Loving Literary

President Barack Obama has seen an enormous amount of success in his books, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Vintage), Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama’s Plan to Renew America’s Promise, The Essential Barack Obama: The Grammy Award-Winning Recordings, The Inaugural Address, 2009: Together with Abraham Lincoln’s First and Second Inaugural Addresses and The Gettysburg Address and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance.

Michelle Obama has also written and published a book, Michelle Obama: In Her Own Words — The Speeches, 2008.

Now Chris Robinson, Michelle Obama’s brother is getting in on writing a book for Gotham Publishing. He will publish a book titled, A Game of Character. There is no mention about when the book will be completed or released, so stay tuned. A Game of Character is said to be a tribute to family, as well as an inspirational book.

John Updike was a Pulitzer Prize winning author of fiction. He died from lung cancer at the age of 76 on Tuesday, January 27, 2009. He lived in Beverly Farms in Massachusetts. John Updike wrote short stories, novels, poems, and criticism. He wrote the memoir Self-Consciousness: Memoirs, as well as a popular essay about Ted Williams – the baseball great. In his lifetime, John Updike remained on the best-seller lists and wrote more than fifty books since 1950. He won countless literary awards and two Pulitzer Prizes for Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit At Rest. John Updike was a great writer! Check out his work in the links. Rest well fellow writer.

This week’s must have book is for moms. Every mom needs this book to pass down her stories, opinions, events, memories, family history, and more. Now any mom can write her own memoir with the help of this book: A Mother’s Legacy: Your Life Story in Your Own Words

Click above to get your copy for under $10! This book can be passed down to your children, your grandchildren, and so on. For such a low price this book will be cherished for generations to come.

Get this book and start writing your legacy for your children, as well as for yourself!

Every Sunday I will be writing a review of a book I have personally read. I have written some book reviews already. Just check the archives for book reviews of The Parent Trip by Jenna McCarthy, On Writing by Stephen King, Read, Remember, Recommend by Rachelle Rogers Knight, Valentine’s Day, and Shelter Me by Juliette Fay.

I am currently reading
Nice Girls DO Get The Sale

by Elinor Stutz and will have the book review up next Sunday! So subscribe to Loving Literary to get notice of each blog posted every day. Read about the latest news in the literature world, authors, publishers, censorship, book products, and must have books. The subscribe feed is on the right ————>

Patrick Swayze has an incredible career in entertainment with movies such as Dirty Dancing, Ghost, The Comeback Kid, and now a successful television series: The Beast. Recently, Patrick Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 

The news out now is that Patrick Swayze is going to write a memoir with his wife, Lisa Niemi. There has been no mention of a publisher or a date for the book yet.  Patrick Swayze’s publicist says there is simply a plan set to write the memoir, nothing else as of yet. More news on this later when a publisher is chosen, as well as a publication date!

After some consideration I have decided to change one of the topics on the editorial calendar for Loving Literary. I have changed Friday’s “Literature History” to “Literature Awards, Honors and Prizes”. Here is the new editorial calendar:

Loving Literary Blogs

Monday:

Must Have Book for…(Book Lovers, Writers, Moms, New Year, etc.)

Tuesday:

Book Business (Beautiful and Functional Book Items)

Wednesday:

Censorship Corner (Old word and news on censorship and banned books)

Thursday:

Publisher Profile: A look at a publishing house

Friday:

Literature Awards, Honors and Prizes

Saturday:

Latest on Literature (Book, Author, Publisher News)

Sunday:

Book Review

Monthly:

Author Appearance: Interviews with authors

Welcome to the first blog on censorship here on Loving Literary! Censorship Corner is here every Wednesday. I think it is important to discuss censorship because of its huge impact in the media, especially on books. What amazes me is that I never really know how bad it is. In my freshman year of high school in English class I decided to do a thirty minute presentation on censorship because I wanted to learn more about it. We were allowed to choose any topic we wanted to. In my hours of research I was astonished with it all - which books were banned, why they were banned, who banned these books, and more. I had no idea how big this was. Censorship is all over the world and has been going on for centuries. Parents censor. Librarians censor. Teachers censor. The government censors. In my innocence I assumed that only large, powerful groups of the government were able to ban and censor. I was so wrong.

