Politics and Satan

Two quotes that caught my attention this week regarding books/authors:

1.) "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you fail, you can always write a book."

Ronald Reagan, quoted in the New York Times (published November 25, 2006 in The Week magazine)

2.) "It's a bit of a bone of contention."

Zafar Rushdie (age 26), quoted in The Independent (published November 18, 2006 in The Week magazine), regarding his lack of literary aspirations, was "crap" in English literature at university, and has not read any of his father's books (Salman Rushdie, author of "Satantic Verses" among others).


Reader survey -- which is the better of these two books, "It Takes a Village" (Hillary Clinton) or "The Audacity of Hope" (Barack Obama) ??

Reading to Children

Quoting a quote of an excerpt here [Source: The Week magazine (UK) quoting The Times newspaper (UK) ] but still useful information for anyone with a child in their life:

Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, offers these tips for making your child enthusiastic about reading --

• It is never too early too start - reading to a baby in utero helps it associate its parents' voices with comfort and security
• Read books with repetitions to infants and toddlers
• Encourage involvement - ask the child to turn pages and fill in key words
• Occasionally challenge children by reading above their intellectual level
• Try to set aside at least one regular time each day for reading
• Don't read stories you don't enjoy. Your dislike will show and defeat the purpose
• Don't stop reading aloud to children too soon. Children understand on a higher level than they can read themselves. Read aloud to adolescents

Overall my wife and I follow these guidelines with our daugther today and have already seen the "reading above their intellectual level" effect. Our daughter likes to have me read a history/profile book of the State of Iowa which is probably written at a high school reading level but she likes to discuss the photos with me and to have me sing the Iowa song to her.

For opportunities to help children read in some of the world's poorest countries please visit this website for Room to Read which builds libraries -- www.roomtoread.org

Open a new chapter for your child,

Todd

Census Data

The "Statistical Abstract of the United States 2007" was publicly released on December 15th by the U.S. Census Bureau -- www.census.gov/compendia/statab/

My local newspaper's overview of the Abstract included a section of "Television and Other Media Use" statistics that caught my attention. This section noted that throughout the year 2006 Americans will spend the following amounts of leisure hours and dollars per person on the following activities:

Watching television -- $283 and 1,555 hours
Listening to radio -- $5 and 975 hours
Internet use -- $139 and 190 hours
Reading newspapers -- $49 and 179 hours
READING A BOOK -- $91 and 106 hours
Watching movies/video/DVD at home - $151 and 84 hours
Playing videogames -- $36 and 82 hours
Watching movies at theatre -- $39 and 12 hours

Breaking these statistics down on a weekly basis shows us that Americans do the following on average:

Watching television -- 30 hours per week

and

Reading a book -- 2 hours per week


Wow, this is a dramatic difference which tells me that I would have to quit my job so I could have enough free time to watch enough TV to be an "average American" -- who the hell are these people anyway???

Open books, open minds,

Todd

Helping Children

While working in Phoenix, Arizona last week I had some free time on Sunday so I stopped by a Borders book store in my old neighborhood -the Biltmore area.

As I was paying for my books I noticed a small box of book markers on the counter that shoppers could get for making a donation to the "First Books" (www.firstbook.org) program which works to donate new books to poor children. What could be better!!

First Book has an impressive roster of corporate, non-profit, and campus partners which range from Time Warner Cable to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. As you consider supporting charity groups for an end of the year contribution this might be a good way to support if you are shopping in Borders.

See you in the bargain books section :)

todd

Cities for Readers

While reading the December 12th edition of USA Today I noticed this year's ranking of "America's Most Literate Cities" which ranks the nation's 70 largest cities (population 250,000 and higher) using criteria such as -- library usage, newspapers in circulation, etc. -- to rank these cities in terms of overall literacy. The Top Ten cities for 2006 include:

1. Seattle
2. Minneapolis
3. TIE: Atlanta and Washington DC
5. St. Paul
6. Pittsburgh
7. Cincinnati
8. Denver
9. San Francisco
10. Portland

Source: America's Most Literate Cities 2006
www.ccsu.edu/AMLCO6

I am proud to report that my adopted state of Minnesota is the only state having 2 of these top 10 cities -- hey, it is usually winter here so you better know how to read!! :)

But which cities were ranked at the bottom of this list of 70 American cities? The Bottom Ten cities (of the 70 researched) -

http://www.ccsu.edu/amlc06/Overall_Rankings/Numbers51-69.htm

produce the following tally count by state:

California -- 5
Texas - 4
Colorado - 1

The most interesting city in this Bottom Ten from my perspective is Aurora, Colorado since it is a suburb of Denver which ranked #8 overall. Perhaps these suburbanites need to visit downtown Denver more often -- in fact I suggest they combine a trip to the local book stores with a restaurant in the "LoDo" area of Denver. A wonderful place to spend an evening.

Keep reading,

Todd

City of St. Paul

The City of St. Paul (Minnesota) recently announced a list of seven books selected for its citywide book club, "St. Paul Reads", which is currently in its sixth year of operation.

One book on the list caught my attention because I have read it -- "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien -- which is based on O'Brien's service in the Vietnam War (Conflict?) in the late 1960's. O'Brien is a native of Worthington, Minnesota.

