It is official, my family has been designated the 2009 Why You Should Get Your Flu Shot When You are Supposed to Family of the Year.
We have always made a point of getting our shots each year. This year, however, we decided that due to a mild winter, and everyone being pretty healthy, that we would postpone (forgo) shots. That proved to be a pretty bad idea. With the exception of perhaps five or six days, at least one person in our family has been sick enough to stay home from school or work every single day for the past, almost six weeks.
My wife became so ill that she developed a spot of pneumonia. If that were not bad enough, one of the medications prescribed to her by our physician contained steroids. Subsequently, the children and I had to ban her from playing Wii baseball with the rest of the family. It seemed the only fair thing to do.
This run of illness, combined with the constant drum of bad news about the economy--plus the weather--has really had our house in the doldrums of late.
Regretfully, too, there was no time to take advantage of all the literary events taking place in Georgia in January and February. Or even blog about them, for that matter. My wife did read Atlanta author Susan Rebecca White's new book, Bound South. My wife was so taken with the book she stated that she could sit up all night reading it. Even the flu didn't keep her from it (must have been the steroids).
But everyone seems to be on the mend, now. The weather seems to be turning warmer. And there are so many terrific literary events coming up in Georgia during the next few months (many, if not most, being free). In fact, a number of author acquaintances have been in touch recently about their upcoming projects. Fishing season is just around the corner, and a recent and much unexpected romance is all the news at our house.
Good news. Good health. Good people (like understanding employers). Good books. The rest will fall into place.
Strongly recommended:
Bound South by Susan Rebecca White
The American Academy of Pediatrics Complete and Authoritative Guide to Caring for Your Baby and Young Child, edited by Dr. Steven Shelov. I don't know if Dr. Shelov is from Georgia, but this book is a tremendous and handy guide to the more that 4,000 different reasons that children get nauseous, and to the more than one million and seven reasons that they might run a fever.
RMR (and get their flu shots)
Friday, February 27, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Susan Rebecca White--Georgia Author
On Monday, February 9, beginning at 7 pm (reception at 6 pm), debut Atlanta author Susan Rebecca White will present her new novel, Bound South, at the Margaret Mitchell House and Literary Center in Atlanta. The event is free for Margaret Mitchell House members, $5 for Atlanta History Center members, and $10 for non-members.
Ms. White is a native Atlantan. Her new book, Bound South, tells the story of three contemporary Atlanta women and their interwoven lives.
With all due respect to other cultures around the world, as well as to other regions of the United States, there cannot possibly be anywhere else on the planet where the word “Mother” carries so much weight as it does in the American South. God bless mothers everywhere. But where else can a fifty-year-old professional man still refer to his mother as “Mama” and have that be perfectly acceptable?
Bound South is a solid and enjoyable read (think, The Joy Luck Club meets Driving Miss Daisy). Ms. White clearly knows her subjects and settings. The book has much “old south” in it, but there’s no mistaking that it is a modern story. Mother-daughter relationships, dark humor, and quirky relatives are big selling points for this book. Mostly, though, it is a good story and well written.
Bound South ought to cause a stir in Atlanta. For that matter, it won’t be a surprise if the book becomes a big hit nationally.
Again, Ms. White will be reading and signing at the Margaret Mitchell House on February 9th. For more information about her, Bound South, or author appearances, see her website at right.
Recommended:
Eating the Cheshire Cat by Helen Ellis
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
RMR.
Ms. White is a native Atlantan. Her new book, Bound South, tells the story of three contemporary Atlanta women and their interwoven lives.
With all due respect to other cultures around the world, as well as to other regions of the United States, there cannot possibly be anywhere else on the planet where the word “Mother” carries so much weight as it does in the American South. God bless mothers everywhere. But where else can a fifty-year-old professional man still refer to his mother as “Mama” and have that be perfectly acceptable?
