The Straw - Poetry by Adolfo...

Image by Captain Victor via Flickr

The Straw
By Adolph Caso

Give me the straw
That I might drink
From the barrel
The pure wine
Of my orchard,
And be inebriated
So much as
To fall
On my back
Arms spread out
Looking at the sun
That makes
The cool clover-leaves
Grow around my body.

Give me the straw
That I may drink again!

~~~

Thanks so much to Adolfo for sharing his latest poem!

Guest Blogger! Publisher Shares Thoughts on Book Reviews!

ROLE OF BOOK REVIEWS
Adolph Caso



“Even when bad, book reviews are good,” said Edmund Brown, publisher and editor for more than 75 years. He was responding to a negative review in the Boston Herald, whose book review editor saw no redeeming feature to a book dealing with a newly-discovered copy of the 1775 edition of the Declaration of Causes. In view of the fact that that book sold but few copies, one would have to conclude that the bad review was indeed bad, except that the author gained visibility, and his name became familiar with some book buyers.

Visibility is the key word. It means familiarity. It also means confidence. Ultimately, it means acceptability on the part of the reader who, by buying a specific book, he or she invests first and foremost in the author and only indirectly in the publisher. Often, book buyers do not consider the name of the publisher; but do consider the name of the author and the content of the book. Good, objective reviews bolster the image and reputation of the author while they increase the profits of the publisher. Bad reviews, on the other hand, reward neither the publisher nor the author.

A good reviewer has to be an honest reviewer, and should refuse to review a book either because it is badly written or because the book’s content is without intellectual or factual merit.

In submitting books for review, one should first locate potential reviewers by categories--those that have expertise related to the content of the book. Next consideration is the publication or publisher; this choice has to be compatible with the content of the book.

Traditional lists of both reviewers and publishers can be found in Google, Writers Market, or Literary Market Place. But the better publications for reviews are daily newspapers, magazines, Sunday supplements like that of the New York Times, and trade publications like Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Book List, and Kirkus. Often forgotten are college and university alumni magazines; these reach captive audiences within a field of familiarity both for the name of the author and the content of the author’s book. Higher education magazine editors are always in search of published authors, their goals to increase the basis of potential donors.

The number of non-traditional online reviewers is getting bigger by the day. As their reviews appear at the point of book sales, they have immediate impact on the book buyer looking at a chosen book and reading either a good review or a bad one. This innovation, spearheaded by Amazon.com, has gained international support to the point that, other book distributors, such as Barnes and Noble, Borders, Follett and others, all publish reviews attached to titles. As a result, these special reviewers are gaining more and more deserved prominence.

Branden Books, with its many authors, has benefited from reviewers such as Michael Woznicki and Glenda Bixler. The latter creates the most consummate reviews found anywhere. Her major strength lies in the fact that with her reviews she enhances the content of the book and clarifies the issues so to help the book buyer make better and more informed purchasing decisions.

Regardless of where reviews appear, however, this better axiom stands: Even when bad, book reviews may be good.


Note from IPBookReviewer: Contrary to what you may be thinking...I did NOT strong-arm Adolfo into giving me a compliment in this article! But I appreciate!

Fat Cowboy - Farce Extraordinaire!

Fat Cowboy
By Rod Miller
Audio iSoap Drama
New Fiction.Com


At the same time that Radio Soap Dramas were very popular, there were also pulp fiction magazines and novels. Fat Cowboy by Rod Miller reminded me of these books, published on cheaper paper with drawings highlighting the storyline for, in this case, “men’s adventure!” For surely Fat Cowboy has the guns and warriors plus that warped sense of humor that keeps the story moving forward to share the “temptation, corruption, and redemption” of con men and criminals.

Miller takes readers deep into the jungles of Peru for his wild, fantastic story. First, let me highlight that Fat Cowboy is indeed a con, a hustler—“a true believer in the principles of unregulated free enterprise, the accumulation of private wealth, the subservience of labor to capital, the ascendancy of the individual over the collective and natural selection.” (p. 15) or making money through any way and every way that will bring fame and fortune...why, he’s even rescued the wife of the vice-president when she was “kidnapped” and discovered in South America. He, of course, successfully brought her back, even if she didn’t want to come and later escaped again!

Aristito Fur is the reason for his safari. This rare, ermine-like animal is known to have the softest fur. And the income for about 4000 square feet of this fur would be a $4Billion annual gross. Obviously Fat Cowboy saw the potential and decided to kidnap and breed these animals. Only issue, the animals are part of a Peruvian tribal religious activity, involving a virgin, so negotiations must be extremely sensitive... And, oh yes, one other important issue is that Fat Cowboy has no plans to raise the aristito himself! So he "manipulates" an internationally acclaimed biologist, Dr. Destri O’Riordan, to accept the challenge of ensuring that these animals do not become extinct, which could actually occur, according to the latest research Fat Cowboy has been able to acquire.

