Rebecca Reads

I was dressing my 10-month-old son on his bedroom floor the other evening when he started reaching up. I saw his fingers brush the edge of the orange cover of Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, which was on the edge of the second-lowest shelf. Once he was fully clothed in pajamas, I sat him up and pulled the book off the shelf.

“In the great green room,” I began, setting him on my knee.

He stopped squirming and clapped his hands together, ready for his story. Read the rest of this entry »

In reading the Poetry Friday website, I came across some significant pointers about honoring copyright on the web.

• Mitali at mitali’s fire escape reviews some basic ways to honor copyright when posting poetry for Poetry Friday.
• She links to a great article called Websites: Five Ways to Stay Out of Trouble.

While I’ve taken care to avoid breaking copyright in terms of text, I hadn’t put much thought to the photos (oops!). All book covers come from my Amazon store, which has proven in court to be acceptable. As for the authors’ photos from weekly geeks the other day, I realize now that those that I got off Google search are breaking copyright, so I’ll take those down. I’ll also keep image copyright in mind as I blog in the future.

The main thing that stood out to me was this: probably, no one is going to come after me if I do post copyrighted photos. However, the more readers I have, the more likely someone will notice. I want more readers, so I won’t tempt fate!

Am I the only one who didn’t even think of this? What are your thoughts about copyright on your personal blog?

I found Poems Every Child Should Know, which was edited by Mary E. Burt and published in 1904, on the Project Gutenberg site. I was looking for poems by Rudyard Kipling, but I decided to look at all of this, as I have a child and want him to know what he “should” know.

I’ve only skimmed it, and I love it so far. I did come across a (more) complete “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” I didn’t know the rest of it. Reading it is different, because it obviously doesn’t follow the familiar song. Read the rest of this entry »

Answers

to Sunday’s post

1. (a) A.A. Milne (b) Simon Winchester (c) Alexander McCall-Smith

2. Guy de Maupassant

3. (a) Amy Tan (b) Terry Tempest Williams (c) Sherman Alexie (d) Robert Hass

4. Robert Hass

6. Winston Churchill

The winner was gag who guessed all correct (!) except Terry Tempest Williams. NIce job! And nice job for the rest of you.

Go visit her Reading Room!

I am not very familiar with the political situation before, during, and after World War II. But after reading the best speeches of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, I am impressed that his powerful, confident speeches were a deciding factor in the perseverance of the United Kingdom through the trying times of World War II. I loved reading his political speeches: though my situation is different, his powerful words buoy me. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not Maupassant’s fault, but I have a grudge against him already: his book stinks.

The librarian had to retrieve it from The Stacks. The first thing I noticed as she returned was its size. At more than 1300 pages, it thudded on the counter. Then, as she swiped my library card and pushed the book toward me, I smelled it. Musky. Old. Like a 1950s house that hasn’t been aired out in decades. Like puke-colored green shag carpet.

The cover itself isn’t too bad: the top two-thirds has the long title and subtitle and editor written in plain print across a faded (and stained) orange background. Bizarre green faces stare at me from the bottom third of the page.

Then I opened it. The text is about 8 point font. A story ends and the next begins on the same page (that bothers me: a story should stand by itself). And each page is as thin as skin. The book is probably 11 inches tall and 5 inches wide, so with 1300+ pages, a heavy cover, and Bible-thin pages, it’s kind of hard to curl up in bed for some comfort reading. Read the rest of this entry »

My husband, my ten-month-old, and I have all been sick this weekend. To my surprise, I couldn’t bring myself to finish my book and post the review as I’d planned. Every time I started to read, my eyes would close. I also usually read a book aloud to my son as he plays and my husband and I read a book aloud together. But neither of us have our voices, so I didn’t do that either. It’s amazing that I haven’t read much at all! My husband and I zoned out watching a movie all day Saturday, while our son crawled over us. That’s not like me.

Do you find your reading changing when you’re not feeling well? Or am I weird to be reading less?

Anyway, in lieu of a review, I’ll do Weekly Geeks this week, which is all about authors. (I don’t have energy to write up my thoughts about the book I just finished today, but I can do a few photo searches!)

So, the idea is, you guess in the comments who the authors are. I wish I could give you a reward if you get them all, but my budget really can’t right now. I will write a nice post linking to you. Is link love enough? Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago, a publisher contacted me: Would I like to review ARCs for my blog?

I’ve only been book blogging for a few months, so I was flattered they found me. I have an online presence! The publicist was able to answer my questions about ARCs, mostly. But I’m realizing that I don’t really want just any free books. Read the rest of this entry »

Harper Lee wrote one novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and it won the Pulitzer prize in 1961. Its themes still resonate with readers and her novel has become a part of our culture. That, I believe, is success.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee almost perfectly captures the main challenge of growing up: realizing human nature, both good and bad.

(I say “almost” perfect because I am sure there are faults in the novel, but I love this novel so much that I don’t want to search for them.) Read the rest of this entry »

One Saturday, my husband laughed out loud while listening to something on his headphones.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

” ‘Maggots’ is an ugly word; she’s using ‘haciendas’ instead!”

My husband doesn’t normally laugh out loud while listening to audiobooks. This was new. After a bit more coaxing, I found that he was listening to Stiff by Mary Roach, which I had wanted to read, until he started talking about maggots.

“It’s about cadavers,” he said.

I was disgusted. I couldn’t read that!

Later, I entered the kitchen, where he was listening without headphones. (Yes, in the kitchen.) The narrator now discussed shooting cadavers with bullets.

“That’s disgusting!” I said, reaching for my lunch. “I won’t be giving my body to science!”

“Well, you better believe I will be!” he responded.

This shocked me. I stammered out an objection, and he reiterated his wishes. And yet, despite my disgust, I couldn’t put in words why I would want to see him dead in the casket. (We’ve been married for only two years, and maybe just the thought of him dead was most disturbing.)

He told me I couldn’t say no to medical research, organ donation, or human dissection until I knew what would happened, be it decay, cremation, or the other things.

Enter Stiff:The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. Yes, I gave in: I listened to it too. It stops being nauseating fairly quickly; you get used to it. And after listening to this (wonderfully narrated by Shelly Frasier) audiobook, I’ve been converted:

Please, don’t bury me! There are too many other, cooler things that could happen to my body after I die! Read the rest of this entry »