The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker by Matthew Diffee, Robert Mankoff

Amazon.com: The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker: Matthew Diffee, Robert Mankoff: Books: "Each week about fifty New Yorker cartoonists submit ten ideas, yielding five hundred cartoons for no more than twenty spots in the magazine. Arguably the most brilliant single-panel-gag cartoonists in the world create a bunch of cartoons every week that never see the light of day.
These rejects were piling up in the dusty corners of studios all over the country. Sam Gross, who has been contributing since 1962, has more than 12,000 rejected cartoons. (Seriously. He's been numbering every single cartoon he's ever submitted to The New Yorker since the very beginning.) Enter editor Matthew Diffee. He tapped his fellow cartoonists, asking them to rescue these hilarious lost gems. From the artists' stacks of all-time favorite rejects, Diffee handpicked the standouts -- the cream of the crap -- and created The Rejection Collection, a place where good ideas go when they die. Too risqué, silly, or weird for The New Yorker, the cartoons in this book offer something no other collection has: They have never been seen in print until now.
With a foreword by New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff that explains the sound judgment, respectability, and scruples not found anywhere in these pages, and handwritten questionnaires that introduce the quirky character of each artist, The Rejection Collection will appeal to fans of The New Yorker...and to anyone with a slightly sick sense of humor."

Fantasy Lover (Dark-Hunter, Book 1) By Sherrilyn Kenyon

Amazon.com Book Description:
Dear Reader, Being trapped in a bedroom with a woman is a grand thing. Being trapped in hundreds of bedrooms over two thousand years isn't. And being cursed into a book as a love-slave for eternity can ruin even a Spartan warrior's day. As a love-slave, I knew everything about women. How to touch them, how to savor them, and most of all how to pleasure them. But when I was summoned to fulfill Grace Alexander's sexual fantasies, I found the first woman in history who saw me as a man with a tormented past. She, alone, bothered to take me out of the bedroom and into the world. She taught me to love again. But I was not born to know love. I was cursed to walk eternity alone. As a general, I had long ago accepted my sentence. Yet now I have found Grace-the one thing my wounded heart cannot survive without. Sure, love can heal all wounds, but can it break a two thousand year old curse? Julian of Macedon"

Busy Mom's Make It Quick Cookbook

This cookbook is the most used reference in my kitchen. I had tried many recipes and they are all fantastic and delicious. All recpies come with shopper-friendly shopping list and cooking tips. I just can't live without this cookbook. As a new cook who has a very busy professional life, this cookbook is my life saver in terms of cooking for all kinds of occasions. The recipes are simple and fool-proof. Among my over 100 cookbooks that I barely used due to problems like hard to find ingredients and discouraging long recipes, this is the one that I use over and over again. I think this book is way much better than any books from Rachael Ray or other food network stars. Amazing this book didn't recieve more attention.

Whiteout by Ken Follett

To many of us, Christmas is the same good old time in the year when we gather with our family to enjoy the same old tradition. But to the imagination of this book's author, Christmas can be the perfect time for all hells to break loose. During their family gathering for Christmas, the characters in this book all got stung emotionally, punched physically and they almost got wiped off the face of the earth. It was interesting to read how the author created a story by combining terriorism, Christmas, family feuds, bio-hazzard, home invasion, and romance. It's a story where everything just went terribly wrong for one single family. There were some humors during the ordeal that the characters went through and there were lots of chaos towards the end of the book where everybody was trapped in the same space, confronting each other, fighting for their dear life. The book was a little slow and boring to me in the first half, but it became more interesting in the last half.

Blogrolling Friendship Giveaway - May 2009

Dear fellow bloggers,

We are giving away a very sparkly crystal jewelry set to one of the lucky bloggers who loves to read and who blogs about books. The jewelry set is a lot prettier in reality than the picture. This is a brand new jewelry set. We will randomly draw out the lucky blogger on May 31st, 2009 and post our winner's screen name and blog url. The winner will have to email me his/her address and we will mail the jewelry out. The following are the requirements to participate in this lucky draw:

1. You have a blog that talks, reviews or discusses about books.
   
2. You live in the U.S. with U.S. mailing address.


3. Your blog is active and your content is original and free of annoying spammer ads like online casinos, weight loss programs, adult sites, or overseas pharmacies.


4. You add our blog to your blogroll or blog list archive and post a comment on this post to notify us about the link.

Good luck, and we look forward to fostering a friendship with all of you so we can encourage more people to read.

Honeymoon by James Patterson and Howard Roughan

Description from Amazon.com: When FBI agent John OHara first sees her, she seems perfect. She has the looks. The career. The clothes. The wit. The sophistication. The tantalizing sex appeal. The whole extraordinary packageand men fall in line to court her. So why is the FBI so interested in Nora Sinclair? Because mysterious things keep happening to people around her, especially the men. With the irresistible attraction of the greatest Hitchcock thrillers, HONEYMOON is a sizzling, twisting tale of a woman with a deadly appetite and the men who dare to fall for herand James Patterson will keep readers guessing until the last deadly kiss.

