Thursday, February 27, 2014

Feature and Follow - Change a Book?

Alison Can Read Feature & Follow

Question of the Week: Change the plot of a book! Go ahead! Say what you wish would have happened!

Honestly, it is not in me to change another author's work. I might rewrite the entire thing from a different perspective or with a different emphasis, but then it becomes a new story.

Speaking of a new story, I am ready for SPRING!

Winter Lament

Icy wind buffets the windows,
Whistles through still bare branches
While the groundhog
Smugly smiles to himself
Deep in his dark burrow.
Faith and begorrah!
Who would have thought
That the shadow-averse
Rodent would be right.


Thursday, February 13, 2014

Throwback Thursday




Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never too fond of Books.

Once more in the grip of a winter storm, in an uncharacteristically cold and snowy winter, with the winter Olympics dominating the television, I am led to think of winter-themed books from my youth.

There was, of course, the classic Mary Mapes Dodge book Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates. Kind of apropos as the Dutch seem to be winning all the speed skating medals.

But then I liked Elizabeth Ladd's Indians on the Bonnet and Walter D. Edmonds' Drums Along the Mohawk a large part of which was set in winter on the American frontier.

Finally, I was a big fan of Jack London's two classics: the short novel White Fang and the short story "To Build a Fire". I remember one winter as a boy taking my Red Flyer and pretending I was a musher in Alaska. My imaginary dogs didn't pull too well unfortunately.

Are there more modern, winter-based books, you would recommend?

Monday, February 10, 2014

Think Out Load - Appreciating Spring



This is a very interesting concept meme.

One recurring thought, as the "worst" winter in many years hangs on in the American Northeast, is

Won't we appreciate spring more when it actually does come?

This was emphasized to me when I heard the Passenger song, Let Her Go.

Now, I like snow. I like the cold. I like the clear air after a snowstorm passes through. I like the sound of the howling wind on a dark night. But I also like finding the first brave flower of spring. Watching for the songbirds return from their winter exile. Seeing the trees burst out in new leaves. Feeling the warmth of a spring day. I cherish the changes.

So this spring, maybe, I'll have company in appreciating L'Differance! At least a little more than usual.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Feature and Follow - First Time Again

Alison Can Read Feature & Follow

I'm going to cheat.

A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson because they were my very bestest favorites when I was tiny.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster because the riddles and twists of absurdity are great every time - in context and out.

And...

Flashman by George Macdonald Fraser for the adult version of absurd humor in a story with riddles and plot twists and plenty of fun.

What do you think?

Friday, February 7, 2014

Language in the Blood - Book Tour



Cameron Blair was born in 1895 in Edinburgh. He would have liked nothing better than to have married his fiancée Fiona and to have had the occasional pint with his friends, but the war and a stupid vampire changed all that. This light-hearted story follows Cameron from his first days as a hapless vampire in war-torn France to the glamour and riches of the Côte d’Azur of the present day, where Cameron has developed a taste for small dogs and champagne-infused blood.

Until the outbreak of the First World War, young Cameron Blair would have liked nothing better than to stay in Edinburgh and marry his childhood sweetheart. As the call to arms goes out, Cameron and his pals sign up to fight for their country. They are soon delivered into the nightmare of war, and there Cameron more than meets his maker.

The story follows Cameron as he comes to terms with his new ‘life’, from his first days as a hapless vampire in war-torn France to the glamorous modern day setting of the Côte d’Azur. Along the way, he develops a distinctive taste for the finer things in life: jewels, yachts, small dogs and champagne-infused human...


About the author

Angela Lockwood-van der Klauw was born in the Netherlands. She learned her trade as a jeweller and gemmologist at the Vakschool Schoonhoven before moving to Edinburgh as an apprentice jeweller. There she met and later married her husband Adam. Angela ran her own jeweller’s shop in Edinburgh for ten years before she and her husband moved to the south of France in 2011. Like Cameron, Angela prefers the climate there, but often thinks about the town she left behind and its people.

Cameron’s story was born in the spring of 2013, a very wet spring during which Angela found herself climbing the walls, frustrated that she couldn’t go out and have her usual long walks along the seafront. Seeing his wife’s frustration, Adam suggested ‘Why don’t you write a book?’

Angela thought about it for a few days, then switched on her laptop and started writing. This is her first book.

Find Language in the Blood on Amazon.