Education Book Gets Late But Great Debut

Title: This Business of Children

Author: Chloe Jon Paul
Author's Web site link: http://chloejonpaul.com
Genre or category: fiction
ISBN: 978-1-60047-580-1

Reviewed by Teresa Morrow (http://www.teresamorrow.com)

 

 Chloe Jon Paul wrote this book in the early 90s and tucked it away thinking that it would never get published. She wrotge This Business of Children because I wanted to capture the elements of this profession in a way that shows the struggles so many teachers face in trying to do their jobs well. At this particular time in my career she wasn’t very happy teaching in the school district I had transferred to out of state. She was forced to “teach to the test” and my creativity suffered immensely. Administrative support was non-existent so she took a leave of absence for a year and went back to Maine where she had done the best teaching of her career, and wrote the book.

Chloe Jon Paul says, "The message of This Business of Children  basically this: We teachers are human beings coping with the problems in our own personal lives. When we enter that classroom each morning, we have to shelve those problems and deal with students whose problems may be far greater than our own."

Bill Page said it best in his review: Teachers will identify with every element of this insightful, riveting glimpse of the education world. Parents will enjoy comparing their own schooling with Vera’s portrayal of getting an education. And, every reader will savor the reminder that life goes on.

Bill Page is a teacher. He is also author of At-Risk Students: Feeling Their Pain; goes on. Understanding Their Plight; and Accepting Their Defensive Ploys. He has written 60 articles for www.teachers.net/Gazette 

About the author:

Chloe Jon Paul, M.Ed., is a retired educator and writer of several published articles and a previous book entitled “What Happens Next: A Family Guide to Nursing Home Visits” and More…   Her many achievements since the age of 55 include:

• Title of Ms. Maryland Senior America 2003

• Recipient of the Fulbright Fellowship Seminars Abroad award to South Africa, 1996
• Volunteer internship during the 2005 Maryland legislative session as a Legacy Leadership Institute graduate
• Lead facilitator for the Alternatives to Violence Project in prison and community workshops on conflict resolution for ten years
• State representative for the National Family Caregivers Association’s caregiver community action network 2006-2008
• Advisory board member: MD, Healthcare Commission and the Interagency Commission for Aging Services: Maryland Dept. of Aging
• Hospice and homeless shelter volunteer
• Coordinator for the Good Samaritan Project at her church
• World traveler – all 7 continents

~Reviewer Teresa Morrow does Online Book Promotion for Authors & Writers
at Key Book Promotions, http://www.keybookpromotions.com.

My blog: Key Business Partners Writers & Authors: Allow Your Writing Passion to Drive your Online Book Marketing

----- The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Well Known Poet Reviewed by Street Artist with Knack for Words

Title: Swallow

Author: Jendi Reiter

Author's Web site: www.jendireiter.com

Publisher: Amsterdam Press, 2009

Publisher's Web site:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/30258321/swallow-by-jendi-reiter

Genre: Poetry Chapbook

ISBN 10: 0—9822221—5—7
ISBN 13: 978—0—9822221—5—7

Reviewed at Ampersand Books website by Martha Rzadkowolsky-Raoli

Jendi Reiter created a tidy poetry book in which swallow means everything you can expect swallow to mean. She exhausts the word; its mashed remains a mix of cow meat, desire, intestines, bird. If you read the book, and you should, you’ll experience the beating of the word. Swallow. How else to learn something new ?(about the parameters of language) — – something only poetry can do, and these poems do it. Let me tell you how this book satisfies me.

I want a tight machine of a poem. The sound and look of its words should feel immutable, as movable type rendered tight, for letterpress. The first line of the book, seemingly fixed, knocked me out:

“We are all trying not to think about sex or food.”

So true, Jendi Reiter, so true. The line feels familiar, which is to say, it feels like someone ought to have said it. If it rings familiar it’s because it’s so right on. It should have been said.

Maxims and Tombstones

I can see it (“We are all trying not to think about sex or food”) engraved in Jenny Holzer’s marble slabs. Or on a tombstone. Or accompanying a New Yorker comic. Or as a bumper sticker (such an undervalued medium for speaking to a captive audience, considering the traffic in the city) Some of the other maxims suggest to me their own possible context:

“Beautiful women have not confided in you.” (found in a fortune cookie.)

“You can still tremble unstrung,” (emo song lyric.)
“You have to look at whatever the hand wants,” (salesgirl pitch)
“Every proposition starts with a cow,” (butcher treatise)
“Better to sit here with knives/ spinning the sun in a bowl,” (folk wisdom)

By suggesting disparate contexts, these aphorisms maintain a collaged-world view. I like Reiter’s objection to a poetics bound by singular points of view. I like when word-artists comply with the rules of our new universe (a mess of sources coming at you from everywhere: billboards, email, the doorman). This kind of work feels real. Reiter acknowledges this multi-media world when she asks of the swallows in “Goodbye Capistrano”:

“How would they know what lies ahead, without telephones, without magazines?”