The Yale Book of Quotations

Descriptions from Amazon.com: This reader-friendly volume contains more than 12,000 famous quotations, arranged alphabetically by author. It is unique in its focus on American quotations and its inclusion of items not only from literary and historical sources but also from popular culture, sports, computers, science, politics, law, and the social sciences. Anonymously authored items appear in sections devoted to folk songs, advertising slogans, television catchphrases, proverbs, and others.For each quotation, a source and first date of use is cited. In many cases, new research for this book has uncovered an earlier date or a different author than had previously been understood. (It was Beatrice Kaufman, not Sophie Tucker, who exclaimed, “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. Rich is better!” William Tecumseh Sherman wasn’t the originator of “War is hell!” It was Napoleon.) Numerous entries are enhanced with annotations to clarify meaning or context for the reader. These interesting annotations, along with extensive cross-references that identify related quotations and a large keyword index, will satisfy both the reader who seeks specific information and the curious browser who appreciates an amble through entertaining pages.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time

Description from Amazon.com: Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools—especially for girls—that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.

The Obama Revolution

Our blogger friend Reading Mama gave this book a 4 stars review.... Read her review here.....

In response to her review, the following is my thought:

Besides having charisma, one has to be in the right place at the right time to come to power. If you read the history of China, Europe and you see how Mao Ji Dong, Lenin and Hilter came to power and rose to the top out of nowhere....There is a similarity. I'm not saying Obama is like any of them in terms of personality or governing philosophy. But the fundamentals of how Obama came to power are the same like those... that is "grassroot" campaigning and speeches that struck a cord of the people's heart at the right time when the countries were in chaos, or having economic or social problems. Lenin, Moa, Hilter all knew "power came from the bottom up...and the majority of the people...." They won their power with the support of the pepole who all wanted change, who all desired a new course that would improve their welfare and prosperity....who all disliked the wealthy class and the corrupted government who catered to them ..... Actually, Obama's campaign tactics are nothing new..

"Change", "New Direction", "Revolutionary", "For the pepole"....were big words for Mao, Lenin and Hilter... Again, Obama is not Lenin, Mao or Hilter. Just his campaigns are similar to theirs, and his strategies to motivate the voters are the same. The message of the campaign is so similar, "The current government isn't working for the people, they are working for their own interets and the wealthy people's interest, this is why you need me, to change, to work for you, the pepole..." Moa visited villages after villages to deliver messages like this in China.... The entire China fell in love with him...(too bad this guy turned out to be a dictator, controlled freak)

Obama is a very smart and educated man, there is no doubt about it. But he also happened to be in the right place at the right time when Americans were all feeling lost and hopelessness about their country's economic and political policies and there were enough disgruntled Americans there to demand a new face, a new something.... In a situation like this, all it took was really a new face, a new political party, new energy, a new style to win the pepole over... Obama happened to be that new face, new kid who got "new ideas" (not to me though, I heard those before...)

Only history will tell if Obama is the solution to America's problems like his campaign promised.Obama's campaign is one proof that history always repeats itself, and regardless of race, ethnicity and the culture, what people like to hear and what entice pepole are all the same things....

Right now, I'm neutral about Obama. Coming from China and having grandparents and parents telling me the political change of their time, I just don't get impressed or moved by politicans and their speeches like my American friends. Cause what Obama said, I had heard similar on documentaries I watched when I was growing up....(people often vote on passion , impulse, on "heresays" that's what I learnt from history)I like to vote by studying closely everything the person has done,(his track records) and the practicality of everything he promised. Charisma is not what I'm looking for in a President.

I think other politicians can succeed if they refer to history what works and what doesn't work in terms of getting support. (not just from Obama's success, yes, his too, but before him, there were others who used the same strategies) My other question is: Would Obama have beaten Hilary Clinton if the United States were truly democratic. (when all Florida and Michigan's votes were not counted??? Or if the Primaries were run by one undisclosed vote per voter instead of caucasus and the system of delegates? Caucasus and delegates are still very weird concepts for me, may be because I'm not American and I don't really understand how democracy is defined in America....)

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Description from Amazon.com: An unconventional novel of prairie life, My Antonia tells the story of a remarkable woman whose strength and passion epitomize the pioneer spirit. Antonia Shimerda returns to Black Hawk, Nebraska, to made a fresh start after eloping with a railway conductor following the tragic death of her father. Accustomed to living in a sod house and toiling alongside the men in the fields, she is unprepared for the lecherous reaction her lush sensuality provokes when she moves to the city. Despite betrayal and crushing opposition, Antonia steadfastly pursues her quest for happiness--a moving struggle that mirrors the quiet drama of the American landscape