Winners: Cheating Death

Congratulations to those who won Cheating Death. Rebecca, Renee, Cindy, Amanda and Marjorie will be getting an email from me. Please reply ASAP! Thanks for entering, and stay tuned for more giveaways!

Can God Be Trusted -- We Have Winners!

Congratulations to those who won copies of Can God Be Trusted? Dymphna, Cym, Cindy, Amanda and Linda have been asked to send me their mailing addresses. Thanks to all who entered!

Don't Forget to Enter My Giveaways--Sticky Post

Don't forget to enter my giveaways!

Can God Be Trusted by Father Thomas Williams. Winner will be selected on All Saints Day

Cheating Death by Sanjay Gupta, MD. Winner will be selected on Halloween.

Permission Slips by Sherri Shepherd. Winner will be selected November 10.

My Review: One Hundred Butterflies

Pretty isn't it? One Hundred Butterflies is a beautiful photo book filled with pictures of...you guessed it, butterflies and moths. The are all photographed on a black background, which really makes their colors "pop". What I found really interesting is now different some of them look on the top and on the bottom. Each photo is labeled with the name of the butterfly or moth as well as where it lives. Scattered through the book are a few literary quotes about butterflies and the center has a three page excerpt from Cecil's Books of Natural History, a 1881 book. My five year old enjoyed looking at it, and she had an audience over her shoulder while she did. I think everyone is fascinated by these beautiful insects.

To order from Amazon: One Hundred Butterflies

About Author
Harold Feinstein's distinguished career in photography began in 1950, when Edward Steichen purchased his work for the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and exhibited it frequently during his tenure there. Feinstein's photographs have also been exhibited by and represented in the collections of the International Center of Photography, the George Eastman House, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Musie d'Art Moderne in Paris. His work has appeared in such periodicals as Life, Audubon, Connoisseur, and Popular Photography. He is the author of 100 Flowers, Foliage, The Infinite Rose, and The Infinite Tulip. Feinstein lives in Merrimac, Massachusetts.

Author's Website:

Thanks to Hatchette for providing me a complimentary review copy.

Cheating Death: My Review

Cheating Death is an easy to read, fascinating book that looks at how doctors are blurring the line between death and life, sometimes to restore life in cases that seemed hopeless. Sanjay Gupta, as you probably know, is a neurosurgeon and a medical correspondent for CNN. He writes in a way that makes it clear he is knowledgeable, but also makes his knowledge clear to lay people. He tells us about research that has shown that cooling the body can make it more resistant to loss of oxygenation--and gives stories of people helped by this technique. He discusses fetal surgery, telling not only how some has saved lives, but also giving time to someone who cautions against forgetting the mothers. He gives us some idea of how the research pipeline functions--from basic science, to small animal tests to large animal tests, and lets us see that what looks promising does not always work. Gupta even has a section about near death experiences and the research done about them.

I'd like to thank the publisher for providing a complimentary review copy. If you'd like to read this book, you have until October 31 to enter my giveaway.

Amazon Link: Cheating Death: The Doctors and Medical Miracles that Are Saving Lives Against All Odds

My Review: Permission Slips

Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break is a breezy chat with a girlfriend who realizes that life isn't over at 40, that we all make mistakes and that it is ok to take care of yourself. Sherri Shepherd, if you are like me, and didn't already know, is a co-host of The View, a TV show that features several other women including Barbara Walters. Born in Chicago in the late 1960's, she was conceived out of wedlock, but her parents soon married. When she was a child, her mother (and at her mother's insistance, her father) became Jehovah's witnesses. After fighting their way through her childhood, Shepard's parents divorced when she was in high school,and her mother moved Sherri and her sisters to California. After high school, Shepard got a job as a legal secretary, and eventually started doing stand-up comedy on the side. Eventually she was able to make show business a full-time job.

This book takes us through the high points in Shepard's life, but uses them to make the point that we need to give ourselves permission to do things that are good for us. One chapter is titled "Permission to Get Better as I Get Older" and talks about her first nightclub trip after her divorce. She talks about not knowing the "language" after 10 years of marriage--was the cable guy trying to hit on her, or not? She tells us about how clothes don't fit the same, and that she finally realized that she couldn't check the 25-35 age range on applications. She notes that she doesn't have the energy the young moms at the playground have. Each vignette is followed by a "permission". The one about the younger moms says "Write yourself a permission slip to slow it down. Redefining forty doesn't mean you have to act thirty.

