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Links and Thinks

Feb3

Melissa at Book Nut has an interview with Roseanne Parry, author of one of my favorite Middle Grade Fiction books of 2009.

This movie sounds good. Has anyone seen it?
Actually, Brown Bear Daughter went to see it with some friends from church and she said it was pretty good. She didn’t rave about it; however, she wants me to see it so that we can discuss.

Haitian author Edwidge Danticat: “My cousin Maxo has died. The house that I called home during my visits to Haiti collapsed on top of him.”

Sarah Palin on Rahm Emmanuel’s hate speech: “His recent tirade against participants in a strategy session was such a strong slap in many American faces that our president is doing himself a disservice by seeming to condone Rahm’s recent sick and offensive tactic.”
I tend to not agree that people should be fired from their jobs because of the words they use, no matter how crude, rude or socially unacceptable. However, Mr. Emmanuel really doesn’t get it, does he?

12 Tips for New Bloggers, Especially Book Bloggers

Jan8

My sweet reader sister, Judy, just sent me this email:

I have decided to start a blog to review/discuss/recommend books. I have so many of my friends asking me what I am reading and what they should read on a particular subject. I think it could be beneficial for them and maybe others who stumble onto my blog.

I have a request: Could you give me hints and advice on what I should or shouldn’t do on my blog? It will be mostly books by Christian authors and links to blogs that either review books or discuss current events related to the books I read. I know the blog will probably evolve over time, but as for now, I want to share what I read with others and get suggestions from others as well. I would welcome ideas from a “veteran blogger”.

1. Get into a rhythm of regular posting: once a week, twice a week, five days a week, every day. It doesn’t matter how frequently you post, but it does matter that you post regularly so that people get used to checking to see what you have to say today or this week.

2. Focusing on one kind of book, one genre, is good. I don’t do it because I don’t focus my reading that way, but it is a good thing. The more people know what to expect the more likely they are to visit regularly. If you are writing a book blog, people expect most, if not all of your posts to be about books. Again, do as I say, not as I do.( I have my own reasons for posting about whatever I want to write about, and I don’t mind if I lose some readers along the way.)

3. Consider linking to book reviews of the same book by other bloggers. You can find those by using this focused Google Book Blogs Search Engine.
Be sure to list your blog at the Book Blogs Search Engine so that others who use that tool can find your reviews easily.

4. Write personal reviews. What I mean by that is: don’t try to sound like a professional book reviewer. I most enjoy the reviews that tell me what the book meant to the reader/blogger personally. What did the author make you think about? How did the book relate to your own life? What are some quotes that were meaningful to you? What made you laugh or cry? Tell me more than: “this was a great book.” But don’t include spoilers unless you warn me first. I don’t want to know the ending or the plot twists before I read the book.

5. Read other book blogs and comment on other book blogs and link to your favorites. In other words, participate in the book blogging community. Here are some places where you can begin to participate:

Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon
Weekly Geeks
Booking Through Thursday
Reading Challenges (Collected at A Novel Challenge)
The Classics Circuit
Book Blogging Events
Faith and Fiction Saturday at My Friend Amy

Don’t try to do everything. Pick a couple of events or memes or challenges, and do them well. Look around and see what suits you best.

6. Don’t worry about getting “free books” yet. Those will come eventually–if the whole publishing industry doesn’t transform itself into who-knows-what with the advent of e-books and such. Just stick to your original idea: read what you want to read, and share what you love with others in your blog posts. Probably, someone, somewhere will offer you a free book, or a gift book, or an advanced review copy of a book. Be careful what you accept and know what strings are attached. Only agree to review books that you want to read and that you can find time to read and review honestly.

7. Don’t make your reviews too long, and use pictures. Some reviewers can get away with long reviews, mostly because they’re better writers than I am. And they have a lot of good stuff to say. When I try to write long book reviews, I usually end up repeating myself. (This book was really, really good. Really.) Keep it medium short, longer than Twitter tweets and shorter than the novel itself or even a chapter of the novel. And use some kind of picture to break up the text. I use a lot of book covers from Amazon. That’s the main reason I’m an Amazon affiliate. (And if you link to Amazon, and get a few cents back, or any other sales scheme, you’re supposed to tell everyone that you do all the time as if they couldn’t figure it out.)

8. Title your book reviews with the title of the book and the author. This tip may seem self-evident, but it’s tempting to try to come up with catchy titles for books reviews. However, when someone searches for a review of X book on Google, they won’t be as likely to hit your blog if you called your review “A Look at the Newest Great American Novel” instead of X book by Z author.

9. Ask questions in your posts, and answer questions posed by your readers in the comments.

10. Always link to blog posts that you mention, bloggers who gave you ideas, bloggers who pointed out something interesting to you, bloggers who made you laugh, authors’ homepages, etc. Link-love is kind, encouraging, helpful to your readers, and it brings people back to your blog.

11. If you get nasty comments or spam comments, ignore/delete. Do not respond to people who say unkind things on your blog. Delete them, and go on. Life is too short.

12. Enjoy blogging. If you aren’t enjoying it, something is wrong. Figure out what’s wrong, and fix it. Or quit blogging. Don’t let anyone or anything steal your joy.

My sister’s brand, spanking new blog is called Carpe Libris: Seize the Book. Please do me a favor and go by and leave her a comment and a big welcome to the Blogosphere of Books and Readers.

Thanks.

Links and Thinks

Jan6

I like this idea: free music. You just have to watch a short ad, and the company whose ad you view pays for the song. Essentially, they’re paying you to watch, and I think that’s fair and beneficial for all concerned.

40 Most Obnoxious Quotes of 2009. Can you believe people actually said these things in public? Seriously? As I said before, it was the year of sublimely ridiculous.

Mother Reader is sponsoring the Kidlitosphere Comment Challenge, January 8 -28. It’s a good opportunity to increase your participation in the blog world and give and receive some comment encouragement.

And Elizabeth Bird at Fuse#8, the same blogger who brought us the incredible Top 100 Picture Books Poll last year, is doing it again. Only this time she’s taking votes for the Best 100 Children’s FIctional Chapter books of all time. You get to vote for your top ten, and Ms. Bird will compile the results into a list of the Top 100, to be revealed on her blog starting in February. Votes must be in by January 31st, so start thinking about your list now and as soon as you get it compiled, send it to Betsy.

Wisdom from The Common Room: “There is just something about working on some shared project that somehow loosens the tongue and the thoughts and oils the gears of communication.”
This bit of homespun advice is something I need to remember, both in fostering communication with the young adult members of my family and in advising them in their relationshops.

Here’s a weird LOST promo picture. I’m honestly not sure what to make of it. Why are there 13 “disciples”?

Toddler Shakespeare (HT to Kathryn at Suitable for Mixed Company):

Semicolon’s 12 Best Posts and Articles Linked in 2009

Dec26

I went out to buy a skirt by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. I am in complete agreement with Ms. Jennifer: shopping is the trauma.

Pseudogamy 101: We engage in a convoluted and expensive pretense, complete with band and wedding cake and ring and honeymoon in Cancun, when all along we are saying, in part, “I am for myself, and for this person here only insofar as this person is for me,” rather than, “I now belong to my spouse, and in my belonging to my spouse I will become myself, because it is only in giving that we receive, and only in binding ourselves to the gift that we are set free.”

Pseudogamy 102. On Edmund Spencer’s Epithalmion: “In the bed where he and his bride make love, we are made to understand that something may happen for which all the cosmos, all that grand wild extravagant order of stars and planets and night and day, is but the preparation or the stage, and in comparison with which all the cosmos that is not human is but dust. They may beget a child. Indeed they pray that it be so.”

Lunch Bag Art: a lunch bag a day, artistically rendered.

Warning! Eating books could seriously damage your health! (Duh!)

The Original Octamom: Is Eight Enough? “I don’t have the answers to all things reproduction. I do think we need to quit thinking in terms of ‘what can I handle’ and think instead ‘how can I be stretched.’ We tend to make decisions in this arena based in fear, not in faith…and then that is no real decision based in the Lord at all.”

The Competing Narratives of Barry and Sarah by Jack Cashill in The American Thinker.

Don’t Miss the Joy by Matt Anderson in WORLD Magazine. “The Psalmist had it right. Children are a reward and a joy, not a “carbon footprint” to be avoided.”

A Century of Thursdays: Allen Barra on G.K.Chesterton in The Wall Street Journal: GKC “would be amused to find that he has served as an icon to writers as diverse as William F. Buckley Jr., Garry Wills, C.S. Lewis and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman.”

How Fiction can Powerfully Inform the Practical Application of Truth, Part Two” or “The Post I Do Not Want to Write by Jeanne Damoff at The Master’s Artist: “God is good in what He forbids. That is what the church should be saying. That is what I should be saying. But apparently we don’t believe it.”
My response to Ms. Damoff’s thoughts on Perelandra and the Christian life.

What Do Stephen King and Jerry Jenkins Have in Common? An interview by Jessica Strawser in Writer’s Digest.

My Ten Dollars by BIlly Coffey, the source of my $10 Challenge. “I had kept the ten dollar bill in my pocket for a week or so, set apart from the gas and grocery money for one purpose only—I was going to bless someone with it. I was going to lighten a load, brighten a face, and do my part to spread some Christmas cheer.”

Christmas and Seasonal Links

Dec14

Who wrote The Night Before Christmas? I knew there was some dispute over the authorship of this traditional Christmas poem, but I didn’t know The Rest of the Story, as Paul Harvey would have said.

Dear Congress, Please go home for Christmas. Now. Please. Sincerely, The Anchoress (and me and lots of us).