Just a small band of men, plus Dr. O’Riordan travel to Peru, where Fat Cowboy has a contact who knows the chief of the Peruvian tribe, Lydia Pinkham (I’ll let you wonder how and why the chief took this name for his own!). But they were not the only ones who were on their way to Peru.

For Ygal Ben Wa, a Mossad, a totally displaced and misunderstood warrior, had been hired by ConPet, to ensure they could build a oil pipeline across the country! Their target was Zamora and his friendly group of soldiers of fortune and mercenaries known as the Fourth of September Brigade who fought against anybody--anybody with white skin! Interestingly, Zamora’s band of men had visited Lydia Pinkham just before Fat Cowboy’s group arrived. They were the first to enjoy Lydia’s well-known soup that was based upon cooking one human head, along with many herbs and hallucinogenic drugs!

Readers, you are just not going to believe what happened there in Peru! You have to experience this story yourself. All I can tell you is that Fat Cowboy flew home alone and as far as I’m aware, Destri O’Riordan is still in Peru with the aristito...and Lydia...

Click on over to NewFiction.Com and subscribe to Fat Cowboy, free, to read or listen to the story of Fat Cowboy’s greatest con that he's now boasting about ...in jail!

G. A. Bixler

Do you Like Movies? Check out Lendaround!

While I have hundreds of books surrounding me on shelves, on the floor, on tables, many of you probably have lots of DVDs! Just as I love books and belong to Book Crossing to donate and/or share my books, many of you may have the same need for your movies!

You may have a couple of dozen DVDs sitting on your shelves gathering dust. They're good movies – not the kind of thing you'd like to sell for a quarter of what you paid for them – but if you admit it, you probably watch them once a year max.

A new site, www.LendAround.com, helps you use those DVDs to do your friends or work colleagues a favor, and get favors from them in return. It works simply – you list the DVDs you own, invite your friends to check out what's on your shelf, and then start borrowing from their collections. The service is free, and your friends can drop off the DVD to you in person, or mail it for only 43 cents using a neat little downloadable wrapper that's preaddressed.

The site's in private invitation-only beta test right now, but I've been allowed to join myself and to let a few of my readers in as well. Just send an email to ipbookreviewer@lendaround.com and you will receive an invitation to join with priority access to the private beta. Please say in the email what kind of movies you like!

Second in Citizen Warrior Series is Available!

The Big River Press News January 2009


Hello Good Readers,
I'm taking this time to send another great recommendation your way.

Book II in the Citizen Warrior Series, HONOR DEFENDED continues the adventures of Major Westfall, a denizen of the Pacific Northwest rainforest who has built himself a wilderness compound complete with hot tub & killing fields, good neighbors & his faithful companion, the three-legged Black Dog.


January 2009 Release
Major Westfall is Back in a New Breath-Snatching Thriller

In HONOR DEFENDED, Book II of the Citizens Warrior series, the War on Terrorism slithers into Major Westfall's neck of the woods when a brother officer, home on leave from Iraq, is beheaded and his wife abducted by terrorists planning attacks his beloved America.

Major Westfall is awakened before dawn one freezing late winter Saturday by a frantic call from an old friend and War Brother. Already in bad mood, he sets out to hunt for those who burnt a woman's house on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, abducted her, and left behind her beheaded Marine Corps husband's body.

On the beach behind the family's home, he finds sign of someone coming ashore on the last high tide. Tracks lead to a pile of driftwood where Black Dog noses out the family's wounded dog.

Putting his ear to the Hoko grapevine, he hears of a break-in at the local gravel quarry where explosives and detonators were taken. A neighbor's grandchild mentions a missing school janitor, and the name her classmates gave him, Aladdin. When the Major takes a sneak and peek he unearths a terrorist sleeper.

Calling in the troops, he prepares to do battle deep in the Olympic Peninsula wilderness where a cadre of evil guys have gathered, intent on creating havoc with Washington State's ferries.

HONOR DEFENDED occurs over one 24-hour period of heart-pounding, breath-stopping action in which old friends are met, new ones made, the young must grow up fast as lives are broken, and the honor of a War Brother and his family is defended.

If you haven't joined the Major before,
check out Book I of the Citizen Warrior series, Honor Due.
Give both of them a read. I know you'll enjoy them!

