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