Christmas Change and the $10 Challenge: won’t you consider tucking $10 into your pocket or billfold or purse just for the express purpose of blessing somebody else this Christmas?

Or here’s another idea for blessing others at Christmas: For the Man Who Hated Christmas

News and Notes: Links

Nov9

Esther Hautzig, who wrote The Endless Steppe a memoir of her family’s deportation to Siberia in 1939, died November 1, 2009. She was 79 years old.
Betsy at Fuse #8 knew and worked with Ms. Hautzig.
School Library Journal article on Ms. Hautzig: “In Hautzig’s many appearances at conferences and classrooms, she encouraged people of all ages, especially young people, to keep a journal and record their stories. She believed that all stories were unique to the individuals writing them and each life story important in its own way.”

Nominations list for the Clive Staples Award for Christian Speculative Fiction. I’ve not read any of these, but I’d like to sample a few after my Cybils work is done. Any suggestions? If you voted, which book did you vote for?

The Next Big Hype: Beautiful Malice by Rebecca James out of Australia. Has anyone actually seen this highly touted YA novel?

10 Coolest Bookends.
15 Coolest Bookshelves.

Wednesday’s Whatever: Blogiversary

Oct28

On October 28, 2003, I began this blogging gig with a post about Stephen Lawhead’s Patrick. And ever since then, for six years, I’ve been telling everybody who’s remotely interested what I’m reading and what I think about it. I’ve also indulged in the occasional political opinion piece, essays and observations about homeschooling, even poetry.

If you enjoy reading what I write here at Semicolon, I am both appreciative and humbled. If you’ve commented, even once or even negatively, I thank you for the contribution. If you read and never comment, I thank you, too, for making it fun to blog. Without readers, even if it’s only one, I am the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Maybe the tree would fall and make a sound anyway, but it wouldn’t make nearly as satisfying a boom. Communication and sharpening of thoughts and ideas are what blogging is all about for me.

I hope to continue blogging for as long as the process satisfies something within me and keeps me thinking. I hope you’ll continue reading for whatever your reasons are. In addition to the links above, here are some of my favorite posts from the past six years. Enjoy.

Why Read?

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.

Interview with J.B. Cheaney, author of The Middle of Somewhere.

Welcome Autumn!

Hurley Needs a Cool Code Name

LOST Names

Narnia Aslant: A Narnia-Inspired Reading List.

The End of the Alphabet, Wit and John Donne.

107 Best Movies

Of Psalms and Semicolons.

Wednesday’s Whatever: My Take on the News

Oct14

President Obama and the NObel Peace Prize: I’m with Thomas Friedman. I really hope Mr. Obama gives a speech similar to this one.

Fascinating: a “new” painting by Leonardo da Vinci.

Could someone just talk Olympia Snowe into joining the Democrats –officially?

“There are many miles to go in this legislative journey,” Snowe said. “My vote today is my vote today. It doesn’t forecast what my vote will be tomorrow.”

My point exactly: Let the Democrats figure out how she’s going to vote tomorrow.

Bo Snerdly is a black man? And why can’t Rush Limbaugh buy anything he wants if he’s got the money, honey, and the sellers have got the time?

Daniel Zalewski writes in the New Yorker about Picture Book Kids Misbehaving. I’m not sure if parents in picture books are any more ineffectual than they ever were, but I did have a parent thank me the other day for the selection of books in my preschool curriculum Picture Book Preschool. She said the books she usually finds at the library often feature snotty, impertinent children.

That’s all for today. Maybe next week (or tomorrow) I’ll have more to say.

Autumn Links

Sep27

Pilgrimage




Pilgrimage

Art Print

Rockwell, Norman


Buy at AllPosters.com

Here are a few links to some autumnal posts, pages and resources here at Semicolon as we celebrate my favorite season:

October: Celebrations, Links and Birthdays

100 Pumpkins: A Celebration of All Things Pumpkin-ish

The Apple Collection: A collection of posts about apples from 2007.

In November 2006, I celebrated the Pecan, noblest of all nuts, and so yummy!

Welcome Autumn; a collection of fall favorites.

Links and Thinks: Worth Reading

Sep25

Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN Speech, September 24, 2009: “But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!”

Wilder Women by Judith Thurman in The New Yorker. (HT: Mental Multivitamin) Rose Lane Wilder and her more famous mother Laura Ingalls WIlder don’t sound as if they were very happy people in this article, but maybe it’s Ms. Thurman who doesn’t like their politics and way of life.

Perhaps the Wilders just should have been born later so that they could enjoy all the wonderful media tools of the twenty first century, such as Twitter. In this youtube video, evangelist Louie Giglio apologizes to Twitterers everywhere for his former disparaging remarks about Twitter. I’m still at a loss as to what in the world Twitter is good for??? But if Mr. Giglio now repents of his disdain for it, maybe I should give it another look? (Nah, blogging takes up enough of my time and energy.)