Bound South is a solid and enjoyable read (think, The Joy Luck Club meets Driving Miss Daisy). Ms. White clearly knows her subjects and settings. The book has much “old south” in it, but there’s no mistaking that it is a modern story. Mother-daughter relationships, dark humor, and quirky relatives are big selling points for this book. Mostly, though, it is a good story and well written.
Bound South ought to cause a stir in Atlanta. For that matter, it won’t be a surprise if the book becomes a big hit nationally.
Again, Ms. White will be reading and signing at the Margaret Mitchell House on February 9th. For more information about her, Bound South, or author appearances, see her website at right.
Recommended:
Eating the Cheshire Cat by Helen Ellis
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
RMR.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
A Little Suggested Reading for the Occasion
Here is a little suggested reading in recognition of the momentous occasion this week:
The Great American Handbook: What You Can Do for Your Country--Today and Every Day by Cheri Sicard
Here's just one suggestion from the book: Use the Library of Congress.
RMR
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Georgia Book Awards & The 100th Day of School
Last week, my daughter brought home from her elementary school library a copy of Georgia author Betteye Stroud’s 2005 The Patchwork Path-A Quilt Map to Freedom (illustrated by Erin Susanne Bennett). My daughter informed me that the book has been nominated for a 2009 Georgia Book Award. She also informed me that she is reading books to earn points for a free ticket to Six Flags Over Georgia. So we began reading Patchwork right away to add to the points she had already earned.
Last night, before going to bed, my daughter told me to make certain that she was up early this morning so that she could finish the story that she was writing and illustrating entitled, The 100th Day of School. The story recognizes her class’ 100th day of kindergarten. She got herself up this morning just after 6 a.m. and was at her desk working before I even knew that she was awake.
I understand that this all simply sounds like the musings of a doting father with regards to his above average child. I do dote and she is above average. But that isn’t the point.
I just find it interesting—her making decisions and choices on her own, then acting on those decisions and choices, particularly when they are of a literary bent. Are there any developmental psychologists out there who can tell me what I am talking about? It’s just so cool!
My daughter was surprised to learn that she is the owner of an autographed copy of Ms. Stroud’s book. The author inscribed her copy to her when my daughter was just three years old—the year her baby brother was born. More information about Bettye Stroud and her works can be viewed at her website which can be linked to from of this blog.
Good luck and congratulations Bettye, on this year’s nomination.
And reading to earn a Six Flags ticket? My folks took me to the park the year it opened. I think it was 1967. Do I want to let my child on a roller coaster that is as old as me?
RMR
Friday, January 16, 2009
Aging
A nasty cold sent me home from work early one day this week. While not in a cold-medicine-induced stupor, I was able to spend some quality time with Isabella.
And Cullen.
Back over the holidays, my ninth-grade niece and I came to an agreement. If I would read Twilight, the first in the Stephenie Meyer Twilight Saga, she--my niece--would read Brom Stoker’s classic, Dracula. That was the deal.
Until recently, I was only aware of Ms. Meyer’s series as a result of them being the top-selling titles for the book industry in 2008. I work in books, and the Twilight series is, beyond doubt, a phenomenon approaching Potteresque proportions. So, my agreeing to read the first in the series was as much about my own professional interests as much as anything.
I confess that I had some pretty serious preconceptions about the Twilight books based upon the hype. That said, however, the truth about hype is that it seldom really tells you much about what is being, well, hyped.
My biggest preconceptions about the books, though, were based primarily upon the enormous appeal the series obviously has to adolescent girls and young women. Plus, the snippets that I’d caught from aficionados discussing the books made me think that they were nothing more than High School melodrama with a supernatural twist.
My niece, among many others whom I have witnessed, need only mention the name “Cullen” to send herself off into a state of blissful sighing and far away looks. When I was her age, Farrah Fawcett did the same thing to me.
Too, some of my reasons for perhaps thinking badly of the Twilight books before having even read one (something I harshly criticize others doing) might have had something to do with vampires lately being all the rage in the purely adult Romance genre.
I do not consider myself a critic, and I am certainly no spoiler (who rate with telemarketers and morons who talk during movies). That said, I do not think that I am giving anything away by revealing to the dozen or so people left on Earth who have not yet read the Meyer’s saga, that the hero in Twilight is a vampire named Edward Cullen. Though he presents himself as a seventeen-year-old youth, he is, like most vampires, much, much older. So, he is an old man in the eternally buff and strikingly handsome body of a seventeen year-old who is irresistible to females? This sounds more like a middle-aged man’s fantasy more than that of a young woman, but that’s just me thinking out loud.
Finally, I must confess some prejudice toward Twilight as a began to read it due to my tendency to view the book through the eyes of someone who will one day be the father of a seventeen year-old daughter himself. I expect that the day will come when I view all teenage males as dangerous supernatural beings that I must ward off by any means possible.
I’m not saying that I actually “got into” Twilight. I do confess that there were one or two times when I did catch myself thinking calmly to myself, “NO, BELLA! Nooooooooo!”
And that Lauren! What is her problem?
I’m open to just about anything that gets people excited about books and reading. And if Twilight did turn out to be silly stuff, who am I to begrudge anyone for reading just for pleasure? After all, I certainly have my own favorites for simple pleasure reading. I am particularly fond of the late (though still producing) Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series of international espionage novels.
I think that the primary difference between what I choose to read for fun, and what my young niece—a bright kid, I might add—chooses for light reading, is simply a matter of personal taste based upon what is most relevant and familiar to us, respectively.
It is perfectly natural that young readers would be drawn to a world of romance, adventure, fantasy, (and did I say, romance?). I think that this is especially so for young and impressionable women. Still, it is, after all, just make-believe. And that is the big difference, I think, in what I choose to read for fun and what my niece and her peers choose.
Fun reading about teenage vampires is all just fine. Certainly there are some elements about life as a teenager and life in high school with which many readers of the Twilight series may identify. It’s still just pure fantasy.
Unlike my own more grown-up fun reading, in which the attraction—to me—is based more upon reality. I don’t identify with Ludlum’s Jason Bourne character because he is a supernatural, indestructible gentlemanly hunk. That’s just fairy tale stuff. No. I identify with the fictional Bourne because, much like me, he has a dark past, is surrounded by an air of mystery and danger, and is a master in the martial arts. Plus stuff that I can’t go into.
It’s a small distinction, I know. I chalk it up to age and experience.
I can’t wait to hear my niece’s take on Dracula, the original vampire love story.
I’m off to the barbershop tomorrow. And I know just what the nice Vietnamese lady who cuts my hair is going to ask.
“Hey! Where you been so long? What look you want this time? James Bond or Jason Bon?”
Can you give me an Edward Cullen?
Kudos to Ms. Meyer for making her heroine a book lover.
Suggested:
Dracula by Brom Stoker
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice
RMR
And Cullen.
Back over the holidays, my ninth-grade niece and I came to an agreement. If I would read Twilight, the first in the Stephenie Meyer Twilight Saga, she--my niece--would read Brom Stoker’s classic, Dracula. That was the deal.
Until recently, I was only aware of Ms. Meyer’s series as a result of them being the top-selling titles for the book industry in 2008. I work in books, and the Twilight series is, beyond doubt, a phenomenon approaching Potteresque proportions. So, my agreeing to read the first in the series was as much about my own professional interests as much as anything.
I confess that I had some pretty serious preconceptions about the Twilight books based upon the hype. That said, however, the truth about hype is that it seldom really tells you much about what is being, well, hyped.
My biggest preconceptions about the books, though, were based primarily upon the enormous appeal the series obviously has to adolescent girls and young women. Plus, the snippets that I’d caught from aficionados discussing the books made me think that they were nothing more than High School melodrama with a supernatural twist.
My niece, among many others whom I have witnessed, need only mention the name “Cullen” to send herself off into a state of blissful sighing and far away looks. When I was her age, Farrah Fawcett did the same thing to me.