In my senior year of high school I had an English teacher that decided to assign banned books throughout the school year. He risked his career to do this. He spent endless hours on the phone in the office with parents who were calling to argue with him about why their child should not be made to read certain books. They were furious because their child would fail or get a lower grade for not reading it. He had to give into the pressures of some of the parents and the school board and let those kids read other books of their approval. Those kids were sent to the library every class. I felt bad for them because they seemed to be missing out on so much. That year I read some of the best books ever, including Bastard Out of Carolina (Essential Edition): (Plume Essential Edition), 1984 (Signet Classics), Fahrenheit 451, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird: The relationship between text and film (Screen Adaptations), Lord of the Flies (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century), and Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck Centennial Edition).

That was such a great year. I learned so much about literature and I was saddened by the fact that these works of art were cast off by some people as evil or bad influences. If you have yet to read these books I highly recommend them. They are classics.

Well, that is my intro to you on the Censorship Corner. More next week!

My daughters’ school requires that they read for twenty minutes every day. It is included in their homework. My older daughter (9 years old, grade 4) has to write a summary of what she read for her twenty minutes, and my younger one (7 years old, grade 1) just has to write the title of the book. I think it is great to have kids reading every day, but keeping track of the time can get a little ridiculous. That is, until I got a Mark My Time Digital Bookmark. I gave it to my oldest daughter and showed her how to use it.  She was instantly amazed at how neat this device was. Not only could she use it to mark her place in her book, but she could use it to time her reading every day. She was able to use it that same day and had no problems timing herself.

Get your Mark My Time Digital Bookmark! Mark-My-Time Digital Bookmark - Purple

This book is perfect for absolutely anyone who reads! Read, Remember, Recommend; A Reading Journal for Book Lovers is great. I highly recommend this book! It is spiral bound so it is easy to use and write in. If you let people borrow your books you can mark down who has what book. It’s not just a blank journal for you to write in. It has pages of award winning books for you to explore. It has best book of lists. It has pages where you can jot down the titles of books that you want to read so the next time you go to the bookstore you won’t be so lost. You can look at your list and get what you want without forgetting anything. You can write all your opinions about the books you read, too. List out the books that you would recommend to others. You can also keep track of books that you borrow. You just might bring those library books back on time now. Read, Remember, Recommend is 236 pages of fun and book discovery!

Get your own:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0980017408?ie=UTF8&tag=today04373-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0980017408

This is what I call my writing bible: On Writing by Stephen King. I have read it twice and am planning to read it a third time. I recommend this book to any writer, plus anyone who wants to become a writer. Alright, I might be a little biased because I grew up reading Stephen King and I consider him one of my role models. He is an amazingly talented writer who is truly successful. His name pops up wherever anyone is discussing authors. People use Stephen King as an example because he crafted his own writing career and let’s everyone see it.

Okay, enough with the blabbering. Stephen King’s book On Writing was really different for him because all of his books are fiction. This was the first non-fiction book he would write. If I didn’t know that already, I would not even notice it. His words are strewn together so eloquently.

On Writing will teach you about the craft of writing, the business of writing, writing struggles, writing triumphs, and how family can have an effect on your writing career.  It is a memoir of a highly successful author who shows you how he did it. The Stephen King we see now is wealthy and successful, but even he had a start out as a kid growing up in a small town in Maine trying to get published. My favorite part is when he talks about hanging up his rejections in his basement on a nail. He eventually needs a second nail for his rejection slips. Stephen King shows that if you believe in what you do, love to do it and persevere you can do anything. That’s what life’s all about, isn’t it? Chase your dreams!

Get your copy of On Writing:  On Writing