Miriam Forster, of the charmingly monikered Dancing with Dragons is Hard on Your Shoes blog, has issued a challenge to writers (and readers!). It springs from an annual event sponsored by the American Library Association, called Banned Books Week. From the ALA site: Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the [...]

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[Partial amazon.com screen capture, July 9, 2010] Funny thing is, for some books — not all of them “great” ones, either — I might actually hesitate before deciding to go the cheap route, even with a price spread as broad as this. (I’m talking about you, you thick-page, large-format “children’s” book on natural history whose [...]

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The Missus has a refrigerator magnet which features a head-and-shoulders hand-tinted photo of a wealthy, hoity-toity society-matron sort of woman; the text alongside says, “‘Frugal’ is such an ugly word.” (Ha!) Like many people, I suppose, I have great ambivalence about acquiring ever more Stuff. Examined closely, expressions like Wow, that would be so cool! [...]

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In a comment on yesterday’s Towel Day post, Marta said: The miracle of the towel! The man who realized this was a man to be reckoned with indeed. That got me thinking: how cool it would be to come up with a… a something — an in-joke, an idea, a catchphrase, a little fictional detail, [...]

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Dear Internet, Sorry I’ve been so… so… casual about our relationship over the last few days.

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From my tech-writing agent, in an email message yesterday: Did you want us to send you a check for the payment due, or did you want an electronic funds transfer to your bank acct? It took 7½ years, but my last tech book finally brought in more for the publisher than the size of the [...]

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Okay, I know I’m at risk of exhausting your patience with all the recent round of congratulations, thanks, trophy-giving, and so on. I just want to point you in the direction of one more nice little feather in the cap of an RAMH regular. It’s especially nice to be able to do so via a [...]

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…which I’m not, I’d say that the author of this book currently advertised on eBay will see none of the proceeds: Ha! And there are 5 available, even! Hahahahaha…! Omigod, thank you. I needed a good laugh.

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You probably already know the movie A Christmas Story, released in 1983 and based on the stories (and featuring the voiceover narration) of Jean Shepherd. And if you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you may also know of my own childhood Christmas memories — and if so, you’ll know I share what seems [...]

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(hat tip to Janet Reid)

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