Love this. Indeed, without our iphones and Vanity Fair, how would we?

Object-Crazy

I’m drawn to things. These poems are tactile; Reiter is object-crazy throughout. The objects in these poems bely an organized universe: objects that don’t belong together are crammed into a stanza. Including this passage, from “Pill”, which lets loose all kinds of matter:

“Pupil, meteorite crater, drill, data, cell, needle, library, wrecking ball, cowboy, funnel, dime bag, pill, camera, sparks, pinhole, eye.”

In “How to Fail a Personality Test”, the thing-y, evidential bent of the book, offers: Household cleansers, tailbone, bat, velvet cape, pelvis, tails, pictures, crab, toad, lace mantilla, clouds, horse, ceiling, map, clouds, popsicle stick, chair.

These things are responses to Rorschach blots. In the dialectic of this poem, the operative question is: What does the viewer see? How does what the viewer sees reveal his personality?

It’s the nature of Rorschach tests to determine meaning, to decode whatever the patient says he sees. Pupil, meteorite crater, drill, data, cell, needle. The things that are “seen” must first be coded, in order to be decoded.

When I read this poem, I don’t have a trusty code. Derrida (who makes small appearance in this poem) would ask, What do these things “signify”? What do these images say? and “Why this picture?” and not that? Neither I (nor the administrator of the poem’s Rorschach test) can draw from a tried-and-true semiotics.

Body I & Body II

I like the rhetorical dissonance between these two poems, with linear-sequential titles. They beg to be read and reread together. There’s a sphinx-dialectic at work within each one and between them too. They speak to each other, poem to poem. Here’s a line from each:

BODY I “Keep washing till it smells like nobody”

BODY II “I would have to become nobody”

Both Body I and Body II, with two really distinct rhetorical stances, share the shaky sense that the internal logic of the poem is slippery. The dialectic is established by non-sequiters. Some delightfully nutty ones that are very Theatre of the Absurd. Here’s some of the wacky interior logic at work:

BODY I        BODY II

“Here’s the body the body
was born in: In the ground”

“There is no way I would tell you these things without wearing my real hair. I would have to play the piano first…”

“Here’s the thing the body needed:
Take it away boys take it away.” (I love this little soft-shoe)

“You’re the salt in my coffee, the cream in my stew. There are a lot of people I would have to swallow first before you.”

Reiter’s rhetorical tricks can remind me of the riddle-ish catechism I was taught. The relationship between premises in these poems get downright eucharistic on logic’s ass. Mysterious pronouncements sound as zany as any church stories of body-magic: The body jesus lived in, the jesus body that is the eucharist, and the jesus body that you put into your body. Here’s Reiter’s esoteric cosmology of the body/soul conundrum:

“Here’s the thing about the body:
there’s no one inside”
“Here’s the body that went into the body… “There are a lot of people I would have to swallow first before you.”
“What holds the body becomes a body…”

These lines are really beautiful to me because they are honest about how little we know.

Hunger and Hungered

A sweeping hunger contains these poems, unites them, How to sate the appetite? Should it be sated? What terrors befall the One-Who-Swallows? The- One-Swallowed? And which one is which? Are they one and the same?

Is our hunger why we swallow? Or are we swallowed by our hunger? More importantly: Am I the body that went into the body? Or am I what holds the body? And if so, who did I become? And if so, did I swallow? And if so, I hope that I liked it. I’m sure I did.

~Martha Rzadkowolsky-Raoli is a street artist.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Well Known Marketer Give Tips for Facebook Marketing

Facebook Guide for Authors

By Dana Lynn Smith

Web page URL: http://www.SavvyBookMarketer.com
Direct link to book page: http://bookmarketingmaven.typepad.com/savvy_book_marketer/facebook.html
Category: publishing/marketing
ISBN – none (ebook)

Originally Reviewed by  Nick Daws for Nick Daws’ Writing Blog

I was pleased to receive a review copy of the fully revised, third edition of Facebook Guide for Authors by Dana Lynn Smith, aka The Savvy Book Marketer. Here's what I thought of it...

The guide is provided in the form of a downloadable, 79-page PDF. My first impression was that it is exceptionally well written and presented. It's printed in a clean, sharp, sans serif font, with screengrab illustrations where appropriate.

I was also impressed that the table of contents is fully hyperlinked, not just to the main chapter headings but to the section headings as well.

Dana starts by talking about online networking in general. This is a sensible approach, as it puts Facebook into perspective with other social networking sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn. The guide doesn't go into great detail about these other networks, but there are nonetheless some good suggestions on developing an overall strategy for promoting yourself and your work. Dana also reveals common mistakes people new to social networking as a promotional tool make.

