Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Mr. Bean Nativity Set

An Audio Book in Review: Zombiekins

Zombiekins By: Kevin Bolger
Fiction: Children's, paranormal

This is the story of a 4th grade boy and his bunny/teddy bear/zombie stuffed animal that he got in the town's witch's garage sale. It ends up loose in his school and he, with the help of one friend, must find it before it turns everyone into zombies. It is a humorous scary adventure and so even small kids can enjoy the book without getting scared.


2 CDs 2.25 hours

Holidays in December:

1.Hanukkah starts today at sunset
2.International Day for the Abolition of Slavery
3.International Day of Persons with Disabilities
5.Day of the Ninja
6.Saint Nicholas Day
7.National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day
8.Feast of the Immaculate Conception
9.Anna's Day
10.Human Rights Day
International Animal Rights Day
Nobeldagen
12.Feast of Masá'il
13.Saint Lucy's Day
14.Monkey Day
15.Bill of Rights Day
Zamenhof Day
16.The first day of Las Posadas
The first day of Misa de Gallo
17.O Sapientia
Saturnalia
International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers
Wright Brothers Day
18.O Adonai
International Migrants Day
19.O Radix
20.O Clavis
21.O Oriens
Solstice
Yule
Sanghamitta Day
22.O Rex
23.O Emmanuel
Festivus
Larentalia
Night of the Radishes
24.Christmas Eve
25.Christmas
26.Boxing Day
St. Stephen's Day
The first day of Kwanzaa
28.Feast of the Holy Innocents
31.New Year’s Eve

Friday, November 26, 2010

A Holiday Book in Review: The Little Red Writing Book

The Little Red Writing Book 20 Powerful Principles of Structure, Style & Readability By: Brandon Royal
Non-fiction writing 144 pages
Book Count: 81

This is a little book with a mixute of writing hints. At the begaining there are a few hints that would not often be used in creative writing like starting with your main point then adding in detail; however, it does note that it is not used in creative writing as much as business/acidemic writing. Most of the book could be usefull for any type of writing. Each principle has exercises to do and/or examples. It may be very usefull in editing a work.

Stop giving me crap for Christmas Song

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Mayflower Compact

(untranslated from the English)

In ye name of God Amen· We whose names are vnderwriten,
the loyall subjects of our dread soueraigne Lord King James
by ye grace of God, of great Britaine, franc, & Ireland king,
defender of ye faith, &c
Haueing vndertaken, for ye glorie of God, and aduancemente
of ye christian ^faith and honour of our king & countrie, a voyage to
plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia· doe
by these presents solemnly & mutualy in ye presence of God, and
one of another, couenant, & combine our selues togeather into a
ciuill body politick; for ye our better ordering, & preseruation & fur=
therance of ye ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof, to enacte,
constitute, and frame shuch just & equall lawes, ordinances,
Acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought
most meete & conuenient for ye generall good of ye colonie: vnto
which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnes
wherof we haue herevnder subscribed our names at Cap=
Codd ye ·11· of Nouember, in ye year of ye raigne of our soueraigne
Lord king James of England, france, & Ireland ye eighteenth
and of Scotland ye fiftie fourth. Ano: Dom ·1620·|


SIGNERS:

John Carver, Edward Tilley, Degory Priest ,
William Bradford, John Tilley, Thomas Williams ,
Edward Winslow, Francis Cooke, Gilbert Winslow ,
William Brewster, Thomas Rogers, Edmund Margesson ,
Isaac Allerton, Thomas Tinker, Peter Brown ,
Myles Standish, John Rigsdale, Richard Britteridge,
John Alden, Edward Fuller, George Soule ,
Samuel Fuller, John Turner, Richard Clarke,
Christopher Martin, Francis Eaton, Richard Gardinar,
William Mullins, James Chilton, John Allerton,
William White, John Crackstone, Thomas English,
Richard Warren, John Billington, Edward Doty,
John Howland, Moses Fletcher, Edward Leister,
Stephen Hopkins, John Goodman

Monday, November 22, 2010

Thanksgiving

First Thanksgiving Pictures, Images and Photos

A Holiday Book in Review: Founding Mothers

Founding Mothers The Women Who Raised Our Nation by: Cokie Roberts
Non-fiction history 287 pages
Book Count: 80

This is a book about famous women in colanial America. Some of them were famous because thier husband was famous and some were famous in thier own right. It covers the time from shortly before the Revolutionay War up to the election of the 2nd president of the USA.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

A Holiday Book in Review: How To Write Killer Fiction

How To Write Killer Fiction: The Funhouse of Mystery & The Roller Coaster of Suspense By: Carolyn Wheat
Non-fiction: writing 180 pages
Book Count: 79

It is amazing that all of these books on writing X type of books all have the same basic form, but are still very different. This one is divided up between three sections. First, they deal with how to write a mystery book (its history, sub-groups, formulas etc.) Next, it does the same for suspense novels. Then last it works on writing; mainly with the two main ways of writing (outliner and blank pagers) and with the revisions. It also has some information of getting your book published mostly how to look for an agent and look for what publishers you want to try and sell the book to first.