While I don't believe this book is marketed as "Christian", Shepherd speaks a lot about her faith. As noted above, she was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. She left that church, and God, as a young adult and engaged in a lot of behavior not in keeping with any form of Christianity (or good sense). She found her way back to God and then to a Pentecostal church. She speaks of an ongoing dialogue with God and hearing Him tell her not to do things, or to do others. She also speaks of telling Him "no" and doing it her way.

I enjoyed the book. As women we often spend our lives doing for others, and feeling guilty if we do for ourselves. Our culture says we should be smart, thin, nice, hardworking, available, but we can't always be, and she says we need to accept that, and be ok with it. If this sounds like the book for you, you can enter my giveaway. Click on the link and good luck.

If you'd like to purchase from Amazon:Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break

I'd like to thank the folks at Hatchette for providing a complimentary review copy of this book.

Giveaway: Permission Slips

When it comes to the popular media, I am totally uncool. I don't watch TV except for what I happen to hear because I'm on the computer in the same room. I most certainly do not watch daytime TV and the little of it I've seen has made me say "It's enough to send you to work if for no other reason than to get away from it". When Hatchette offered complimentary review copies of Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break I didn't realize the author, Sherri Shepherd was the host of a popular show. My husband saw the book and wondered why I was reading about what that liberal ____ had to say. Oh well.

I've found the book to be both amusing and sad. The writing style is breezy; its like listening to a girlfriend who has been there and done that. Shepherd is the first to say she has made some real mistakes in her life, but so far 9and I haven't finished the book yet) she doesn't seem to have figured out why she did such dumb things. She was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and attended church regularly, but saw her virginity as something to get rid of at 14, not because she was in love, but because she heard sex was great. She went through a series of relationships with men who were real losers.

The book is autobiographical to a point. She tells stories from her life to illustrate her points, and throughout the book tells women to give themselves permission to____. Some of the things she encourages us to give ourselves permission to do include forgiving others, taking naked pictures of yourself (not in a million years thank you, and it has nothing to do with any perceived figure flaws), being blunt, and saying hello to God.

I'm enjoying this book, and thanks to the folks at Hatchette, five of my readers will get to enjoy it too. The usual Hatchette conditions apply: US or Canada only, no PO Boxes. To enter:

• One entry for leaving a comment with an email address
• Another entry for leaving a comment with a link to your blog
• Another entry (up to three) by linking a review you wrote to one I wrote on the same book. Leave me a comment here to say which review you linked to. You can do it via Mr. Linky if he is up on the post, or via comment, if not.
• Another entry for following or subscribing, tell me if you are new, or just joining us.

Giveaway: Cheating Death

Tonight I started a really interesting book: Sanjay Gupta's Cheating Death. So far it has managed to teach me about medical things without a lot of fifty dollar words or Latinisms. Gupta is a journalist/physician and it shows in his writing. So far I've learned how hypothermia (cooling) of a patient can save lives and that the CPR I learned in college (more years ago than I would care to admit) isn't as effective as a simpler and more sanitary method--just compress the chest as fast as you can and don't worry about breathing. You can read more about the book at Hatchette's website.

Cheating Death is being promoted by its publisher, Hatchette Books, which provided a free review copy to me in return for a review and giveaway post. They'd like to give five of my readers free copies as well. You'll be under no obligation to do anything, but I'm sure Hatchette would like it if you'd tell your friends how much you liked the book. The giveaway is open to residents of US and Canada, no PO Boxes.

I've seen several online headlines today saying that the FTC is going to require bloggers to disclose freebies received in return for reviews, meaning that posts would have to state that the blogger recevied the reviewed product at no cost. To enter this giveaway, leave a comment about this proposed rule. Do you think it is a good idea? Is it Big Brother run amok? If you are a blogger, do you disclose when you get free review products? If you read blogs, do you think bloggers ought to disclose (even if they aren't required to do so)? Leave an email address with your comment. If you leave a second or even third comment I consider substantive to the discussion, I'll give you second and third entries. "Substantive" is more than saying "I agree" and I reserve the right to decide what is substantive. For another entry, blog about this giveaway and leave a comment with a link.