I do appreciate O'Brien's military service and empathize with his personal struggles regarding the war. Sadly, I can't help but think the St. Paul Reads leaders selected this book as a political statement against the current war in Iraq. Regardless of their motivation let me highlight a much better book about Vietnam called -- "Patriots" -- which is a collection of oral histories from a number of perspectives including American soldiers, the Viet Cong, civilians, etc. This book is a very good read that I would highly recommend.

Give peace a chance, Todd

Cuba Mall

The wife and I spent our recent honeymoon touring the North island of New Zealand which included a tour of their capital city - Wellington. A very fun shopping district in Wellington is a pedestrian mall known as "Cuba Mall." While window shopping I noticed a classic book shop where the owner is very well-read and the book shelves are over flowing with rare and hard to find books called "The Ferret Bookshop" at 123 Cuba Mall.

The owner recommended exactly the type of book I was looking for - a novel set in New Zealand written by a native kiwi -- which exactly what I purchased. The book is "Dirty Work" by Nigel Cox which will appear in my "Year End Review of Books Read" at the end of December.

The Ferret Bookshop is an ideal shop for you to visit if you are visiting Wellington but from a marketing standpoint I would suggest that the Ferret include a website/blog address on the book marks that they distribute to customers since people like me would give them free publicity like I am doing today via this blog.

Happy reading,
Todd

Today's Youth

While at a Dunn Brothers' Coffee Shop this afternoon I tried to order a bran muffin for a late afternoon snack since I missed lunch due to a very long conference call earlier in the day. The worker behind the counter was a high school girl who was talking to her friend of the same approximate age.

The worker's friend heard my request for a bran muffin then stated, "I don't even know what a bran muffin is.........................."

Lesson -- clearly today's teenagers aren't reading enough!!

Time to read before bedtime,

Todd

Literary Websites

When I worked/lived in London, England from 2002 to 2004 my primary newspaper was the Daily Telegraph which recently published a list of "literary websites". Based on their list here are three websites/blogs that caught my attention:

www.gutenberg.org -- Project Gutenberg is the "first digital library" which delivers e-books for free. When it comes to books I am very old school, traditional -- give me a paper book any day since I spend enough time at my computer blogging about things I read daily :-)

www.bookslut.com - This website has an entire regiment of writers since it is content-rich. It is truly a small world after all since I read about this website via a British newspaper while traveling in New Zealand only to discover that one of Bookslut's contributors/writers is a book shop owner in St. Paul, Minnesota which is only about 20 minutes from my home!!!

www.readysteadybook.com -- Again, a very content-rich website like Bookslut since they have a whole host of contributors/writers. I bookmarked this website in my browser since I am a bit of an Anglophile given my nearly 3 years of studying/working in the United Kingdom.

Any book-related websites my readers want to suggest are most welcome.

Thanks, Todd

Quotes for Bookworms

While reading during my recent trip to New Zealand I read the following book-related quotes that I thought would be of interest to book lovers of all types:

"Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." -- Mark Twain

"Wanting to meet a writer because you like their books is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pate." -- Margaret Atwood

"There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher." -- Flannery O'Connor

"A stand can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea." -- Victor Hugo


SOURCE: The Week magazine (United Kingdom) quoting from numerous media outlets

Ideas have consequences,

Todd

Auckland

While touring New Zealand my wife and I spent time walking around Auckland. The Victoria Street shopping district has an extensive collection of bookstores and English language schools. I was impressed with Auckland's cosmopolitan atmosphere and Asian influence.

Books about rugby are clearly popular titles here. Our travels continue on this week to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.

Safe travels,

Todd

Naisbitt's New Book

Today I read a book review in the Northwest Airlines' in-flight magazine of John Naisbitt's latest book -- "Mindset! Re-set your thinking and see the future", http://www.naisbitt.com/

Naisbitt is best known for his "Megatrends" books which the book reviewer mentioned -- 1.) Megatrends and 2.) Megatrend 2000 but the reviewer failed to mention Naisbitt's third book in the series -- "Megatrends for Women" -- which I thought most interesting since women are clearly on the rise in the USA with the pending election of Representative Nancy Pelosi to be the next Speaker of the US House of Representatives.

I have read all three of Naisbitt's megatrends books which I found to be educational. Although the books are a bit dated now they are still worth a quick review since several of Naisbitt's observations seem to have been overlooked such as his comment that "oil companies need to re-assess what they are in the marketplace -- they need to say 'we are ENERGY companies not OIL companies who meet the energy needs of our customers' "

One last observation that I offer from "Megatrends for Women" is that the high incidence of heart attacks/strokes for women is really overlooked by the medical community but perhaps Speaker Pelosi will bring new attention to this disparity in health care.

Keep turning pages,

Todd

Original Blog

Greetings,

I am still working through the transition to Blogger beta so wanted to be sure to post my original blog here since that is where I focus my time:

Space Beagle Notes
http://spacebeaglenotes.blogspot.com

I have found it impossible to post on this blog due to the Blogger beta change so if anyone has insights for me I would appreciate it.

Thanks, Todd

Erasmus Book Club

This newly created blog will focus on books that I read during each calendar year, book readings I attend, Banned Books Week, and related topics.

This blog is named after the famous Dutch Scholar - Desiderius Erasmus - who lived from 1466 to 1536. He is quoted as saying:

"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes."


I look forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions.

Todd