Bonnie Humbarger Lamer - Author and Review Page

Available today!

2012-02-18T12:57:00.002-05:00

Coming January 31, 2012!

2012-01-28T17:29:00.000-05:00

Literary Quote of the Day

2012-01-25T21:15:00.000-05:00

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people are so full of doubts.

~ Bertrand Russell

2012-01-22T21:51:00.000-05:00

Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

~ Edgar Allan Poe

Literary Quote of the Day

2012-01-19T13:05:00.000-05:00

Borrowed this from Goodreads.com Quote of the Day. I love the truth in it.

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.”

— Julian Barnes

From Flaubert's Parrot

Literary Quote of the Day

2012-01-12T20:03:00.000-05:00

By Aladdin's lamplit scrotum, man! Everything is a story. What is there but stories? Stories are the only truth.

~ Christopher Moore, Practical Demonkeeping

Literary Quote of the Day

2012-01-05T19:03:00.000-05:00

In 1981, the Reagan administration declared that ketchup could "be counted as one of the two vegetables required as part of the school lunch program." And according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the George W. Bush administration in 2004, "Batter-coated French fries are a fresh vegetable." Thanks to the government reclassifying fries and ketchup, our kids are finally eating healthy.

~ Leland Gregory, Stupid History Calendar

Read about Kallen's take on his first meeting with Xandra!

2011-12-31T12:33:00.000-05:00

To be released next week!

Now Available!

2011-12-10T18:56:00.002-05:00

Shadow Blood Now Available!

2011-12-04T20:20:00.000-05:00

Shadow Blood - Book 4 of the Witch Fairy series will be available December 10, 2011!

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-11-15T15:28:00.000-05:00

Zebra Question

I asked the zebra,
Are you black with white stripes?
Or white with black stripes?
And the zebra asked me,
Are you good with bad habits?
Or are you bad with good habits?
Are you noisy with quiet times?
Or are you quiet with noisy times?
Are you happy with some sad days?
Or are you sad with some happy days?
Are you neat with some sloppy ways?
Or are you sloppy with some neat ways?
And on and on and on and on
And on and on he went.
I'll never ask zebra
About stripes
Again.

~ Shel Silverstein, A Light In the Attic

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-11-11T10:08:00.002-05:00

"We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees."

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-11-07T22:37:00.000-05:00

As children frightened by a thunder-cloud
Are reassured if some one reads aloud
A tale of wonder, with enchantment fraught,
Or wild adventure, that diverts their thought,
Let me endeavor with a tale to chase
The gathering shadows of the time and place,
And banish what we all too deeply feel
Wholly to say, or wholly to conceal.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-11-06T19:13:00.000-05:00

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

~ Roald Dahl

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-11-04T21:41:00.000-04:00

"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"

~ Ernest Hemingway

2011-10-19T10:11:00.000-04:00

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

~ Anais Nin

Book 3 of my Witch Fairy series will be released October 22, 2011!

2011-10-14T17:27:00.000-04:00

Xandra travels to the Fairy realm and you won't want to miss who she meets there!

2011-10-07T10:15:00.000-04:00

"...selling and trading [baseball] players has always taken place and has always been booed or cheered by fans. But if you think players have been traded only for money, here's some food for thought: Chattanooga shortstop Johnny Jones was traded to Charlotte for turkeys so that the Chattanooga team could have a Thanksgiving dinner. Minor league pitcher Joe Martina was traded for a sack of oysters, and worst of all, Jack Fenton was traded to San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League for a bag of prunes."

~ Sally Cook & James Charlton, Hey Batta Batta Swing!

2011-10-06T12:05:00.000-04:00

‎"And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.” – Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-10-05T22:01:00.000-04:00

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.

~ Henry Miller

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-10-03T21:31:00.000-04:00

There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

~ Herman Hesse

2011-10-02T12:47:00.000-04:00

Tension among a bunch of neurotics is just more interesting for a story than is a description of dedicated professionals doing their work and getting along, which is the case in reality. When in doubt, assume I made it up.

~ Christopher Moore, Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

2011-09-28T18:59:00.003-04:00

Book three of my Witch Fairy series will be released some time in October. Xandra will be traveling to the realm of the Fairies and you won't want to miss who she meets there!

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-09-28T13:16:00.000-04:00

Mark Twain on Henry James:

"Once you've put one of his books down, you simply can't pick it up again."

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-09-27T18:38:00.000-04:00

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.

~ Tom Robbins

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-09-20T23:01:00.000-04:00

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-09-17T22:38:00.000-04:00

I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.

