Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Ten Reasons to Buy a Book for Yourself

Given the fact that the holiday season is upon us, and there are so many things to take care of,  it's important to take some time for yourself. After all, if you are happy and stress free, then so are your family, friends and co-workers.  One of the best ways to relax is with a book. Below are 10 great reasons to justify why you should buy yourself a book and have a little down time.

1. A book allows you to escape from reality.
2. It is a legal way to escape from reality.
3. Reading keeps your mind entertained at little cost.
4. Everyone you interact with will be happy that you are smiling.
5. A book gives you a warm fuzzy feeling.
6. While reading a book, people are less likely to interrupt you.
7. Reading helps you to relax so you can get a good nights rest.
8. Books can provide ideas.
9. Reading stimulates alternative ways of thinking about the world around you.
10. You can still have down time reading out loud to your child(ren).

Monday, November 21, 2011

A Section 8 debate: When poverty moves in

Posted on LOS ANGELES TIMES OPINION 


Wrestling with doubts about the Section 8 folk made it clear — these days, black unity is a cherished ideal rather than the fact of life that it used to be.



In my Inglewood neighborhood, we always tend to keep an eye out for trouble. But few things have occasioned more hand-wringing than the recent arrival of a family whose rent is subsidized by the federal program known as Section 8.

"Oh, Lord," said one neighbor, a stoic, civic-minded, churchgoing woman who looked more unsettled than I'd ever seen her. "Here we go." Another neighbor who is also religious and similarly unflappable looked deeply troubled. Standing out on her lawn and surveying the newly occupied corner house as if it were haunted, she only shook her head, as if there were no words to describe this turn of events.

Both of my neighbors are active stewards of our block club, and one of its functions is delivering a housewarming gift of a plant or flowers to welcome new residents and send an early message of community. No gift was delivered this time, or even discussed.

While I didn't approve of a rejection of these folks that felt almost preemptive, I also understood. We live in a neighborhood that, though not luxurious, is stable and well maintained, with tidy homes, kids skateboarding, people walking dogs. But it's a mostly black neighborhood, and its residents are keenly aware of how little stands between its aspirations and chaos.
Read more...


Thursday, November 17, 2011

LIGHTHOUSE SANTA fast becoming a Christmas Tradition

Every winter holiday there tends to be 'the one'. The one toy every child wants. The one piece of technology that every techno wants. The one piece of jewelry or perfume every female wants. This year 'the one' is a book. A book that brings back memories of anxiously waiting for Santa to arrive. The worries if the snow isn't deep enough for the reindeer or the fireplace is still burning when he arrives on the rooftop, or worse, what if our behavior wasn't just good enough.

The Lighthouse Santa is a true tale of a similar worry, but even more so. Based on the Christmas flights of Edward Rowe Snow, hero to lighthouse children for almost fifty years. Sara Hoagland Hunter and Julia Miner have written a wonderful story of two young children, Kate and Sam, anxiously wait as a winter blizzard whirls around their home in the Great Point Lighthouse on Nantucket Island.

For as long as Kate can remember, the Lighthouse Santa has dropped presents from his airplane for all the lighthouse keepers’ children. But will his plane make it through hurricane winds and blinding snow? Sam says it is impossible, but Kate has been keeping a secret Christmas wish all year long, and she will not give up hope.   Read more 

Meet the author and get your copy signed at any of these events. 


  • Saturday, November 19, 2011
    Sara Hoagland Hunter & Julia Miner
    The Lighthouse Santa
    Wellesley Marketplace
    Author Reading & Book Signing
    Wellesley, MA

  • Sunday, November 27, 2011
    (Contact sponsor for time)
    Sara Hoagland Hunter
    The Lighthouse Santa
    Brookline Country Club (by invitation)
    Family Holiday Brunch & Book Signing
    Duxbury, MA

  • Saturday, November 26, 2011
    Sara Hoagland Hunter
    The Lighthouse Santa
    Westwinds Book Shop
    Author Reading & Book Signing
    Duxbury, MA


