Catching UP!

Read an e-Book WEEK

It's not too late

to Celebrate!

    Hope you've all been having a pleasant e-book week. As we get older, and ma little arthritic, e-books appeal to us more and more. Here's Why!

   1.Even though the device feels awkward to you at first, once you get engaged in actual reading, it's fine. You concentrate on story and the words instead of the machine. 

   2.You don't have to dog-ear the pages, it always remembers where you left off.

   3.Even if a book is 2,000 pages long, the reading device never gets any heavier to hold. Your wrists don't ache and your fingers never go numb.

   4.You are never bookless! Your reading device will hold dozens of titles for you to choose from. If you finish a book at the doctor's office, there are lots more right in your reader, just waiting to be read!

   5. If it ever should happen that you've read everything stored in your device, downloading more is as close as the nearest Wi-Fi. The Library, your local coffeeshop, or even your doctor's office is sure to have one.

Work began on the following books this week:

EASTERN SHORE NOIR, a Collection of Work by Members of the Writers Bloc

   Okay, so here you are, reader, opening the page with a sense of entitlement because, well you bought the book, or somebody gave it to you as a gift.  Obviously you have discriminating tastes and a longing, nay, a desire, for a cracking good story pulsing with noir elements.

RED YEAR, by Jan Shapin

    Can a red-haired woman from Chicago single-handedly force Joseph Stalin to back down?         China, 1927. Thirty-three year old Rayna Prohme, accompanying her left-wing journalist husband, becomes the political confidant and lover of Mikhail Borodin, the Russian commander sent to prop up a failing Chinese revolution. In a bid to continue their love affair, Rayna hatches a plan to accompany Mme. Sun, the widow of the Chinese revolution’s founder, to Moscow.

Galleys that went out this week:

Chasing Nightmares

by James R. Kincaid

             Chasing Nightmares, deliberately embracing terrors, isn’t what you and I are likely to do.  But you and I are not the four central characters in this novel, pretty typical college kids who sense that their lives are so predictable they hardly seem present in them.  They are determined not to succumb to the commonplace scripts set out for them, pathways that are so comfortable they might as well be padded, MUSAK softly playing.

            So, they set out from Los Angeles, trying hard to find the perilous.  They try hard to make themselves unprepared, open, desperate to vivify their minds and senses.  They make it only as far as Lake Tahoe and the nearby Donner Pass, where they do succeed in attracting horrors, certainly not the ones they had, despite themselves, anticipated. 

            But the nightmares they wrap round themselves also contain a good deal more than shivers, and the calls on their resolve demand more than simple courage (or foolhardy consistency).  Without knowing how it happened, they are drawn into a different strangeness, asking for and yet reluctant to receive something very much like love.

Jack's News!

  by your Official Bookstore Cat, 

and Gossip Columnist.

Hi Folks,
   This week we heard from an old friend, Marie Tsuguda, the young author of one of the first books we published back in another millenium. She had discontinued it earlier, but now would like to put it up for sale again.

    Back then my big sister, Honeybear, was your bookstore cat and I was only  a gleam in some random feline person's eye. Anyway, Arline said this was a good book, very well written, and had a great message for anyone who might be interested in recovery. Better still, she still had the files, so it should be back in bookstores soon. 

    Here at home, it's Spring. The dafodills are up, the blue phlox is trying to eat up the front yard, and the Judas tree has buds all over. I snuck out for a good look when Roger opened the door to bring in the groceries. 

    Our own personal groundhog, who lives in the copse between our house and the Little Angels Day Care next door, had been out, seen NO shadow, and has been sprucing up the entrance to his den. Although the big sycamore out front where the big nest was is gone, the squirrels must have found another place to live, because they have been hanging around the walnut trees. Stupid creatures! There won't be any more nuts until August!

   When I was coming back inside, Roger and I saw a robin, and although there are still snowbirds around and the weather people are predicting there will be Another Big Snow before the seasons really change. Butt I don't Think So! To me, it looks like we are all ready for spring here.

    Roger says the bad weather will slide north of us again, because he sun is gaining strength and the ocean is getting warm offshore. He knows about stuff like that. And he's been playing and singing every day, so I guess maybe I'll forgive him for all those earlier remarks about my weight.

    As for the rest of you, PLEASE don't YOU forget to send me news of any personal appearances, signings and so on... so I'll have some gossip to pass on next week. 

Just send an e-mail to arline@mail.com with 

 "News for Jack" 

 in the subject line, and

I'll make sure it shows up here for all the world to see!