Happy Veterans Day !

k1a1
see more Political Pictures

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

A Holiday Book in Review: Home Cheese Making

Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Homemade Cheeses By: Ricki Carroll
Non-Fiction, cooking 263 pages
Book count: 78

First, this book is written by the Queen of home cheese making, so if you look up anything on the subject they will either refer back to this book or her personally 90% of the time. (Also her company is the most popular home cheese making kits maker.) That being said I expected the book to make cheese making sound easier then this book did. (Especially as the book used to be called "Cheese Making Made Easy.") For example, a number of recipes had directions like "Raise the heat by two degrees every 5 minutes," which seams a lot more complicated then you would expect with things you make at home. It is possible that it is something that is a lot easier to do then it sounds or the recipes are a lot more fluid, but that is the optimal way of doing it; however, in any way the book doesn't seam like the best way to learn how to make cheese. If the ingredient list was used with the step-by-step pictures on the company's web site (http://www.cheesemaking.com/ only for some of the recipes in the book) it would be more beginner level. That being said the basic information on what happens during cheese making is very helpful for learning about the process of making cheese and there are a number of tasty looking recipes for what to do with the cheese.

Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Clip

Sunday, November 07, 2010

A Holiday Book in Review: Will Write for Shoes: How to Write A Chick Lit Novel

Will Write for Shoes: How to Write A Chick Lit Novel By: Cathy Yardley
Non-Fiction, Writing 208 pages
Book Count: 77

This book has a format similar to the last book that I read. It starts with some information on what a Chick Lit book is, their history and sub genres. Then it gets into the basics of how to write a book including special information on Chick Lit books. The information on how to get published is very good. There are appendixes of information/examples in query letters, synopsis, outlining, agents and publishers that do chick lit books. It includes a very broad idea of what chick lit is (for example including multiple series that men I know read) so even if you aren't writing a book for chick lit, but it is a book with a strong female protagonist and some level of humor and/or is character driven you might get some good information out of this book.

Thank God Thanksgiving Only Comes Once A Year -song

Friday, November 05, 2010

A Holiday Book in Review: How to Write Action Adventure Novels

The Writer's Digest Genre Writing Series- How to Write Action Adventure Novels By: Michael Newton
Non-fiction: writing 154 pages
Book Count: 76

This book is all about how to write books in the action adventure genre. It deals with what makes a book that genre, famous authors/series in the genre,issues with writing that genre and general writing information. The general writing tips are also geared for the genre. For example, while most books on writing talk about paceing in a way to remind you to add excitment to the book this one reminds you that it cann't be none stop explosions, fights and chasing and be believable, even if you don't write about sleeping, eating and using the bathroom in writing you need to give the protaginist some breaks where a person could do these things. The book is from 1989, but most of the information is still usefull. Many of the authors he talks about either still write, or you could easily find their books. Although most reasurch now would include using the internet as many of the books he menchioned were about the history of an orginzation or refrence on guns/uniforms/vehicales of differnt wars they would still be useful. The one place where the age of the book is an issue is in the chapter one getting published. In that section the majority of advice is no longer useful. For example: it states that you don't need an agent when today most publishers will not read books without one and that if you do try to get an agent they may charge a reading fee when now a reading fee is a red flag for writers.

Thanksgiving Proclamations

Thursday, November 04, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving - Stop Motion Video

New Stuff

This is the 4th year that this blog has done it's holiday special. (Which of course is named after when it was a paper done for multiple times before the blog.) Because of this we are having the problem of having already done much of what we think of to do this time. You may have noticed the change in Octobers posts with much more movies. What do you think of this? And do you have any other things you would like to see in holiday postings?

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

A Holiday Book in Review: Sticks and Stones

Sticks and Stones The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter By: Jack Zipes
Non-fiction: writing, literature, essays, 188 pages
Book Count: 75

This book is a collection of essays, most of them had been used at other times. One was new and one was a mix of two different ones. They are all on the issues of writing for children. The book points out a lot of issues, with the main two being children's books are mainly bought and there forth made for adults and issues of culture and society and their effects on children and their books. It doesn't really do much to answer any of these problems. It would be a good thing to read if you were a teacher or librarian or otherwise working with picking out books for kids; however, I don't think that people writing kids books would get much out of this to help their writing. Also, when talking down about books that were formulaic, commercial, stereotypical or otherwise things that he thought were things that are wrong with kids books he would note authors that he felt were good because they weren't these things, but he didn't include any information like books they wrote to help people that aren't experts in this field have some idea who they are.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Microwave Cranberry sauce

2 c. cranberries
2/3 c. sugar
3" cinnamon stick
1/2 t. nutmeg
4 drops lemon extract
water to cover bottom of microwaveable glass dish

Place a ingredients in a microwaveable glass dish with a lid. Cover. Microwave for 2 minutes. Stir and re-cover and microwave 1 minute. Repeat until berries have all popped. Let sit in microwave for 10 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick. Place in serving dish and refrigerate until cold.

Today is Election Day!

So go out there and vote!

Monday, November 01, 2010

Holiday Books:

As you can see to the right -----> we are doing NaBloPoMo this year. As this is the blogging version for NaNoWriMo we thought that we would include books on writing for this month's holiday books. (Plus, there are only so many things on Pilgrims.)

September- October Book Count:

Number of books read: 18
Pages read: 4984
Average number of days to read a book: 3
Average number of pages read in a day: 82
Average number of books read in a month: 9
Average number of pages read in a month: 2492