The next chapter, Get Started With Facebook, is aimed at complete newcomers to Facebook. Dana takes the reader through setting up their personal profile, adding a profile photograph (and other photos and videos), adjusting privacy and notifications settings, how to import blog posts into Facebook, and so on.

Following this, in Network With Facebook, Dana talks about actually using Facebook to build your network of contacts. She discusses making friends on Facebook and responding to friend requests. Personally, though, I found the latter part of this chapter most interesting. This covers the sorts of things authors can post about on Facebook, how to gain added visibility for your updates using "tagging", and steps you can take to ensure that your updates get maximum prominence in your friends' or followers' news feeds. There are some great ideas here that I will certainly be trying out myself in future.

The manual then goes on to discuss other methods of promoting yourself on Facebook, including Fan Pages, Groups (both "Old" and "New"), Events, Questions, and advertising. This is all invaluable, thought-provoking stuff, and bang up to date (I don't even have Facebook Questions on my own Facebook Page yet - Dana says this feature is being rolled out gradually). Again, there are lots of ideas I plan to try out here.

The guide concludes with a list of common mistakes users make, and suggested daily and weekly routines for getting the most from Facebook while not letting it take over your life!

Do I have any criticisms of Facebook Guide for Authors? Well, I might just like to have seen a bit more discussion about how to use Facebook strategically, e.g. whether it's a good idea to have a Fan Page for every title you write, or just have one main author Page instead. Still, I guess this is probably a decision every author needs to make for him- or herself.

Overall, if you want to get up to speed with using Facebook as a promotional tool (and you almost certainly should), I highly recommend Facebook Guide for Authors, especially with its modest $15 price tag. It's definitely going to be my "bible" where Facebook is concerned from now on.

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  The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Slum Dog Millionaire Writer Pens New Novel

Title: Six Suspects
Author: Vikas Swarup
ISBN: 878-0-385-60816-9

Reviewed by Aakanksha Singh, Mumbai, India
The dearth of Indian crime fiction has been partially saved by the novel 'Six Suspects' written by Vikas Swarup, better known for his novel, 'Q and A' that was adapted into the Oscar winning film, 'Slumdog Millionaire.' While 'Q and A' was a rather amateurish, not at all researched book with bits of faulty writing, 'Six Suspects' is a tad bit better. While it has its own flaws, it is nonetheless a pretty good detective/thriller story that exposes the corrupt India and has a story that will be lavished by detective fiction lovers/fans.

Taken from fantasticfiction.co.uk

The plot revolves around Vicky Rai's (the son of the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh) murder that took place while he was partying at his farmhouse in Delhi to celebrate his acquittal in a Jessica Lall style murder case(only in the book, the girl who was shot dead by Vicky was named Ruby Gill). There are essentially six suspects that are detained by the police as they were found carrying guns. Then, aptly, Swarup goes on and gives elaborate descriptions about all the six suspects and their motives to kill Vicky Rai. The six suspects are a motley crowd-including a sexy actress, an American,a mobile thief, Vicky's own father, a tribal from Andaman and a former chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh. These stories are cleverly interconnected and intelligently converge at Vicky Rai's farmhouse. In the end, an investigative journalist, Arun Advani, solves this murder mystery and the end is, I might say, quite unanticipated! The murderer is an unexpected one.

The story is well structured, with quite a few twists and turns that are definitely surprising.

Along with giving massive details about the life stories of all the six suspects, which by the way takes up a large chunk of the novel, Vikas Swarup also highlights the corruption rampant in India's politics, displays the divide between the rich and poor and the different classes, the world of powerful contacts and influences and several more such instances that reveal the sleazy side of India.

Despite 'Six Suspects' being a good detective read, it still has certain weak spots. Firstly, Vikas Swarup tries to put in a lot of information about India in the novel and most of it is sadly lifted from 'breaking news' sessions of the Indian TV channels that can get monotonous. This aspect makes it look like 'Six Suspects was written for foreign audiences and Swarup was aiming for this book to be made into a film as well. It seems there is a lack of originality. Secondly, certain ideas are rather stereotyped like the American's view of India when he comes for the first time, the bit about Islamic fundamentalists is also very cliched(all Muslims are terrorists and all that crap). Although the story has an unpredictable end, there are times when the stories of the six suspects get predictable-for example, the tribal from Andaman has to be foolish and get duped by several people in India. Why can't the tribals be intelligent for once?And there are several such examples.

There are certain creative bits as well like the English Literature professor ,which the former Chief Secretary met in jail, who expresses himself by uttering book titles only.