~ Steven Wright

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-09-16T23:04:00.000-04:00

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

~ James Michener

2011-09-15T13:17:00.000-04:00

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-09-15T13:16:00.000-04:00

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-09-14T21:25:00.000-04:00

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

~ Thomas Mann

Part Two of My Witch Fairy Series Available Saturday!!!!!

2011-09-08T19:23:00.000-04:00

Read chapter one by clicking link above!

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-09-02T21:52:00.000-04:00

All of us are freaks in one way or away. Try being born a male Russian Countess into a white, middle class, Baptist family in Mississippi, and you'll see what I mean.

~ Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-08-28T21:57:00.000-04:00

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.

~ Henry Miller

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-08-27T15:02:00.001-04:00

I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.

~ John Irving

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-08-26T22:28:00.000-04:00

The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.

~ Mark Twain

2011-08-17T19:20:00.001-04:00

"There comes a point when you just love someone. Not because they're good, or bad, or anything really. You just love them. It doesn't mean you'll be together forever. It doesn't mean you won't hurt each other. It just means you love them. Sometimes in spite of who they are, and sometimes because of who they are. And you know that they love you, sometimes because of who you are, and sometimes in spite of it."

~ Laurell K. Hamilton, Incubus Dreams

2011-08-12T18:12:00.002-04:00

******A new addition to my blog is the 'Not My Cup of Tea' page where I showcase books that didn't click with me as a reviewer for some reason, but I still think the author deserves recognition for having the courage to put him or her self out there. Follow the link on my home page.******

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-08-11T21:53:00.000-04:00

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

~ George Bernard Shaw

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-08-09T22:24:00.000-04:00

"In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination."

~ Mark Twain

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-08-01T15:30:00.000-04:00

"Divinity is in its omniscience and omnipotence like a wheel, like a circle, a whole, that can neither be understood, nor divided, nor begun, nor ended."

~ Illustrations of Hildegard of Bingen

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-30T20:02:00.000-04:00

THE BATTLE

Would you like to hear
Of the terrible night
When I bravely fought the -
No?
All right.

~ Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-29T22:49:00.000-04:00

The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything.

~ John Irving

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-26T12:17:00.000-04:00

"Can you imagine a stretch of grassy land bubbling like water in a pot? For that is really the best description of what was happening. In all directions it was swelling into humps. They were of very different sizes, some no bigger than molehills, some as big as wheelbarrows, two the size of cottages. And the humps moved and swelled till they burst, and the crumbled earth poured out of them, and from each hump there came out an animal. The moles came out just as you might see a mole come out in England. the dogs came out, barking the moment their heads were free, and struggling as you've seen them do when they are getting through a narrow hole in a hedge. The stags were the queerest to watch, for of course the antlers came up a long time before the rest of them, so at first Digory thought they were trees. The frogs, who all came up near the river, went straight into it with a plop-plop and a loud croaking. The panthers, leopards and things of that sort, sat down at once to wash the loose earth off their hind quarters and then stood up against the trees to sharpen their front claws. Showers of birds came out of the trees. Butterflies fluttered. Bees got to work on the flowers as if they hadn't a second to lose. But the greatest moment of all was when the biggest hump broke like a small earthquake and out came the sloping back, the large, wise head, and the four baggy-trousered legs of an elephant. And now you could hardly hear the song of the Lion; there was so much cawing, cooing, crowing, braying, neighing, baying, barking, lowing, bleating, and trumpeting."

~ C. S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-25T22:41:00.003-04:00

One Step Backward Taken

Not only sands and gravels
Were once more on their travels,
But gulping muddy gallons
Great boulders off their balance
Bumped heads together dully
And started down the gully.
Whole capes caked off in slices.
I felt my standpoint shaken
In the universal crisis.
But with one step backward taken
I saved myself from going.
A world torn loose went by me.
Then the rain stopped and the blowing,
And the sun came out to dry me.

~ Robert Frost

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-12T21:16:00.001-04:00

"It smells terrible in here.'

Well, what do you expect? The human body, when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate."

— John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-10T23:09:00.000-04:00

"For awhile I taped soap operas and watched them at night when I thought I might be forgetting what it was like to be human. After a while I stopped, because from the examples I saw on those shows, forgetting humanity was a good thing."

~ Charlaine Harris, Dead Until Dark

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-09T19:37:00.001-04:00

"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is--'Be what you would seem to be'--or if you'd like it put more simply--'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'"
"I think I should understand that better," Alice said very politely, "`if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it."
"That's nothing to what I could say if I chose," the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone.
"Pray don't trouble yourself to say it any longer than that," said Alice.

~ Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-08T20:42:00.000-04:00

I have eaten your bread and salt,
I have drunk your water and wine,
The deaths ye died I have watched beside,
And the lives that ye led were mine.

Was there aught that I did not share
In vigil or toil or ease, -
One joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear hearts across the seas?

I have written the tale of our life
For a sheltered people's mirth,
In jesting guise - but ye are wise,
And ye know what the jest is worth.

~ Rudyard Kipling, The Works of Rudyard Kipling

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-06T23:23:00.000-04:00

"There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are either well written or badly written. That is all."

~ Oscar Wilde

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-05T22:30:00.000-04:00

Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty- five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

~ Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-04T13:53:00.000-04:00

"I believe there are techniques of the human mind whereby, in its dark deep, problems are examined, rejected or accepted. Such activities sometimes concern facets a man does not know he has. How often one goes to sleep troubled and full of pain, not knowing what causes the travail, and in the morning a whole new direction and a clearness is there, maybe the result of the black reasoning. And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy, and nothing in the thoughts to justify it or cause it."

~ John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-03T22:41:00.000-04:00

"Believe it or not, at one time batters could order the kind of pitch they wanted, either high or low. Imagine telling a pitcher, 'I'll have a meatball, and while you're at it, add a gopher ball, and I'll finish with a lollipop.'"

* meatball - an easy pitch to hit

* gopher ball - a pitch that will 'go fer' a home run

* lollipop - a slow pitch that is easy to hit

~ Sally Cook & James Charlton, Hey Batta Batta Swing!

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-07-02T18:56:00.003-04:00

"Necessity may be the mother of invention, but doing something because it might be
cool is the weird, drunken uncle of invention. Sometimes weird, drunken uncles will
teach you things your mother won’t."

~ Gary Hoover, Land of Nod, The Artifact

Delay in responding to comments and messages

2011-06-30T16:41:00.001-04:00

I apologize for my responses being a little behind. My daughter had surgery with some unexpected complications. I hope to be back to making regular posts and responses in a day or two!

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-28T22:26:00.000-04:00

INVITATION

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

~ Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-27T16:45:00.000-04:00

"The illusion of the seventh veil was the illusion that you could get somebody else to do it for you. To think for you. To hang on your cross. The priest, the rabbi, the imam, the swami, the philosophical novelist were traffic cops, at best. T hey might direct you through a busy intersection, but they wouldn't follow you home and park your car.
Was there a more difficult lesson for a human being to learn, a paradox harder to accept? Even though the great emotions, the great truths, were universal; even though the mind of humanity was ultimately one mind, still, each and every single individual had to establish his or her own special, personal, particular, unique, direct, one-on-one, hands-on relationship with reality, with the universe, with the Divine. It might be complicated, it might be a pain in the ass, it might be, most of all, lonely - but it was the bottom line.
It was as different for everybody as it was the same, so everybody had to take control of their own life, define their own death, and construct their own salvation. And when you finished, you didn't call the Messiah. He'd call you."

~ Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-26T18:49:00.000-04:00

"...just as there are people who are prone to catching colds, there are those who are prone to becoming vampires and, vampire bite of not, that's how they'll turn out. Sometimes it's just tough luck - or an unfortunate accident. According to legends (and you can believe them, or not), someone likely to become a vampire is someone who:
- Was born with teeth.
- Is the seventh son or daughter.
- Ate the flesh of a sheep killed by a werewolf.
- Is a dead werewolf.
- Is the child of a vampire and a werewolf.
- Has red hair.
- Is a corpse that a dog, a cat, or a child jumped over.
- Is a child cursed by its own parents.
- Drowned.
- Was murdered, and the murderer remains unpunished.
- Was struck by lightening.
- Is different or unpopular.
- Is a liar.
- Is a wicked person.
Wow! It's a wonder there's anyone left who isn't a vampire! Wait a minute. Maybe there isn't."

~ Dona Smith, Vampires

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-25T23:48:00.000-04:00

"Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is considered one of the most moving and brilliantly written speeches of all time. And the most fascinating aspect of the speech is that Lincoln wrote it on the back of an envelope while traveling by train through Pennsylvania. Wrong! It would be wonderful to believe this masterpiece was so divinely inspired that Lincoln dashed it off in a matter of minutes. But the truth is, Lincoln began working on the Gettysburg Address eleven days before he gave the speech on November 19, 1863. In fact, there are five drafts of the speech still in existence - some even written on White House stationery. Maybe because the speech is fewer than 300 words, people have assumed he just pulled it out of his hat."

~ Leland Gregory, Stupid History

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-23T22:36:00.000-04:00

"I despise you! I ought to destroy you-finish what I started when I made you. Turn you into ashes and sift them through my hands. You know that I could do it! Like that! Like the snap of mortal fingers, I could do it. Burn you as I burnt your little house. And nothing could save you, nothing at all."

~ Anne Rice, Tale of the Body Thief

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-22T23:24:00.000-04:00

"He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey."

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-21T20:05:00.000-04:00

"Listen to the swaying grass
and listen to the trees.
To me the sweetest music
is those branches in the breeze.
So imagine that the lovely moon
is playing just for you -
everything makes music
if you really want it to."

~ Giles Andrede, Giraffes Can't Dance

Check out my new cover for Hearts On the Run!

2011-06-21T14:40:00.000-04:00

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-20T11:07:00.000-04:00

"I did not go away as soon as I intended. I stayed for the night, while the wind and the rat and the sash and the window-bolt played a ding-dong 'hundred and fifty up.' Then the wind ran out and the billiards stopped, and I felt that I had ruined my one genuine, hall-marked ghost story.

Had I only stopped at the proper time, I could have made anything out of it.

That was the bitterest thought of all!"

~ Rudyard Kipling, My Own True Ghost Story

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-19T15:21:00.000-04:00

"France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous."

~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-17T23:23:00.000-04:00

"Walking out in the middle of a funeral would be, of course, bad form. So attempting to walk out on one's own was beyond the pale."

~ Steve Hockensmith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Dawn of the Dreadfuls

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-16T21:05:00.000-04:00

Rockabye

Rockabye baby, in the treetop.
Don't you know a treetop
Is no safe place to rock?
And who put you up there,
And your cradle too?
Baby, I think someone down here's
Got it in for you.

~ Shel Silvertein, A Light In the Attic

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-15T19:46:00.000-04:00

"So this is heaven, he thought, and he had to smile at himself. It was hardly respectful to analyze heaven in the very moment that one flies up to enter it...

'Where is everybody, Sullivan?' he asked silently, quite at home now with the easy telepathy that these gulls used instead of screes and gracks. 'Why aren't there more of us here? Why, where i came from there were...'

'...thousands and thousands of gulls. I know.' Sullivan shook his head. 'the only answer I can see, Jonathan, is that you are pretty well a one-in-a-million bird. Most of us came along ever so slowly. We went from one world into another that was almost exactly like it, forgetting right away where we had come from, not caring where we were headed, living for the moment. Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand! And then another hundred lives until we began to learn that there is such a thing as perfection, and another hundred again to get the idea that our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth. The same rule holds for us now, of course: we choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the limitations and lead weights to overcome.'"

~ Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-14T20:01:00.000-04:00

The Lovers' Litany

Eyes of grey - a sodden quay,
Driving rain and falling tears,
As the steamer wears to sea
In a parting storm of cheers.
Sing, for Faith and Hope are high -
None so true as you and I -

Sing the Lovers' Litany:

  "Love like ours can never die!"

Eyes of black - a throbbing keel,
Milky foam to left and right;
Whispered converse near the wheel
In the brilliant tropic night.
Cross that rules the Southern Sky!
Stars that sweep and wheel and fly,
Hear the Lovers' Litany:
"Love like ours can never die!"

Eyes of brown - a dusty plain
Split and parched with heat of June,
Flying hoof and tightened rein,
Hearts that beat the old, old tune.
Side by side the horses fly,
Frame we now the old reply
Of the Lovers' Litany:
  "Love like ours can never die!"

Eyes of blue - the Simla Hills
Silvered with the moonlight hoar;
Pleading of the waltz that thrills,
Dies and echoes round Benmore.
"Mabel," "Officers," "Good-bye,"
Glamour, wine, and witchery -
On my soul's sincerity,
  "Love like ours can never die!"

Maidens of your charity,
Pity my most luckless state.
Four times Cupid's debtor I -
Bankrupt in quadruplicate.
Yet, despite this evil case,
And a maiden showed me grace,
Four-and-forty times would I
Sing the Lover's Litany:
  "Love like ours can never die!"

~ Rudyard Kipling, The Works of Rudyard Kipling

Help me write my book!!!

2011-06-13T11:11:00.003-04:00

Check out the changes to Who Are You? based on reader recommendations! Be sure to add your suggestions to be included in the 'My Opinion Mattered' section when the book is published. Click on the Help me write my book link above!