I'll draw a winner on Halloween.

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival. We are a group of bloggers who gather once each week to share out best posts. We are all Catholic and blog at least somewhat about Catholic things; some do so exclusively, others only periodically. All are welcome to participate here.

To join in the fun, go to your blog and create a post titled Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival. In that post describe and link to any posts you want to share with the rest of us. Also put in a link to this post. Then come back here, and sign Mr. Linky and give us a link to your post. Finally, go visit other people's posts, and leave comments! Some folks who don't post often have asked if they could, rather than creating a special "Sunday Snippets" post, just link their original post to Mr. Linky. That's ok, if your original post includes a link back here; since the idea is to share our posts and readers with each other. Encourage your readers to join us too.

If you want a weekly reminder to post, please subscribe to our yahoogroup.

This week I'd like to invite all of you to enter my giveaway, which is designed with Sunday Snippets readers in mind. The nice folks at Hatchette books are allowing me to give away five copies of Fr. Thomas Williams' Can God Be Trusted?

Add your post to Mr. Linky!

Winners: The Blue Star

Congratulations to Janette, Amanda, Virginia, Erin and Cindy. Your names have been given to the publisher, who will send you your book.

Cult Insanity: Review and Giveaway

What is life like in a polygamous community? If you want the answer to that question, you want to read Cult Insanity, written by a woman who lived in a polygamous marriage for twenty-eight years, during which she gave birth to thirteen kids. She traces her life from when she was first married through all sorts of violence by the leader of her community. She writes of women driven insane and men who believed they were the prophets of God and above the law.

Hatchette is allowing me to give away five copies of this book. It is subject to the usual Hatchette conditions: US or Canada only, no PO boxes. For your first entry, leave me a comment with your email address. For a second entry, leave me a link to your favorite blog that isn't yours. For a third entry, follow me, and leave me a comment saying you are. For a fourth entry, blog about this contest. For a fifth entry, comment on one of my other posts, and then comment here telling me on which post you left a comment. I'll draw a winner September 21.

The Blue Star: My Review

This is an easy-to-read story of a teen romance told from the boy's point-of-view. Jim Glass is a high school senior in Aliceville North Carolina in 1941. At the brink of manhood, he lives in a land at the brink of, but not yet in, WWII. He falls in love with a girl claimed by a high school nemesis, the son of a rich man, and now in the Navy, stationed at Pearl Harbor. It is also the story of a WWI era romance between Jim's uncle and the girl's mother. If a well-written romance sounds appealing to you, enter my giveaway, and try this one.

Giveaway: Blue Star

From Publishers Weekly
The small dramas of teenage love get caught in the crosswinds of a war in this sequel to the 2001 bestseller Jim the Boy. It's late summer 1941, and Jim Glass, now a high school senior, has an earnest, unshakable passion for classmate Chrissie Steppe. But as straightforward as his feelings are, the circumstances of his nascent romance are complex: Chrissie's family is indebted to their landlord, whose sailor son Bucky claimed Chrissie as his girl before shipping out to serve on the USS California at Pearl Harbor. Throughout Jim's fraught final year at school, he relies on the advice of his uncles, but after Pearl Harbor is bombed, they can't protect him from the war's toll. Questions of patriotism, sexuality and poverty weave their way into a narrative that's deceptive in its simplicity: the growing pains that Jim and his friends experience pack a startling emotional punch.

Hatchette is allowing me to give away five copies of this book. I'll use Random.org to draw winners August 30. For your first entry, leave a comment with an email address. For a second entry, blog about this contest. For a third entry, have a friend leave a comment here, with your name and email address in it (you can even trade favors with folks, but what I'd really like is for you to send someone here who hasn't been here before). That person is free to enter too. For a fourth and fifth entry, leave a comment on one or two of my book reviews saying why you would or wouldn't like to read that book, and then leave comment(s) here saying which book you commented on. No double dipping with this contest and others I'm running right now.

The giveaway is open the US and Canada only, no PO boxes. Winner to be drawn August 30.

Review and Giveaway: The Moon Looked Down

I like romance novels. I like happy endings, easy plotlines, and good feelings. Sometimes I've wished there was a happy medium between bodice-busters with their bedhopping and multiple vivid sex scenes and Christian romance novels that can be just too sweet to be true. Dorothy Garlock delivered such a book with The Moon Looked Down. Set in the 1940's in a small Illinois town, it is the story of Cole, born and raised in the town, and Sophie, a recent immigrant from Germany. The story opens with the local thugs burning Sophie's family's barn, hoping to run the "Nazis" out of town (despite the fact that her family fled Germany because of the Nazis). Cole was just returning to town to teach high school math. He had been in Chicago for college and had worked there for years. He returns, hoping for, among other things, a reconciliation with his father, from whom he had been estranged since his mother's death. Cole has a deformed leg, which causes some people to pity him, and is keeping him out of the army. While most romance novels feature some sort of conflict between the hero and heroine that keeps them apart until the end, the conflict in this book is from the guys who burned the barn, and it ends up drawing Cole and Sophie together.

The book has one sex scene and it happens before marriage. It was reasonably descriptive but more tender than passionate.

If this sounds like your kind of book, this is your lucky day. Anna at Hatchette is allowing me to give away five copies. For one entry, leave a comment with your name and address. For a second comment, blog about this giveaway, and leave a second comment with a link to your post. For third, fourth and fifth entry, leave comments on other book review posts of mine, saying why you think you would or wouldn't like that book, and then leave comments here telling me the name of the book on which you commented.

Rules: US and Canada only, no P.O. Boxes. Winners will be drawn August 30. Good Luck!

My Review: The Imposter's Daughter

I am running a giveaway for The Imposter's Daughter. Today I got my copy in the mail. I read it tonite. It was interesting. It is a graphic novel, in other words, a 250 page hardcovered comic book. The subject matter isn't very comic. It is sort of a memoir/autobiography of the author and her relationship with her father. Her father it turns out, isn't who she thought he was, and learning about him (along with how their relationship was her entire life) basically caused her to mess up her life. This is the story of her life with Daddy, her life as a young adult and how she gets her life together--and that process involves becoming religious for the first time in her life.

This is a book for adults. As noted it is a graphic novel and several of the scenes are of a naked woman in bed. Phone sex is mentioned and she and her boyfriend are shown in bed together several times. She gets a job in a strip club and other girls are shown giving lap dances. I'm not sure exactly what gets what ratings in the movies; maybe this stuff isn't X rated, but it surely is at least R rated.

If this sounds like your thing, please enter my giveaway.

Off Season: My Review

The nice folks at Hatchette are allowing me to give away five copies of Off Season, and I posted that giveaway last week. Well, my copy of the book arrived, and I just wanted to tell you that it is a worthy read. Siddon is a first-class wordsmith and this in not formula fiction. It is a story of loss and love and intertwined lives. It is one of those books where you take away something different with each reading.

There was no explict sex, and religion didn't really seem to play much if any part in these people's lives, so this book is a little different from what I've been reading lately (yes I have somewhat eclectic taste in books). I do want to share a quote with you, that while it had little to do with the overall story, struck a chord with me:
(part of a page-long sentence about the 1960's) "the pill that was supposed to liberate young women enslaved a generation with rote sex that many of them did not even want yet"

My giveaway post has a plot summary, and if you haven't read this book, I'd encourage you to enter the contest; the book is a winner, even if you don't win.

It's Time for Another Contest: Testimony by Anita Shreve

Thanks to the nice folks at Hatchette, I am able to offer to give away five copies of Testimony by Anita Shreve. I just got my copy in the mail today, so I can't tell you my opinion about it, other than to say it sounds good to me. Here is what I know about it:

• At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices--those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal--that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment.
  
  Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her own greatest work, Anita Shreve delivers in TESTIMONY a gripping emotional drama with the impact of a thriller. No one more compellingly explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.
  

Interactive e-book

To enter, leave your name and email address in a comment. For a second entry, blog about this contest, and leave a comment with the link. For unlimited entries, have your friends leave comments saying you sent them--and I'll enter them too. For another entry, name a book I read in 2005-2008 that you either have read or want to read.
Contest ends May 27.

Addendum: Please note that this giveaway is subject to the usual Hatchette conditions: US and Canada only, no PO Boxes.

Even More: Check out my friend Renee's blog. She has a review of this book and is also giving away five copies. Good luck!