Opening Sentence of the Day: Shipwrecks, Monsters, and Mysteries of the Great Lakes

"In 1679, a French ship called the Griffon, the first sailing vessel built on the Great Lakes, left Green Bay on Lake Michigan, bound for Niagra with a cargo of furs."


-- Shipwrecks, Monsters, and Mysteries of the Great Lakes by Ed Butts.

This is a short book with 10 stories of Great Lakes adventures, just a sample of stories about the 6,000 or so ships lost on the Great Lakes since the Griffon disappeared.

It would be a great book to read with kids ready to learn history. All the adventures and mysteries would make learning about inter-coastal commerce, industrial development, and navigable waterways much more interesting.

This is my latest LibraryThing Early Reviewer book. There are others on that list that I should get to first, but this was too inviting.

Review of the Day: George Passant

George Passant is the first volume of C. P. Snow’s 11-volume Strangers and Brothers series. In fact, this book was originally published in 1940 as Strangers and Brothers. It tells the story of an idealistic, progressive, young attorney in post-WWI England determined to build his career and passionately devoted to helping his group of friends.

Unfortunately for George, his dual aims lead to some questionable financial dealings and he and two of his protégés end up facing criminal fraud charges. It soon becomes clear that George’s lifestyle is on trial more than his business practices, leading to an impressive courtroom finale.

It is a good story, well told. However, it has not aged particularly well. It requires an exceptionally willing suspension of disbelief to be shocked by the notion that a bunch of single twenty-somethings had sex with each other. Free love and communal living (weekends only) may have been scandalous in the 1920s, when the book was set, and even when it was first published. But now it takes a conscious effort to comprehend just what all the fuss is about.

Read it as the gateway to the rest of the series. Read it because Snow is a good author, and what he wrote about relationships among friends and professional colleagues, and the continual need to hone one’s reputation, still rings true. But don't read it as the sensational courtroom drama it originally was.

OTHER REVIEWS

(If you would like your review of this or any other C. P. Snow book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

Teaser Tuesday: 365 Thank Yous

"But it seemed uncanny that Grace had written this note just before I'd determined thank-you notes to be my way out of despair.  By thanking me for a Christmas present, she awakened me to something in my life, however small, for which I could be grateful."

-- 365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life by John Kralik.

This is a great little book. I am enjoying it tremendously and am already thinking of notes to write myself.  Of course, I am a huge fan of the handwritten note, so he is preaching to the choir.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Mailbox Monday and GIVEAWAY

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! I also have a new GIVEAWAY this week and three winners of last week's giveaway.  Keep reading through the post to find all the goodies.

MAILBOX MONDAY

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at The Printed Page, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here). I am very pleased to host this month.

Please leave the link to your Mailbox Monday post with Mr. Linky. If you do not have a blog, leave your mailbox list in a comment.

GIVEAWAY WINNER

Last week I had three copies to give away of Emotional Currency: A Woman's Guide to Building a Healthy Relationship with Moneyby Kate Levinson, PhD.  The full title gives a pretty good description.  It sounds like a book all women should read.



THE BOOK: Emotional Currency gives women the tools to understand – and challenge – their psychological relationship with money so they can make smarter decisions about their current and future financial responsibilities.

Here’s the book every woman (and most men) need: a clear, thoughtful, and beautifully-written guide for how to cope with the myriad of emotions caused by money. Kate Levinson – practicing therapist and businesswoman –shows how money is both mercilessly public and intimately personal – stirring up our deepest feelings about dependence and independence, status, attractiveness, and terrifying confusion between net worth and self worth. Women in today’s economy are especially vulnerable because of gender biases in the workplace, patterns of parenting and upbringing that assume women do not “handle” financial matters well, and social norms that still disapprove of money-wise women. This book is a wise and important antidote.

Robert B. Reich
Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy
Goldman School of Public Policy
University of California, Berkeley

THE WINNERS: Based on random.org's choices, the winners are:

• J.G. at Hotchpot Cafe
• LKT at The Infusion
• Carol at Carol's Notebook

Thank you to all who participated and congratulations to the winners!  I will contact you shortly.