I want to follow you!

2011-06-13T10:51:00.000-04:00

If you are a follower and I haven't followed your blog in return, please let me know and send me your site address so I can rectify that!

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-12T14:36:00.000-04:00

"'I've been coming to this universe for a long time now, and in all this time, I've seen some very stupid behavior. But then I remind myself that you're just bags of meat doing the best you can with what you've got. And from that perspective I guess you're doing all right, even if mostly driven by the same selfish instincts that compel all blobs of marginally sentient protoplasm. It's just what you are, and I try not to judge you for it.'"

~ A. Lee Martinez, Monster

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-12T00:01:00.001-04:00

"In 1716, the Oxford University Press printed 500 copies of a book titled Translation of the New Testament from Coptic into Latin, by David Wilkins. Not exactly a John Grisham novel, it too 191 years to sell all 500 copies."

~ Leland Gregory, Stupid History

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-09T23:35:00.001-04:00

"When Charlie arrived home from his mother's funeral, he was met at the door by two very large very enthusiastic canines, who , undistracted by keeping watch over Sophie's love hostage, were now able to visit the full measure of their affection and joy upon their returning master. It is generally agreed, and in fact stated in the bylaws of the American Kennel Club, that you have not been truly dog-humped until you have been double-dog-humped by a pair of four-hundred-pound hounds from hell (Section 5, paragraph 7: Standards of Humping and Ass-dragging)."

~ Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-08T22:02:00.000-04:00

"'I'll end up with three healthy specimens,' Joe continued to rant. 'I don't have enough ice but I suppose I could tether a couple of you to the back of the boat. Put life jackets on.'

'Specimens.' the woman spit it out like she was disgusted and certainly not afraid. 'You're gonna nickel-and-dime my body parts? Is that what you have in mind, young man?' She was holding her ankle but it didn't stop her. 'I'll have you know that my husband was murdered for millions of dollars. Millions.'"

~ Alex Kava, Damaged

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-07T22:24:00.000-04:00

"There, however, wrapped around the base of the hill, was a monstrous white Worm, bloated and blind. At their approach it turned a foul face upon them, and uttered the following words:

'Pay me the proof of your pain.'

Sir Luckless drew his sword and attempted to kill the beast, but his blade snapped. Then Altheda cast rocks at the Worm, while Asha and Amata essayed every spell that might subdue or entrance it, but the power of their wands was no more effective than their friend's stones or the knight's steel: The Worm would not let them pass.

The sun rose higher and higher in the sky, and Asha, despairing, began to weep.

Then the great Worm placed its face upon hers and drank the tears from her cheeks. Its thirst assuaged, the Worm slithered aside, and vanished into a hole in the ground."

~ J.K. Rowling, The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-06T13:19:00.000-04:00

BLAME

I wrote such a beautiful book for you
'Bout rainbows and sunshine
And dreams that come true.
But the goat went and ate it
(You knew that he would),
So I wrote you another one
Fast as I could.
Of course it could never be
Nearly as great
As that beautiful book
That the silly goat ate.
So if you don't like
This new book I just wrote -
Blame the goat.

~ Shel Silverstein, A Light In The Attic

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-05T18:22:00.000-04:00

"He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision."

~ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

True of Blood made #80 on Amazon list!

2011-06-04T12:41:00.000-04:00

True of Blood is on one of Amazon's bestselling lists!

Amazon Bestsellers Rank:#80 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Mythology

Check it out now at http://www.amazon.com/True-Blood-Witch-Fairy-ebook/dp/B004X287VK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1307205338&sr=8-1

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-04T10:44:00.001-04:00

"Miss Barett, You said we could put in your letter box Extra Credit reports on books we read outside of school and due to Midterms and horsing around I need that E. Credit! I demand you give it to me! Ha-ha joke! But every little bit counts!

Three Important Myth
by Lou Martin

1. There was once a boy and girl but their familys were always arguing so naturally these two children or people would meet each other on the sly. One day a bleeding lion came along. Horrorfied she ran away leaving her scarf! The lion played with it for a while and then went away. The boy came back and seeing the bleeding scarf taught that she was killed. Remosely he took his knife and his life! The girl saw her boy-friend was dead and she decided to kill her self! The 2 familys seeing their dear children dead realised how silly they were & became friends after learning a horrorful lesson. The same conflict appears in Shakespeer.

2. Pygmalian was a myth who was a sculpture. He was the type of man who didn't like women particulally but this story changes this. One day he made a statue of his wife-to-be and put in everything he wanted just so and when it was finished he wanted to marry her but since she wasn't alive he couldn't very well do so. What to do? Pray, of course, which he did to the G----ss of love who made her alive! From this we get My Fair Lady and others.

3. Adonis was a handsome youth from Asia Miner and Venus was the G----ss of love. She use to spend all her time going hunting with him and fishing and other sports. All the manly outlets of life! One day while Adonis went hunting a wild bore killed him and all the Gods pitied Venus so much they then allowed him to rise from the dead to dwell as her husband part time. During the months in which he visits we call Springtime."

~Bel Kaufman, Up The Down Staircase

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-03T10:15:00.000-04:00

The Tower

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, I said. And she did. I started climbing. Watch out for my hair, she said, I don't want split ends. Take your boots off, I just washed it, she said. Watch out for my barrette, it's my favorite! she said. Why are you slowing down? Aren't you strong enough to rescue me? Why did you stop? What kind of prince are you, anyway? I climbed back down. I've heard about this other princess who's asleep - a real beauty.

~ John Grandits, Technically, It's Not My Fault

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-02T10:15:00.000-04:00

"On Tuesday, March 9, [John] Belushi's body was buried in Abel's Hill Cemetery on Martha's Vineyard just about a mile from the old McNamara place that John and Judy had bought several years before. [Dan] Aykroyd, dressed in a black leather jacket and black jeans, led the funeral procession to the cemetery on his motorcycle. James Taylor sang 'That Lonesome Road' at the gravesite as snow began falling.

In Los Angeles, Dr. Kornblum finished the autopsy and ruled that in his opinion, 'John Belushi, a 33-year-old white male died of acute toxicity from cocaine and heroin.'

Two days later, about 1,000 family members and friends attended a memorial service in New York at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Aykroyd took a small tape recorder from his blue knapsack, held it up to a microphone and, as he'd promised John six months earlier, played a tape of the Ventures' 'The 2,000-Pound Bee.' At first everyone seemed stunned, but soon they were laughing."

[The Ventures' 'The 2,000-Pound Bee: http://www.theventures.com/index.php?pg=music&id=13]

~ Bob Woodward, Wired The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-06-01T14:01:00.000-04:00

"It had been three months since I'd washed my hair, two months since my underwear got stolen off the laundry line, and six days since I last changed my outfit, so I felt sufficiently ready to attend my first Rainbow Gathering/Full Moon Party. It was to take place on the shores of Lago Atitlan in Guatemala. We were looking for Bob's tepee somewhere between San Pedro and Santiago. A favorite gringo hideout, it didn't take long to secure a boat at an astronomical price. As we approached the spot a giant tepee with leaping figures dancing around were visible in the setting sun. Our friendly boatman's face quickly changed to disapproval...

It was nothing like I'd seen before, and I'd been in Central America a long time. About sixty people were dancing around to the beat of twenty people drumming, singing chants they all seemed to know. Some people were making out, others were spinning around, and the rest were running around naked. Restless, I looked around for someone to make out with since naked running and spinning were out of the question."

~ Cara Tabachnick, Not So Funny When It Happened

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-31T09:58:00.000-04:00

"We have problems in our country, and many people are praying and waiting for God to do something. I just wonder if maybe God isn't waiting for us to do something. And while no one else is capable of doing everything, everyone is capable of doing something."

~ Ronald Reagan, White House Luncheon of National Religious Leaders, April 13, 1982, reprinted in President Reagan's Quoatations

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-30T19:18:00.000-04:00

"Unlike me, Re-nefer's son had not been able to hide his heart from his mother. Re-nefer had despised the women of the city since she arrived in Shechem as a young bride. 'Stupid and empty,' she branded them all. 'They spin badly, weave atrociously, dress like men, and know nothing of herbs. They will bear you stupid children,' Re-nefer had told her son. 'We will do better for you.'"

~ Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-29T18:55:00.000-04:00

Preface to Poor Richard Improved

"Courteous Reader,
I have heard that nothing gives an author so great pleasure, as to find his works respectfully quoted by other learned authors. This pleasure I have seldom enjoyed; for though I have been, if I may say it without vanity, an eminent author of almanacs annually now a full quarter of a century, my brother authors in the same way, for what reason I know not, have ever been very sparing in their applauses, and no other author has taken the least notice of me, so that did not my writings produce me some solid pudding, the great deficiency of praise would have quite discouraged me."

~ Benjamin Franklin, circa 1758

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-28T22:54:00.000-04:00

GENEROSITY AND MEANNESS

"To begin then with the first characteristic set forth above, I will say that it would be well always to be considered generous, yet generosity used in such a way as not to bring you honor does you harm, for if it is practiced virtuously and as it is meant to be practiced it will not be publicly known and you will not lose the name of being just the opposite of generous. Hence to preserve the reputation of being generous among your friends you must not neglect any kind of lavish display, yet a prince of this sort will consume all his property in such gestures and, if he wishes to preserve his reputation for generosity, he will be forced to levy heavy taxes on his subjects and turn to fiscal measures and do everything possible to get money. Thus he will begin to be regarded with hatred by his subjects and should he become poor he will be held in scant esteem; having by his prodigality given offense to many and rewarded only a few, he will suffer at the first hint of adversity, and the first danger will be critical for him. Yet when he realizes this and tries to reform he will immediately get the name of being a miser. So a prince, as he is unable to adopt the virtue of generosity without danger to himself, must, if he is a wise man, accept with indifference the name of miser. For with the passage of time he will be regarded as increasingly generous when it is seen that, by virtue if his parsimony, his income suffices for him to defend himself in wartime and undertake his enterprises without heavily taxing his people. For in that way he practices generosity towards all from whom he refrains from taking money, who are many, and stinginess only toward those from whom he withholds gifts, who are few."

~ Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-27T20:18:00.000-04:00

Puck:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended:
That you have but slumb'red here,
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call:
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Book Giveaway!

2011-05-26T17:41:00.000-04:00

Kelly Hashway was the winner of my giveaway of True of Blood! Thank you all who participated in the contest.

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-26T10:54:00.000-04:00

Male Criticism on Ladies' Books
(First printed in the New York Ledger on May 23, 1857)

Courtship and marriage, servants and children, these are the great objects of a woman’s thoughts, and they necessarily form the staple topics of their writings and their conversation. We have no right to expect anything else in a woman’s book.

– N. Y. Times

“Is it in feminine novels only that courtship, marriage, servants, and children are the staple? Is not this true of all novels? – of Dickens, of Thackeray, of Bulwer and a host of others? Is it peculiar to feminine pens, most astute and liberal of critics? Would a novel be a novel if it did not treat of courtship and marriage? And if it could be so recognized, would it find readers? When I see such a narrow, snarling criticism as the above, I always say to myself, the writer is some unhappy man, who has come up without the refining influence of mother, or sister, or reputable female friends; who has divided his migratory life between boarding-houses, restaurants, and the outskirts of editorial sanctums; and who knows as much about reviewing a woman’s book, as I do about navigating a ship, or engineering an omnibus from the South Ferry, through Broadway, to Union Park. I think I see him writing that paragraph in a fit of spleen – of male spleen – in his small boarding-house upper chamber, by the cheerful light of a solitary candle, flickering alternately on cobwebbed walls, dusty wash-stand, begrimed bowl and pitcher, refuse cigar stumps, boot-jacks, old hats, buttonless coats, muddy trousers, and all the wretched accompaniments of solitary, selfish male existence, not to speak of his own puckered, unkissable face; perhaps, in addition, his boots hurt, his cravat-bow persists in slipping under his ear for want of a pin, and a wife to pin it, (poor wretch!) or he has been refused by some pretty girl, as he deserved to be, (narrow-minded old vinegar-cruet!) or snubbed by some lady authoress; or, more trying than all to the male constitution, has had a weak cup of coffee for that morning’s breakfast.

But seriously – we have had quite enough of this shallow criticism on lady-books. Whether the book which called forth the remark above quoted, was a good book or a bad one, I know not: I should be inclined to think the former from the dispraise of such a pen. Whether ladies can write novels or not, is a question I do not intend to discuss; but that some of them have no difficulty in finding either publishers or readers, is a matter of history; and that gentlemen often write over feminine signatures would seem also to argue that feminine literature is, after all, in good odor with the reading public. Granting that lady-novels are not all that they should be – is such shallow, unfair, wholesale, sneering criticism the way to reform them? Would it not be better and more manly to point out a better way kindly, justly, and, above all, respectfully? or – what would be a much harder task for such critics – write a better book!”

~ Fanny Fern (Sarah Willis Parton), reprinted in The Norton Anthology American Literature

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-25T22:59:00.000-04:00

"There has been a lot of debate over what Hell looks like. Christians serve it up Dante style, with caverns of fire and lakes of lava. Muslims change the names, but they're mostly on the same page. The Buddhists have Naraka, with its pus rivers and infinite tortures. Jews have an undesirable piece of real estate where everyone gets Saturdays off and someone's always burning garbage. But when damned souls of any denomination finally come face-to-face with the real thing what they generally feel is disappointment, and that's the genius of Hell.