Too, some of my reasons for perhaps thinking badly of the Twilight books before having even read one (something I harshly criticize others doing) might have had something to do with vampires lately being all the rage in the purely adult Romance genre.
I do not consider myself a critic, and I am certainly no spoiler (who rate with telemarketers and morons who talk during movies). That said, I do not think that I am giving anything away by revealing to the dozen or so people left on Earth who have not yet read the Meyer’s saga, that the hero in Twilight is a vampire named Edward Cullen. Though he presents himself as a seventeen-year-old youth, he is, like most vampires, much, much older. So, he is an old man in the eternally buff and strikingly handsome body of a seventeen year-old who is irresistible to females? This sounds more like a middle-aged man’s fantasy more than that of a young woman, but that’s just me thinking out loud.
Finally, I must confess some prejudice toward Twilight as a began to read it due to my tendency to view the book through the eyes of someone who will one day be the father of a seventeen year-old daughter himself. I expect that the day will come when I view all teenage males as dangerous supernatural beings that I must ward off by any means possible.
I’m not saying that I actually “got into” Twilight. I do confess that there were one or two times when I did catch myself thinking calmly to myself, “NO, BELLA! Nooooooooo!”
And that Lauren! What is her problem?
I’m open to just about anything that gets people excited about books and reading. And if Twilight did turn out to be silly stuff, who am I to begrudge anyone for reading just for pleasure? After all, I certainly have my own favorites for simple pleasure reading. I am particularly fond of the late (though still producing) Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series of international espionage novels.
I think that the primary difference between what I choose to read for fun, and what my young niece—a bright kid, I might add—chooses for light reading, is simply a matter of personal taste based upon what is most relevant and familiar to us, respectively.
It is perfectly natural that young readers would be drawn to a world of romance, adventure, fantasy, (and did I say, romance?). I think that this is especially so for young and impressionable women. Still, it is, after all, just make-believe. And that is the big difference, I think, in what I choose to read for fun and what my niece and her peers choose.
Fun reading about teenage vampires is all just fine. Certainly there are some elements about life as a teenager and life in high school with which many readers of the Twilight series may identify. It’s still just pure fantasy.
Unlike my own more grown-up fun reading, in which the attraction—to me—is based more upon reality. I don’t identify with Ludlum’s Jason Bourne character because he is a supernatural, indestructible gentlemanly hunk. That’s just fairy tale stuff. No. I identify with the fictional Bourne because, much like me, he has a dark past, is surrounded by an air of mystery and danger, and is a master in the martial arts. Plus stuff that I can’t go into.
It’s a small distinction, I know. I chalk it up to age and experience.
I can’t wait to hear my niece’s take on Dracula, the original vampire love story.
I’m off to the barbershop tomorrow. And I know just what the nice Vietnamese lady who cuts my hair is going to ask.
“Hey! Where you been so long? What look you want this time? James Bond or Jason Bon?”
Can you give me an Edward Cullen?
Kudos to Ms. Meyer for making her heroine a book lover.
Suggested:
Dracula by Brom Stoker
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice
RMR
Monday, January 12, 2009
A Few January Author Events
Here are a few readings, signings and discussions taking place in Georgia between now and the end of the month. By no means is the list complete.
Rudolph P. Byrd, The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson. Tonight, Monday, January 12 at 7:15 at the Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur. Free.
Tuesday, January 13
Bernie Schein, If Holden Caulfield were in my Classroom: Inspiring Love, Creativity and Intelligence in Middle School Kids.
Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta. Reception at 6 pm. Program begins at 7 pm. $5 for members and $10 for non-members.
Thursday, January 15
Jack Riggs, The Fireman's Wife.
Georgia Center for the Book (with A Cappella Books) in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
Monday, January 19
Nami Mun, Miles From Nowhere.
A Cappella Books (and the Opal Gallery) in Little Five Points in Atlanta.
7 pm. Free.