  • Monday, November 28, 2011
    4:00 pm
    Sara Hoagland Hunter
    The Lighthouse Santa
    Newton Public Library
    Author Reading & Book Signing
    Newton, MA


  • Monday, November 28, 2011
    4:00 pm
    Sara Hoagland Hunter
    The Lighthouse Santa
    Newton Public Library
    Author Reading & Book Signing
    Newton, MA


  • Saturday, December 03, 2011
    3:00 pm
    Sara Hoagland Hunter
    The Lighthouse Santa
    The Book Stall at Chestnut Court
    Author Reading & Book Signing
    Winnerka, IL
    847-446-8880

  • Sunday, December 04, 2011
    Sara Hoagland Hunter
    The Lighthouse Santa
    University Club’s Annual Holiday Party
    Author Talk, Reading & Book Signing
    Downtown Chicago, IL
    847-446-8880

  • Friday, December 09, 2011
    6:00 pm
    Sara Hoagland Hunter
    The Lighthouse Santa
    Osterville Christmas Stroll - Books By The Sea
    Author Reading & Book Signing
    Osterville, MA
    508-420-9400

  • Saturday, December 10, 2011
    10:00 am
    Sara Hoagland Hunter & Julia Miner
    The Lighthouse Santa
    Eight Cousins
    Author Reading & Book Signing
    Falmouth, MA

  • Saturday, December 10, 2011
    1:00 pm
    Sara Hoagland Hunter
    The Lighthouse Santa
    Chatham Christmas Stroll - Yellow Umbrella Books
    Author Reading & Book Signing
    Chatham, MA
    508-945-0144


  • Sunday, December 11, 2011
    2:00 pm
    Sara Hoagland Hunter
    The Lighthouse Santa
    Titcomb’s Bookshop
    Author Reading & Book Signing
    East Sandwich, MA
    508-888-2331

  • Saturday, December 17, 2011
    10:30 am
    Sara Hoagland Hunter
    The Lighthouse Santa
    Boston Athenaeum
    Author Reading & Book Signing
    Boston, MA
    617-227-0270

    Tuesday, November 15, 2011

    THE MEN'S SECTION - Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World

    Brandeis University Printing is pleased to announce the release of The Men's Section - Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World. 

    A provocative look at the inner world of Orthodox Jewish men who attend partnership synagogues
     
    In this illuminating book, Elana Maryles Sztokman investigates a fascinating new sociological phenomenon: Orthodox Jewish men who connect themselves to egalitarian or quasi-egalitarian religious enterprises. She examines the men who have enabled these transitions by constituting the requisite ten-man prayer quorum of Orthodoxy. By participating in “Partnership Minyanim,” these men support the reconstruction of both male and female roles without leaving the Orthodox religious world.

    Sztokman interrogates the ideologies and motivations of more than fifty such men in the United States, Israel, and Australia. Beginning with the “Orthodox Man Box” of conventionally constructed male behavior, she explores their struggles to navigate individualism and conformity, tradition and change. Setting their experiences in the context of gender role construction in traditional and contemporary synagogues, she shows how, for example, changes in leadership in Partnership Minyanim facilitate a fresh approach to liturgical expression, offering the possibility of reforming how modern Orthodox Jews attend services and pray.

    Read more 

    Wall Street Protesters Needed Figaro

    By Harlow Giles Unger
    Author of Improbable Patriot: The Secret History of Monsieur de Beaumarchais,
    the French Playwright  Who Saved the American Revolution




                “You think you’re a genius,” the young man thundered at the older gentleman. “With all your money, fame, and influence, just what did you do to get so rich?

                “You took the trouble to be born–nothing else,” the growling youngster answered his own question.  “You are nothing but an ordinary man!”
                Although the words might well be those of an “Occupy Wall Street” protester to a billionaire banker or hedge-fund manager, they were actually sounded more than 230 years ago by a simple barber–or at least, an actor playing a simple barber on a Paris stage. But the words resounded across France and, though King Louis XVI tried to ban them and jail the author, it was too late. The inflammatory language of Figaro, the main character in The Barber of Seville and its sequel The Marriage of Figaro, inspired millions of oppressed French commoners to rise up and overthrow the monarchy and aristocracy.
                The author of the barber's words was Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, arguably France’s greatest playwright. A commoner by birth, Pierre Caron began his career as a brilliant teenaged inventor, who produced the world’s first miniature time pieces–so small and light that French Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI could wear them on their wrists--and elevate Caron to world renown. Educated by his engineer father and musically talented mother, Caron was a brilliant musician, songwriter, poet and playwright, as well as inventor. Thwarted in every stab at success as a commoner, he married a nobleman’s widow and assumed her noble name of de Beaumarchais.and immediately soared to success, accumulating the trappings of wealth, fame, and title.

    Monday, November 14, 2011

    The Scandal at Penn State


    By: Roger I. Abrams
    author of Sports Justice



     The scandal that continues to unfold at Penn State University has transfixed the nation. The horrific allegations of sexual abuse by football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky have sickened an American public used to glorifying both its athletes and their coaches. The seeming indifference of Coach Paterno and university administrators to these repellent facts has already taken its toll, and there is more to come.

                The involvement of Joe Paterno, the nation’s greatest college football coach, in this catastrophic series of events has made the story one that involves sports, but is it really a sports story? Or is it rather just an issue involving a horrendous crime on campus?  

    Thursday, November 10, 2011

    Books Published by UPNE

    Paula Shoyer, The Kosher Baker, Shares Apple Tarte Tatin

    The Kosher Baker, Paula Shoyer
    published by University Press of New England
    "Apple Tarte Tatin is one of the greatest contributions of the country of France to the world of apple desserts. I have to admit that I do prefer the dairy version over the parve, but the combination of caramelized apples and puff pastry is heavenly. The joy of unmolding this tart was captured perfectly on my friend Dorie Greenspan’s new culinapp captures the joy of unmolding the perfect tarte tatin:

    http://doriegreenspan.com/2011/09/video-culinapp-baking-with-dorie-greenspan.html"

    http://www.paulaspastry.com/index.php

    Wednesday, November 9, 2011

    Erin Aubry Kaplan in Conversation at the Southern California Library

    The Southern California Library will host a “Conversation” with Erin Aubry Kaplan on her new book, Black Talk, Blue Thoughts, and Walking the Color Line, and viewing from SCL’s collections of the lived histories of Black L.A.

    “Black folks in every place and station are intimately connected by history, experience, and socialization, whether we want to admit to that or not…I wanted to describe how all the ongoing battles for equality and acceptance, from affirmative action to public school and police reform, have influenced who we are, what we expect from the world, how we shop for shoes, how we operate daily in this social experiment called America.”

    Date and Time: Weds., Nov. 9, 12:00 noon.
    Southern California Library
    6120 S. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90044
    For more information, click here to reach the SCL’s website.
    Admission is free but guests are asked to RSVP by calling  (323) 759-6063, x15

    Tuesday, November 8, 2011

    Make Mine A Double....

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    Bottoms up! This landmark celebration of women and drink chips away at traditional images of gender, one ice-cube at a time.
     
    Make Mine a Double pours together a collection of witty, intelligent, and provocative pieces about women and their beverages of choice. Edited by humorist and academic mahatma Gina Barreca, the twenty-eight original essays here come from a diverse community of voices from ages twenty-one to seventy-nine, including such luminaries as Fay Weldon, Wendy Liebman, Amy Bloom, Liza Donnelly, Nicole Hollander, Beth Jones, Dawn Lundy Martin, and many others.

    Equal parts paean to spirits, an open discussion of drinking (or not drinking), and a call to feminists everywhere to say “salut,” Make Mine a Double shimmers with thoughtfulness, humor, and self-examination. These tales of women’s complex relationships with alcohol are the story of every woman’s effort to find her independence and sense of belonging, be it at a college party, a high-powered cocktail party, or on a stool at the neighborhood watering hole.
    Barreca and the writers have agreed that all their profits from the book will be donated to Windham Hospital’s “Gina’s Friends” fund, which aids women in need.

    Publisher: University Press of New England
     Available in Print and eBook (Kindle)