Archive for books
October 7, 2008 at 8:44 am · Filed under environment, books
If you’ve heard anything about the honeybee colony collapse, you know that the dying off of bees has the potential to impact our world and food supply pretty drastically. The good news? We CAN do something about it.
We need help getting the word out about Michael Schacker’s book, “A Spring Without Bees, How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply“.
Michael’s book is the only authoritative book out on the the major suspected cause of massive honeybee die-offs–a widely used neurotoxic pesticide. The insecticide should be technically illegal because each of the combined ingredients, nicotine and chlorine have been banned in pesticide formulas previously–the combination is extremely poisonous. They were shoved through the approval process without testing for toxicity for pregnant women or young children on an “emergency provisionary basis”. It is in most lawn maintenance or “Chem Lawn” type mixes–(the books tells you the many names of the chemical so you can know what is on the label). So the problem is not just out there in the fruits and vegetable and alfalfa fields, our children are rolling around in it and we are tracking it into our homes on our feet! France, Germany, Spain and Italy have banned this class of pesticides. In France, it took several years for the soil to recover, but the bees did come back. In addition, Michael Schacker is the only person to have designed a comprehensive plan on how to save the bees and our food supply. But Michael had a CVA and then a massive left hemipshere stroke just the day after completing the book! He is unable to tour the country or speak about all the information in the book, so my daughter Melissa and I along with a few friends are trying to do it. [emphasis mine] With running 2 companies and overseeing Michael’s speech recovery or stroke recovery, I feel I am not doing a good enough job with promoting his book and getting the word out about the real story on this.
The beekeepers are going bankrupt–and there is “domino effect” (explained in the book) to this particular environmental crisis. We have to work on this now! Rachel Carson’s, “Silent Spring” only became a best seller because it got on the Book of the Month Club and because a Supreme Court justice recommended it. Even so, it took another 10 years to ban DDT! Without a best seller, I believe we have little chance of getting the word out and overcoming the misinformation that continually replicates itself about the honeybee and the potential food and fresh produce crisis–a worldwide crisis.
From my research, email lists are the new “book of the month”. I need to get on as many email lists of people who are interested in the organic lifestyle, the environment and planetary survival as possible. If you can refer us to any lists that would be a great help. Also in your message to your email list, you can tell people to copy and paste and then email to their lists so we get a “word of mouth” campaign going. The request to send to other email lists of friends of bees and friends of the Earth should be replicated in each message.
You can help right away by buying a copy of “A Spring Without Bees” and reading it. It is not a “depressing environmental disaster” book, but rather is written in a surprisingly smart, easy style, almost like a mystery novel–you’ll see! Then you can pass the book along to a friend and ask them to put the message out on their email or urge them to buy a copy and pass it along if they wish. You can also go to Plan Bee Central online to sign up for the Plan Bee Action Plan and to find out more about what you can do to ban these pesticides. Buy a copy for Thanksgiving and give thanks to the bees for creating the food you are eating. Buy them as Christmas or holiday gifts so that people can read them over the winter and be prepared to ban locally, plant their bee garden or get their hive to replenish honeybee populations in the spring. I guarantee you will be rewarded for your efforts by meeting a lot of nice people on this journey–I have!
Feel free to–and please–copy and paste this message into your email list or send it to someone with an email list who would be interested. I am so very grateful for your interest and your help. –Barbara Dean Schacker, (his wife)
October 4, 2008 at 11:32 am · Filed under books
Nominations are now open for the 2008 Cybils Awards. Head on over and nominate YOUR favorite new book in one of nine categories. It’s your chance to tell the world about your favorite book or author.
September 16, 2008 at 11:13 am · Filed under medieval, books
It’s here! Well, at least at my house. The major online booksellers still have it listed as a pre-order, but I suspect that could change at any time.
It looks great and I am utterly, totally excited about the fact that the book is printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper. How’s THAT?
September 4, 2008 at 4:46 am · Filed under books
Kelly over at Pass the Torch has a great review of Team Challenges up, and is hosting a book giveaway. Head on over before September 12 to to enter!
While you’re there, note that Kelly’s an author herself. Her book, Empowering Youth has just been released. Congrats, Kelly!
August 29, 2008 at 1:17 pm · Filed under books
I had the pleasure of meeting author Mia King when we lived on the Big Island (Hi Mia!). Unlike me, she still lives there. Via Larramie, I just discovered that Mia’s second novel, Sweet Life, will be released next week. It’s set in Hawai’i, so I’m really interested in reading this one! It will be such a treat to sink into the island, if just for the time it takes me to read the book. Another item of interest? Mia’s a home educator, and includes a homeschooling angle in Sweet Life.
Larramie has more and Mia blogs here.
July 31, 2008 at 12:04 pm · Filed under books
Via COD, I found and read the fabulous letter from a librarian to a patron who complained about the content of Uncle Bobby’s Wedding. As you might guess, Uncle Bobby is gay. I firmly believe in the right of parents to determine what books their kids read (though I don’t censor, myself). I also firmly believe that those parents or persnickety library patrons DON’T have a right to limit the books available to my family. Bravo, Jamie Larue!
July 27, 2008 at 1:33 pm · Filed under books
I mentioned in the previous post that Kelly at Pass the Torch would be giving away two of my books. Head on over by August 1st to enter to win either my colonial or Greek book.
July 25, 2008 at 4:17 am · Filed under colonial america, books
You know how once you’ve accomplished a task, often the details of it disappear from memory? When I saw the photos of the abacus on Kelly’s blog, I thought, “cool!” before I realized that the project idea came out of Tools of the Ancient Greeks. (Hey, it’s been awhile!)
Over at Pass the Torch, Kelly has a few great pictures of the abacus that her son made, as well as a post about cracking codes and the cipher out of Great Colonial America Projects You Can Build Yourself. If you’re like me and appreciate pictures of projects, head on over to take a look.
Kelly’s giving away a copy of each of these books in the next week - I’ll post a link when I have it. Kelly, by the way, has a book of her own due to hit shelves within the next month or so, titled Empowering Youth.
July 17, 2008 at 9:04 am · Filed under medieval, books
I got the final review copy of my medieval book today. Oddly, it’s not a set of paper galleys like I’m used to. This time, it’s an electronic version. I can review the layout and double (triple!) check for errors right on the computer. It’s a little odd to be making notes on the computer, rather than with my trusty highlighter. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, though.
As expected, it’s looking good. The graphics are wonderful. In another month or so it will be a real book! Not bad for a project I started back in early 2006, eh?
Curious to know what book edits look like? You can take a look at my edits for the first half of the book under the cut. You’ll see that I’m catching missed commas, redundancies, and other minor errors. Whose fault is this? Hard to say. The manuscript at this point has gone through many hands. I could have made errors in my original document, my editors (several) could have made errors as they reviewed and rearranged the copy, and errors could have been made during the layout stage as the text was copied and pasted. We just hope that we catch all of the errors in this final read through!
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June 17, 2008 at 5:42 am · Filed under books
You can find out, here, though I can’t vouch for its accuracy. Just type your name in the search box and the site will pull up a list of your books along with how many are held in libraries.
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