A Few Quotations On Books

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“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

                             Marcus Tullius Cicero

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“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.”

                                            Stephen King

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“We live for books.”

                                             Umberto Eco

“Books are the food and drink for the human soul.”

                                Charles F. French

A Wish For A Good Day of Writing!

I want to wish all writers, everywhere, a good day of writing!

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I simply wanted to wish all writers a good writing day–today and always.  I also hope you will have excellent production on whatever project you are tackling.

Never doubt your abilities, and work on getting your first drafts done. They will not be perfect, but you will then have material to revise.

Remember to try to write every day and read everyday.

Also remember to value your abilities, your vision, and your writing.

Happy Writing!

Banned Books Week 2022

This week, from September 18 through September 24of 2022 is National Banned Books Week. Book banning and censorship is a crucial issue that should unite readers and writers. Throughout the world and humanity’s history, governments, churches, and other institutions have banned or attempted to ban and censor books.

Most of us are familiar with the images from Nazi Germany in which thousands of books were burned by the Fascists. All banning, however, is not so explicit. Sometimes in the United States of America, books are challenged, especially in the context of not being allowed to be taught in the classroom.

I oppose all such censorship. As a writer, it is an obscenity; as a teacher, it is an imposition of chosen ignorance; as a reader, it is an intolerable abomination. We must unite and oppose book banning, in all of its forms.

Fight for your freedom to choose what to read.

Here are several important links about this issue:

Banned Books Week

American Library Association

I will later, this week, in honor of this important cause put out another call for readers to become part of my unofficial group that opposes censorship–The Underground Library Society, The U. L. S.

In the meantime, I ask all of you this question: what is a book that has been banned or challenged that you love?

I choose To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Happy National Book Lovers Day!

Today is a wonderful day–National Book Lovers Day!

Let us all embrace the joy of books!

Celebrate by reading a  book today!

A Wonderful Poem by Robbie Cheadle!

Here is a wonderful poem from Robbie Cheadle for you to enjoy!

Robbie’s inspiration

Diana from Myths of the Mirror blog has a writing challenge underway. You can find it here: https://mythsofthemirror.com/2022/01/09/writing-challenge-the-teetering-tbr-pile/.

Poets and writers are challenged to write a poem or story about their TBR. I have used poetic license and written a poem about how my TBR came into existence.

 

 

The Invasion by Robbie Cheadle

Into my library, so full

“Wake up and make room”

Orwell roared like a bull.

***

Shakespeare, Hardy, and Austen

Regarded him with distain

“You’re ‘cleared out’ trash!

You may not remain.”

***

“Now don’t be unkind,

you’re also not new.

We’ve been disregarded

and we’re in quite a stew.”

***

“Fine, we’ll move forward

and you go in behind”

Before I could stop them

my shelves were redesigned.

***

What a fabulous sight

to see the outcasts stowed

It filled my heart with delight

‘though the shelves overflowed.

***

And that was the start

of my sanctuary for books

Some people find it strange

and give me odd looks

***

“Books are inanimate

They can’t speak to you”

What nonsense they talk

If only they knew.

Please be sure to visit Robbie’s blogs:

Robbie’s inspiration

Robbie Cheadle Books/Poems/Reviews

 

More Quotations On Reading!

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“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.”

                                                                           Confucius

Frederick Douglass, ca. 1879. George K. Warren. (National Archives Gift Collection)

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“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

Frederick Douglass

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“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.”
Jacqueline Kennedy

“Reading is the essential nourishment to the imagination and the soul.”

                                                                               Charles F. French

Remember to keep reading!

What Book(s) Are You Currently Reading?

Books are a central part of my life: reading them, enjoying them, teaching them, and also writing them! 

I am currently reading The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield, The Bookseller of Florence by Ross King, Shadow Voices: 300 Years of Irish Genre Fiction edited by John Connolly, and Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella.  I also have many more in my To-Be-Read list!

So, I am asking all of you: what are you currently reading?

Grief Songs by Elizabeth Gauffreau–A Review

Grief Songs by Elizabeth Gauffreau is a beautiful and compelling collection of poetry and photographs.

Gauffreau is a skilled story-teller, and her poetry and pictures create moving portraits of her family that draw the reader into her lovingly created images and remembrances.

Gauffreau uses the traditional Tanka form for her poetry, and she shows great skill in weaving her stories and memories together. For those who love poetry and family, this book will engage them and make them want to find their own family photos.

Grief Songs is an excellent book of poetry, it is lyrical and lovely, and I give it my complete recommendation. It will capture you and move you.

Beautifully done!

Grief Songs is available at Amazon

Please visit her wonderful website: lizgauffreau.com

Please Help Me at #PitMad on 12/2/2021

Please!

Hello everyone! This may sound like an odd request, but tomorrow, December 2, 2021, I am participating in #PitMad on Twitter, a day long event in which authors tweet a pitch for a book to agents.

If any of you have Twitter, please consider retweeting my pinned tweet, which I will put up tomorrow morning around 8 a.m. EST.

My Twitter handle is @French_C1955

This is also important– DO NOT LIKE THE PITCH–that is for agents to let writers know they are interested in your work.

My pitch will look something like this:

THE FIFTH SEASON X PARABLE OF THE SOWER In a world decimated by climate change, now like the dark ages, 16-yr-old Lignne wants to be the first female graduate in the only school in the kingdom, but treachery from a psychopath threaten her success and life. #A #PitMad #F

Thank you!!!

Quotations on Intellectualism

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

                                                  Isaac Asimov

“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.”

                                                   George Orwell

“I’m tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact.”

                                                      Phil Plait

“For democracy to survive, Americans must learn to embrace intellectualism, reject cult-like behavior, employ analysis, understand and use science, and think for themselves.”

                                                      Charles F. French