So the final verdict would be that 'Six Suspects' is definitely worth a read, a good crime novel that unfortunately shows only a newspaper version of India and does not delve deeper into India's chaotic soul. From the writing it becomes apparent that the India of 'Six Suspects' though very real still has a touch of being seen from a distant lens. The lack of research shows through. So if one knows nothing about India, one can probably grab this book to know about its underbelly and get some background on all the wrong things that happened in the country in the past decade or so.

.
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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

California Journal Features Calaveras County-Flavored Works

Title: Manzanita, Poetry and Prose of the Mother Lode and Sierra
Edited by Monika Rose and Julia Holzer
Genre: Literary Journal
Website: www.manzanitacalifornia.org

Manzanita Features Author's Poetry

Los Angeles, CA--Editors of the literary journal Manzanita, Poetry and Prose of the Mother Lode and Sierra published an anthology of poetry including the work of of UCLA Extension Writers’ Program instructor Carolyn Howard-Johnson in its sixth issue.

The journal is an affiliate of Calavaras Arts Council. It is a printed literary collection of poetry, prose, art and photography of the Mother Lode and Sierra regions of California and features work that appeals to the sensibilities of readers in that area from writers and artists across the U.S. It is edited by Monika Rose and poetry editor is Julia Holzer.

Howard-Johnson's poem is "Sacred Lessons from the Sierra Madre" and features impressions from the poet’s travels in the Sierras in Mexico. Howard-Johnson’s poetry has appeared in literary journals like the Mochila Review, Banyan Review, Pear Noir, Solo Novo, and Poetic Voices. One of her poems won a reader award at The Pedestal Magazine.

Howard-Johnson has studied at UCLA with Suzanne Lummis, editor of Speechless the Magazine (http://www.speechlessthemagazine.org/ ) where work from her chapbook Tracings, winner of Military Writers Society of America’s Award of Excellence and published by Finishing Line Press, was featured.

The poet's literary novel, This Is the Place (www.budurl.com/ThisIsThePlace) , has won eight awards. Her book of creative nonfiction has won three. She is developing a new Celebration Series of poetry chapbooks with Magdalena Ball. Among them are She Wore Emerald Then: Reflections on Motherhood (www.budurl.com/MotherChapbook) and Cherished Pulse: Unconventional Love Poetry (www.budurl.com/CherishedPulse). She also advocates with authors as the author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers (www.howtodoitfrugally.com).

Learn more about the Manzanita and how to order a copy at: http://www.manzanitacalifornia.org/ .

Learn more about Carolyn Howard-Johnson at http://carolynhoward-johnson.com.

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Support Materials available on request. Contact: HoJoNews@AOL.com

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Editor Reviews New Jason Jepson Work

When We Were Young

By Jason Jepson

Authors' Website: www.jasonjepson.com

Genre: fiction, memoirs

ISBN 978-159858-757-9

Publisher: Doge Ear Publishing

Reviewed by Mike Wever, editor Wandering Magazine

 

When We Were Young

by Jason Jepson

When We Were Young is described by the author as a fictionalized account of his youth, and indeed it reads much more like a memoir of a common man than a novel. Although the main character Jonah learns lessons and grows from his experiences, there is not much sense that Jonah’s biggest problems are resolved and the man’s situation at the end seems little changed from that of the teen at the beginning.

More than anything, this book is an in-depth examination of Jonah. Nothing especially remarkable happens to him between the end of his time in high school and the beginning of his truly adult years, but the steady beat of mundane events work on him like water against a stone. Jonah’s roughest edges are smoothed while the central core of his personality remains intact. It’s hard not to admire Jonah for the convictions he sticks to and easy to forgive the faults he can’t escape.

The writing at times seems a bit self-indulgent, and the things that are important to Jonah come across more from sheer repetition of ideas than masterful description of his emotions or thoughts. Just like with Jonah, however, a number of admirable traits exist among the faults. At a number of critical points in the story Jepson turns a phrase that makes several pages worth of writing click, creating a firm, memorable impression. There are also a number of descriptive passages that rise far above the rest, suggesting that Jepson will be an author who will be even more enjoyable to read with each successive book.

When We Were Young is published by Dog Ear Publishing and is available now through Amazon.

© Copyright 2010 Mike Wever

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  The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Mystery/Romance Given Rave Review

FIRST STONE ON THE RIGHT

By B. J. Mohr

contact@glenedenpress.com

Genre: mystery/romance

ISBN: 978-0-615-47641-4

Reviewed by Vi Grimba, originally for Amazon. com

  I loved this book; could not put it down. This was a beautiful love story. I could actually feel the passion between Jenny and Will. The character development was so vivid that I felt as if I personally knew everyone. 

As far as the mystery: It was the best thriller I have read in a very long time. The ending was a complete surprise. I could definitely read this book again.

 

~Read the First Chapter of First Stone on the Right for FREE by request at: contact@glenedenpress.com."

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :