english blog

I'm so happy to introduce a brand new book that's sure to inspire you to unplug and step outside. It's wonderful for nature needing folks of all ages. Hey- that's everyone! It would be a super useful companion to anyone working with children who's looking for sure fire ways to connect with nature, while educating with the science behind each project. Here's author, Marcie Chamber Cuff's, description: “A guidebook for becoming a modern pioneer – a strong-minded, clever, crafty, spontaneous mud pie-making, fort-building individual committed to slowing down and giving the world your complete attention, questioning everyday things, and reconnecting with the wildness around you.” Good stuff! Wouldn't you agree? Here's a sneak peek inside...  Now that we've had 2 or 3 actual spring days, I can envision getting muddy and inspired with this book in hand. First up- we'll be making that nesting ball with all of the wild grapevines that ramble along our...

NOTE: This is something I started writing some months ago, never quite finished, and was unsure I even wanted to post it if I did. I'm putting it up now just to share some thoughts with a Drummerworld forum member. Please forgive its half-bakedness; maybe there's some entertaining reading here:  A student loaned me his copies of both volumes of Mike Mangini's book Rhythm Knowledge , and they have rather blown my mind. Mostly not in a good way, I'm sorry to say. I hate to be critical of another drummer's work, but I also hate for drum students to get what I think is unhelpful information, so I'll go ahead and give these a frank review. I'm not trying to be negative, I'm really just trying to understand my reaction to this product, and the philosophy behind it. I'll start by saying that, if you don't know who he is, Mangini is a rock drummer, and one of the leading guys in the current absolutely insane technical monster field of players, and likel...

Went to a B&N today for the first time in six months and headed straight for the scifi/fantasy section. On one hand, I saw some books that I plan on getting next month or in January, but on the other hand, I saw something that actually ticked me off a little: four shelves dedicated to George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Four shelves, all carrying varied types of hardcovers, paperbacks, and box sets, with only five books not part of that series. What ticked me off about it is the realization that in order to make room for the Martin bounty, they had to remove a lot of other writers' books, meaning that those people are going to get less money, especially if other B&N's did the same thing. Now, this might not be a problem for the more established writers, but what about the new ones? The folks who are just starting out and need every dollar they can get from book sales? I don't know, maybe I'm overreacting, but it just seems like Barnes & Noble i...

Thanks to the interns at Sourcebooks , I'm excited to be a part of The Snatchabook blog tour. The Snatchabook is a skillfully rhymed bedtime story featuring the cutest little villain, a Snatchabook. The illustrations are cheerful but nuanced, and will offer many details to discover as the book is shared again and again.  It's sure to be a bedtime favorite. The Snatchabook 's author, Helen Docherty, has graciously accepted an offer to answer a few questions. Lisa:  The Snatchabook has put me in a lighthearted mood, so here are a few lighthearted questions!  Snatchabook is such a cute name.  Was it the seed that started the story, or did it grow from the story? Helen: The idea of a book thief came to me first, and it was while I was trying to find the right name for him that the character and the story started to form in my mind. At first I wasn’t sure what he would be like, or what to call him, so I played around with names; the book cruncher? The book snatcher? Th...

This was today's comic, thought it might be of interest: (via Penny Arcade ) Thoughts? I know Sanderson is a polarizing figure with some people loving his work and others thinking he's a hack, but how accurate do you think this comic is? Now, I've never read one of his books - I have a used copy of Mistborn that's sitting in my reading queue, but I haven't gotten to it yet - so I can't voice an opinion. I do think his magic systems are interesting, though, so that's something. Edit: On the other hand, someone on their forums pointed out that this might be more of a criticism of Sanderson's more rabid, die hard fans than Sanderson himself. Then again, Tycho is pretty explicit about not liking Sanderson in the first panel, so who knows.

I don't have a solid ratio, but it feels like I read maybe two fantasy books for every one scifi book. The former might be a bit higher, though. On one hand, I'm happy because fantasy fiction is awesome as shit. On the other hand, however, it kind of sucks because I love science fiction just as much as fantasy. Of course, my love of scifi might be more grounded in TV, movies, and video games. It's funny because like I've mentioned before, I was not a fantasy reader until two years ago when I finally read a Discworld novel that I had owned for years. After that, a flood gate was opened and I read as much as my brain box could take. Still can't read The Hobbit or LOTR, though.

Not much to say that I haven't already said , so I'll just jump to the rating: 8.9/10.

via L. E. Modesitt, Jr. Wiki . I've been reading this for the past two weeks and really enjoying it. The premise is that a young journeyman artist named Rhennythyl discovers that he's a imager and goes to Imageisle to learn how to control and use his new found powers. An imager is sort of like a magic user, I suppose. It's actually kind of hard to categorize imagers. Their powers allow them to create or teleport objects with their brain boxes, though the object they're trying to "image" taxes them, depending on what it is. A small, simple thing is a non-issue, but the larger, more complex a thing is, will leave this exhausted to varying degrees and/or with a headache, especially if the object is made out of certain materials. Not all imagers are powerful. Some are only able to due minor "imaging", while others are much more powerful. An interesting aspect of the story is that imagers all live separate from society at what are called Collegiums. This ...

I don't go to big bookstores often because there isn't one in my town and the nearest is eight miles away. Not a great distance, mind you, but I don't like wasting other people's gas to get there (me driving? Madness!), so when I do go to one, I do it with the intent of buying as many books as I can afford. Except when I don't. I rolled a natural one the other day. I voyaged to a Books-A-Million with the intention to buy some science fiction, or failing that, fantasy. Currently, there's an imbalance between the two, with the latter having the superior numbers, so I was looking to fix that and sate my scifi cravings. Unfortunately, they didn't have any scifi that piqued my interest, so I moved on to fantasy and found much the same. I don't know if its just the two stores I've been to, but Books-A-Million flops when it comes to having a decent selection of scifi/fantasy. They'll have several books by an author that I might want to read, but never t...

Stolen shamelessly from Blog of Holding , because I am lazy . Found a copy at a thrift store over the weekend. I only recognized it because there's a blog named after it that I read sometimes. The book cost all of a buck, so I figured what the hell and bought it. It wasn't until I did some Googling that I found out that Quag Keep is the first D&D novel and is set in the world of Greyhawk. Double neat-o.

Nothing to add that I haven't already said. It was a good book, long as the dickens, though.