THIS WEEK'S GIVAWAY

Again thanks to book publicist extraordinaire, Mary Bisbee-Beek, I have three copies of JOYRIDE: Pedaling Toward A Healthier Planet By Mia Birk with Joe "Metal Cowboy" Kurmaskie (published by Cadence Press). These are finished books, not ARCS.

Mia Birk lives in Portland and is available for speaking engagements in the area.  She is also available for blog interviews.  If anyone is interested, please contact Mary Bisbee-Beek via her LinkedIn profile, or leave your email in a comment and Mary will contact you.




THE BOOK: This is the inspiring story of pioneering transportation leader Mia Birk's 20-year crusade to integrate bicycling into daily life. With a table scrap of funding, Mia led a revolution that grew Portland, Oregon into the #1 American cycling city. Mia then hit the road, helping make communities across the nation -- even her hometown of Dallas, Texas -- more human, healthy, safe, and livable. While many books today extol the pain of our world's problems, Mia's funny, touching Joyride is the antidote, offering hope to any and everyone interested in changing our world, one pedal stroke at a time.


THE RULES: The contest is open until Sunday, January 30, 2011. To enter, do any or all of the following, but you must leave a comment for each one:

1. Leave a comment on this post. You must include a way to contact you (email or website address in your comment or available in your profile). If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner. (1 entry)

2. Blog about this giveaway. (Posting the giveaway on your sidebar is also acceptable.) Leave a separate comment with a link to your post. (1 entry)

3. Subscribe to my rss feed, follow me on blogger, or subscribe via email (or tell me if you already are a subscriber or follower). Leave a separate comment for this. (1 entry)

4. Tweet this post on Twitter. Leave me a separate comment with your twitter user name. (1 entry)

5. Stumble this blog, digg it, technorati fave it, or link it on facebook. Leave a separate comment. (1 entry)

There are a lot of ways to enter (maximum of five entries), but you must LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT for each one or they will not count. I will use random.org to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is open to entries from the U.S. and Canada only. The deadline for entry is 9:00 PM, Pacific Time, on Sunday, January 30, 2011. I will draw and post the winner's name in my Mailbox Monday post for January 31, 2011.

MY MAILBOX

My New Year's reading resolution was to tackle my Guilt List and to stop adding to it.  Luckily, I keep a separate list for LibraryThing Early Reviewer books, so this one doesn't count. Really.



Shipwrecks, Monsters, and Mysteries of the Great Lakes by Ed Butts.  This is a short book with 10 stories of Great Lakes adventures.  I asked for it because it would tickle my husband's reading fancy, but I am going to tear through it myself.

I also hit the jackpot at Powell's the other day.  I always check the Anthony Powell shelf when I am there (no relation, and the book store name rhymes with "towel," while the author's name sounds more like "pole"), looking for books other than A Dance to the Music of Time.  The Dance books are always there, but it is hard to find his others.  I got lucky.



From a View to a Death, his third novel, first published in 1933, before he started Dance.



What's Become of Waring, his fifth novel, first published in 1939, also before he started Dance.

To Keep the Ball Rolling: Infants of the Spring and To Keep the Ball Rolling: Messengers of Day, the first two volumes of his four-volume memoirs, published in1976 and 1978. They have plain gray covers with no dustjackets.



The Fisher King, a novel first published in 1986, after he completed Dance.

Opening Sentence of the Day: 365 Thank Yous

"On December 22, 2007, I felt my life was at an irreversible personal nadir."

-- 365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life by John Kralik.

The senior partner at my firm gave me this for Christmas.  Then, just the other day, he wrote me a letter thanking me for joining the firm as a partner and saying some very nice things about me.  He laid it on pretty thick, but I have to say that it sure made my day.  He told me he has been writing similar letters to people because he was inspired by this book. I'm intrigued.