Hell falls short of expectations. Hell disappoints. Hell underwhelms. Hell is always worse than you thought it would be. Tackier. Cheaper. Dirtier. Uglier. Hell looks like someone slept in it the night before and didn't wash it afterwards: it's soiled, rumpled, stained and unpleasant. Almost everything in Hell is broken and hardly anything works. The things that do work have been repaired so poorly, so many times, that they're actually harder to use than before. Dante got the general gist - he was there, after all - but, being Italian, when it came time to write it up he couldn't resist making it seem romantic. Hell is about as romantic as a soup kitchen. A soup kitchen where everyone is naked, dirty and dead."

~ Grady Hendrix, Satan Loves You

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-24T10:06:00.000-04:00

The Land of Happy

Have you been to The Land of Happy,
Where everyone's happy all day,
Where they joke and they sing
Of the happiest things,
And everything's jolly and gay?
There's no one unhappy in Happy,
There's laughter and smiles galore.
I have been to The Land of Happy -
What a bore!

The Search

I went to find the pot of gold
That's waiting where the rainbow ends.
I searched and searched and searched and searched
And searched and searched, and then -
There it was, deep in the grass,
Under an old and twisty bough.
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine at last...
What do I search for now?

~ Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-23T12:36:00.000-04:00

"'...this is one thought that has impressed me, Govinda. Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.'

'Are you jesting?' asked Govinda.

'No, I am telling you what I have discovered. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. I suspected this when I was still a youth and it was this that drove me away from teachers. There is one thought I have had, Govinda, which you will again think is a jest or folly: that is, in every truth the opposite is equally true. For example, a truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided. Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity. When the Illustrious Buddha taught about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. One cannot do otherwise, there is no other method for those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner."

~ Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-22T16:21:00.000-04:00

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost, 1916

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-21T19:00:00.000-04:00

"He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear. They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your head you could still outwit them. With all their cleverness they had never mastered the secret of finding out what another human being was thinking. Perhaps that was less true when you were actually in their hands. One did not know what happened inside the Ministry of Love, but it was possible to guess: tortures, drugs, delicate instruments that registered your nervous reactions, gradual wearing-down by sleeplessness and solitude and persistent questioning. Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by inquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings; for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable."

~ George Orwell, 1984

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-20T13:04:00.001-04:00

A Psalm of Life

What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist

I
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.

II
Life is real - life is earnest -
And the grave is not its goal:
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

III
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destin'd end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

IV
Art is long, and time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

V
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

VI
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act - act in the glorious Present!
Heart within, and God o'er head!

VII
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time.

VIII
Footsteps, that, perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

XI
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, circa 1838, printed in The Norton Anthology American Literature

Review comments

2011-05-20T10:53:00.002-04:00

I have fixed the problem with the review comments links and they will bring you to the right place now!

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-19T22:51:00.000-04:00

"I stood in the shallows in a dress that I had never imagined, by a shore I did not know, and stared at the beautiful monster as he moved towards me, graceful and covered in blood.
I woke gasping for air, hands clutching at the sheets like a lifeline. 'You promised to stay out of my dreams, you son of a bitch,' I whispered."

~ Laurell K. Hamilton, Circus of the Damned

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-18T16:44:00.000-04:00

"After spending a petless year with only one child still living at home, my parents visited a breeder and returned with a Great Dane they named Melina. They loved this dog in proportion to its size, and soon their hearts had no room for anyone else. In terms of mutual respect and admiration, their six children had been nothing more than a failed experiment. Melina was the real thing. The house was given over to the dog, rooms redecorated to suit her fancy. Enter your former bedroom and you'd be told, 'You'd better not let Melina catch you in here,' or, 'This is where we come to peepee when there's nobody home to let us outside, right, girl!' The knobs on our dressers were whittled down to damp stumps, and our beds were matted with fine, short hairs. Scream at the mangled leather carcass lying at the foot of the stairs, and my parents would roar with laughter. 'That's what you get for leaving your wallet on the kitchen table.'"

~ David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day

Literary Quote of the Day

2011-05-17T19:41:00.000-04:00

"When and where the heart can celebrate each awakening day - that becomes home. When and where the spirit can mine for nourishment in the little moments - that becomes home. When and where the mind can distill meaning from the shadows as well as the light - that also becomes home."

~ Priscilla Cogan, Winona's Web