Rebecca

VITAL INFORMATION:
TITLE: HONOR DEFENDED
AUTHOR: D. H. BROWN
PUBLISHER: BIG RIVER PRESS
Hardcover - $22.95 - ISBN: 978-0-9798744-5-1 buy here from Amazon
Paperback - $14.95 - ISBN: 978-0-9798744-6-8 buy here from Amazon
Order a autographed copy using your by clicking the title of this article!


Watch for HONOR REDEEMED, D. H. BROWN'S next thriller this fall.
The Sex Slave Trade decides the Major's territory is a good place in which to hide its wares. So begins a quiet war that encompasses the whole west coast. If you want to die, abuse a woman.

SOURCE: BigRiverPress.com, P.O.Box 371, Clallam Bay, WA 98326

Use the Web to Borrow DVDs from Friends

Today is the day this site opens! What do you think? Good idea? Read On!


Latest Way to Beat the Recession:
Use the Web to Borrow DVDs from Friends
FREE WEB TOOL HELPS ENVIRONMENT, ENCOURAGES SHARING

'BUILD YOUR OWN BLOCKBUSTER'

'WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND'


2 FEBRUARY 2009 – Recession-hit Americans can now watch hundreds of free
movies – by using a new web site to borrow DVDs from their friends.

"It's like Netflix meets Facebook," said Jackson, founder of LendAround.com.
"You list some DVDs you own, invite some friends you like, and start
browsing their collections. The web site helps arrange loans, and keeps
track of where everyone's DVDs are. And nobody pays anyone anything."

Jackson estimates that though there are over two billion DVDs in US homes,
80 per cent are watched just twice a year. "What stops us sharing with
friends isn't meanness," he said, "it's embarrassment. Borrowers don't know
how to ask, and lenders fear they'll forget who they lent a treasured movie
to."

LendAround solves the problem for both sides. Browse and search tools make
it easy to find out what movies and TV are in friends' collections, and a
"Your DVDs" tab shows the location of every lent out DVD. A 'retrieve' button
allows owners to ask for their movie back without having to call or email
the borrower.

With an estimated $7 billion a year spent in the US on movie rentals,
consumers are likely to see paid entertainment as an obvious target for
savings. But it was experience in Africa, rather than the concern about the
economy, that gave birth to LendAround. "This isn't really about money,"
said Jackson.

Jackson, a former journalist who founded a $2 billion online auction company
and later worked as a venture capitalist, started visiting Africa regularly
in 2005 for his charitable foundation, which gives tiny grants to community
organizations.

"Coming back from Rwanda or Lesotho and looking around my home, I was
struck by how much stuff we all own and take for granted," he said. Wouldn't
it be great if instead of leaving things to gather dust on shelves, we could
lend them to our friends?"

Although the LendAround service does not compete with video stores or
DVD-by-mail services, it can give users a surprising choice. "I and my
friends are currently sharing 1,634 movies," said Jackson. "That's less than
the average Blockbuster store, but the choice is surprisingly wide – from
West Wing and The Wire to obscure Kurosawa and Almodovar art-house titles."

Most users will share DVDs with personal friends and colleagues at work, but
Jackson also expects rapid growth in universities and among members of
churches and sports clubs, who meet regularly and trust each other. So in
most cases, DVDs are lent and returned by hand.

But LendAround also supports borrowing by mail. "When my brother in New York
requests a DVD from a friend in Seattle, they can download and print a
customized page with his address on it, wrap up the DVD in 30 seconds, and
mail it for just 43 cents."

For Jackson, DVDs are just the beginning. "We've started with DVDs because
they're not too expensive, they're rarely used, only take a couple of hours
to enjoy, and have a standard size and weight. But depending on what they
ask for, people could use LendAround to share anything and everything."

More sharing is good for the environment because it means less use of the
world's resources to make products, less packaging and transportation, and
less garbage and landfill when they are discarded.

As well as allowing people to show off big collections, the LendAround
service also works for people who have only three or four DVDs of their own.

"Netflix don't publish how many DVDs they stock," said Jackson. "But working
backwards from their financial statements with the SEC, it looks like they
own about four DVDs per customer. They manage to provide a great service
with surprisingly few DVDs, but not everyone can afford $17 a month to
borrow three movies at a time. LendAround is free. It's by the people, for
the people."

Jackson also believes that in hard times, people are more likely to come
together to help each other. "A friend does you a favour by lending you
something, and you do them a favour in return. What goes around, comes
around – that's our motto."


Note: I personally haven't checked this site out yet; however, as a member of Book Crossing, I do support the idea of sharing! Check it out...!