Tuesday, January 20
Carolyn Jessop, Escape.
Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
Wednesday, January 21
Penelope Leach, Child Care Today: Getting It Right for Everyone.
Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
Thursday, January 22
Bob Zellner and Constance Curry, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement.
Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta.
6 pm reception. Program begins at 7 pm. $5 for members and $10 for non-members.
Friday, January 23
Sheryl Kayne, Immersion Travel USA: The Best and Most Meaningful Volunteering, Living and Learning Excursions.
A Cappella Books and the Opal Gallery in Atlanta.
7 pm. Free.
Monday, January 26
Robert J. Norrell, Up from History.
Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
Tuesday, January 27
Georgia State University Professor Pearl McHaney will give a presentation entitled, "Eudora Welty's Cosmos: One Writer's Beginnings and Photographs".
The Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
Wednesday, January 28
Stephen J. Cannell, On the Grind.
Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta.
Reception at 6 pm. Program begins at 7 pm. $5 for members and $10 for non-members.
Thursday, January 29
E. Lynn Harris, Basketball Jones.
Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
To confirm events, and to get additional information pertaining to the above events, visit the linked websites on this blog.
Suggested reading: see above.
RMR
Rudolph P. Byrd, The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson. Tonight, Monday, January 12 at 7:15 at the Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur. Free.
Tuesday, January 13
Bernie Schein, If Holden Caulfield were in my Classroom: Inspiring Love, Creativity and Intelligence in Middle School Kids.
Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta. Reception at 6 pm. Program begins at 7 pm. $5 for members and $10 for non-members.
Thursday, January 15
Jack Riggs, The Fireman's Wife.
Georgia Center for the Book (with A Cappella Books) in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
Monday, January 19
Nami Mun, Miles From Nowhere.
A Cappella Books (and the Opal Gallery) in Little Five Points in Atlanta.
7 pm. Free.
Tuesday, January 20
Carolyn Jessop, Escape.
Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
Wednesday, January 21
Penelope Leach, Child Care Today: Getting It Right for Everyone.
Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
Thursday, January 22
Bob Zellner and Constance Curry, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement.
Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta.
6 pm reception. Program begins at 7 pm. $5 for members and $10 for non-members.
Friday, January 23
Sheryl Kayne, Immersion Travel USA: The Best and Most Meaningful Volunteering, Living and Learning Excursions.
A Cappella Books and the Opal Gallery in Atlanta.
7 pm. Free.
Monday, January 26
Robert J. Norrell, Up from History.
Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
Tuesday, January 27
Georgia State University Professor Pearl McHaney will give a presentation entitled, "Eudora Welty's Cosmos: One Writer's Beginnings and Photographs".
The Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
Wednesday, January 28
Stephen J. Cannell, On the Grind.
Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta.
Reception at 6 pm. Program begins at 7 pm. $5 for members and $10 for non-members.
Thursday, January 29
E. Lynn Harris, Basketball Jones.
Georgia Center for the Book in Decatur.
7:15 pm. Free.
To confirm events, and to get additional information pertaining to the above events, visit the linked websites on this blog.
Suggested reading: see above.
RMR
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Predictability--There Doesn't Seem to Be Any
To know, positively, before leaving one's office, countinghouse, or workshop for a day's outing, that it is the day of all others of the season, and that the phase of the moon, the condition of the sky and atmosphere, the direction and force of the wind, and the temperature and condition of the water are just right to insure success, and to know just what bait or fly to use, and in what portion of the stream to fish, under these conditions, implies a state of knowledge that can never be attained by ordinary mortals; and though we are created, "little lower than the angels," it involves a pursuit of knowledge under such extreme difficulties, that even prescience and omniscience are but ciphers in the total sum, for it leaves out the most important factor in the calculation--the fish itself.
--Dr. J. A. Henshall, Book of the Black Bass, 1881
Recommended: At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman by John Gierach
--Dr. J. A. Henshall, Book of the Black Bass, 1881
Recommended: At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman by John Gierach
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