertains, but one that teaches and causes me to question. One that leaves me with a new appreciation for life, of a new culture, a person, or with a new outlook in life.

So readers, I have a question:

• What novels have you read that stimulated your mind, changed your outlook, or caused you to appreciate life?
• What non-fiction books have you read that have done the same thing?
• What books have changed your life?
• What books stimulate your mind?

Please share them.

Image Courtesy of Gonzalo Barrientos

So you’re wondering how long it takes to write a book? Well, Nick Daws of WriteQuickly.com said he can teach you how to write a book in 28 days.

After all…

“Charles Dickens wrote his literary classic A Christmas Carol in just 2 weeks. Samuel Johnson wrote Rasselas: Prince of Abyssinia in an amazing 4 days. Barbara Cartland took only 5 days to write each of her books, resulting in an amazing 623 best-sellers during her lifetime. The hit self-help book Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff is still selling in its millions – and was written by Dr Richard Carlson during a 12-hour transatlantic flight.”

I once asked Richard Paul Evans, author of eleven New York Times best-sellers, including Finding Noel, The Christmas Box, The Dance, The Locket, and The Five Lesson’s a Millionaire Taught Me about Life and Wealth, how long it takes him to write a book. He said that he usually writes the book fairly quickly, over a 60-day period, but then goes on to edit the book an average of 800 times. His Christmas Box book was written quickly as a Christmas gift for his daughters.

Robert G. Allen, author of many best-selling books told me he spends a few months, on average, researching and writing the first draft.

I polled several other author friends and the answered have varied greatly.  However, most authors seemed to write their books during a 60 to 90 day intensive time period. Others write a couple of hours a week over a year, and others have taken years to finish their book.

Naturally the type of book one sets out to write can make a large difference in the length of time to complete the manuscript.  A fiction book would likely take less time that a scientific book.  But not necessarily.  Angela’s Ashes took 30 years to write.  The biggest determining factor, for the published authors I talked to, was deadlines.  Of course, those deadlines can be self-determined, or determined by publishers.

In his article How to Write a Book in 60 Days Craig Child’s said, “However long you take, if you set the goal and the right time frame, things could actually become complete.”  There is the beauty of a 60 day plan, or a 28 day plan, or any type of time-defined plan.  Making a commitment to getting it done in 28 days or 60 days gives you a definite plan of action.  The reason why people don’t write is that they simply don’t make a commitment and follow-through on their plans to write a book some day.  If someone sets out to write a book in 60 days it is much more likely to get written.

“Craig referenced the article How to Write a Book in 60 Days or Less which says the key to to set a time frame and stick to it.  Here the writer says the key is to simply get it done by scheduling a time to write, follow-through and just do it.  Don’t start a book project at the same time you are tackling other major goals.  And then get a Goal Buddy that you can report to by turning in a weekly draft to them.

• Do you think you could write a book in 60 days or less?
• Why or why not?

I’d love to hear your ideas!