Successful Reads

I love to blog.  And I love to read.  So why do I find it so hard to peck out a book review on this blog? I’ve been asking myself that for some time.

During the past few years I’ve devoured book after book.  I have a stack here of success oriented sitting here on the shelf books waiting to be reviewed.  But those blog posts are something I so easily put off.

The reason, I believe is this…

I believe to much in “Perfection.”

I’m not sure why, but I tend to look at a book review a little differently that the other blog posts I make on other sites.   I feel that I can’t write a book review unless it is an in-depth,  and well-researched book review.

You know the kind…

The ones like the critics post on places like Amazon.

Well I’ve decided that I am tired of feeling like a book blogger failure.

So here is what I have decided to do…

I’ll share with you a few of the concepts I learned from the book.  Perhaps  something about how the book helped me to solve a specific problem. I’ll share my insights on who the book may help.  I’ll share with you a few of my favorite quotes and passages.  And I’ll leave the long-winded book reviews to others.

So expect more posts.

After all, I’ve got this big stack of books here just waiting for me.

“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.

“A good book has no ending.”
~R.D. Cumming

A good book has no ending because it is either a catalyst for change, an inspiration for life, or a starting point in a journey. Books change lives.

I remember just a couple of things about my life is sixth grade. One was the daily writing assignments our teacher gave us. She said we could write on any topic we wanted.

While most children wrote about something different every day, I chose to write a book. As a 12 year old child I was inspired by the book Stuart Little by E. B. White and The Borrowers by Mary Norton. They became the inspiration for my book. I wrote a book about children who had lost their parents, but whom were roughly the same size of Stuart Little.

Day in and day out I wrote of their adventures. They traveled the world.

What I knew of the world thus far was pretty much taken from, you guessed it, books.  Books had become the backdrop for my understanding of the world. They became the inspiration for one chapter after another. They were without ending because they inspired a new chapter, in a new writers life.

By the time I was done I had written many chapters and proudly handed them in to my teacher. I couldn’t wait to take them home to show my parents, but first they had to be graded.

The last day of school arrived, and the teacher handed back everyone’s work. I waited anxiously. I was never so excited to receive a homework assignment back in my life.

But my name was never called.

My book wasn’t among the work returned that day. When I asked about it she said she must have left it at home, but not worry she would mail it to me. My precious book never arrived.

Several years later we learned from a friend of the teacher that she had aspirations to write a book about children’s literature. Not the literature written for children, but a book about literature written by children. We learned that she had a habit of keeping some of her student’s favorite work as research for her book.

Oh, how I wish I had that book today.

What fun it would be to read it to my girls. They could get a glimpse into the child I was back then. She could learn from my writings about how I saw the world and about the adventures I dreamed of perhaps having some day.

As far as I know that teacher hasn’t written her book.  That one book did have a fateful end for one child.

Likewise, the personal education of countless individuals end the day they leave school.   They fail to ever pick up another book.  They fail to continue to educate themselves. Their education meets a fateful end.

I believe continuing education, and continual reading are so important because books can be that catalyst for change, the inspiration for life, and a starting point for yet another journey.

• How have books proved to be a catalyst for change?
• How have they been an inspiration in your life?
• How have they been a starting point for yet another journey?
• Do you put the things you learn from a book into your life, or do their teachings, and the things you learn meet a fateful end?

Please share!

Image Courtesy of Roger Smith

“A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you.”
~ Daniel J. Boorstein

There isn’t quite anything like curling up with a good book. One of my favorite things to do, but haven’t done for a long time is to curl up with a good book, in bed, on a rainy day.

It is something I used to do constantly as a teenager. Now that I’m a very busy mom with young children that never seems to happen. I catch my reading while playing taxi driver and have to wait for the kids. I’ll do my reading in the doctors office waiting room and be interrupted what seems like a hundred times per paragraph. Now when I do read in bed, which is usually
every day it is just short segment.

One of my ideal vacations would be spending time with a good book: curling up on a hammock in the mountains,
reading on the beach, or lounging in front of the fireplace with a book. I want to show my children the world, so a nanny would have to come along as well. Just so I could get past a paragraph without an interruption. Oh, and I’ve got to throw in the delicious food sitting on a tray beside me.

Yes, a wonderful book, a fireplace, a big comfy chair, and a tray of fresh fruit, delicious rolls, and sweet butter.