Kreativ Blogger Award and Game On Diet Report

Wisteria at Bookworm’s Dinner was kind enough to present me with the Kreative Blogger Award. The Kreativ Blogger award meme works like this: If you accept it, you are supposed to list seven of your favorite things and nominate seven blogs that deserve this award. This is an especial challenge because I want to come [...]

Sunday Salon – Review of “American Lion” by Jon Meacham

Jon Meacham won a Pulitzer Prize for this book, probably because it is well written, and most Americans know precious little about Andrew Jackson or the United States in the 1830’s. In my opinion, however, the book suffers from the author’s emphasis on the interpersonal relations between Jackson and his surrogate family (his wife died [...]

July 11, 1804 – Aaron Burr Killed Alexander Hamilton in a Duel

At dawn on July 11, 1804, Burr, Hamilton, and their seconds met on the heights of Weehawken, New Jersey to resolve their growing rancor and animosity by fighting a duel, a not uncommon practice at that time. The tradition was not to administer a fatal wound to your opponent, but that practice was often followed [...]

Find Images in Google You Can Safely Use For Free

On July 9 Google launched a new feature to allow you to restrict image results to pictures you are allowed to share, use, and even modify. To enable this feature, go to Google’s advanced image search page. (Go to Google, select Images, then click on “Advanced Image Search” just to the right of the button [...]

Review of “Gifts of War” by Mackenzie Ford

This story begins with the Christmas Truce of 1914, when all along the Western Front of WWI, soldiers on both sides laid down their arms and fraternized in No Man’s Land in between the trenches of the Allies and the Axis. During this truce, Henry “Hal” Montgomery, a 23-year-old second lieutenant in the British Army, [...]

Review of “Thanks for the Memories” by Cecelia Ahern

Thanks for the Memories is another “Sleepless in Seattle” type of story, but set in Dublin, so it has an Irish flavor to it. Joyce Conway falls down the stairs and loses the baby she is carrying. This is the final blow for her marriage to Conor, since the possibility of a child was all [...]

Review of “The Scarecrow” by Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly, a former reporter who once worked at the Los Angeles Times, manages to insert a paean to newspapers in general and to the Times in particular into this serial killer suspense novel. The protagonist, Jack McEvoy, works at the L.A. Times. Unfortunately, he just got a layoff notice (the 99th of 100 reporters [...]

July 6, 1944 – Jackie Robinson Refuses to Move to the Back of the Bus

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. But on July 6, 1944, Lieutenant Jack Roosevelt (“Jackie”) Robinson also refused to move to the back of the bus, and he received a court martial. Jackie Robinson, later to become famous as the first black to [...]

July 6, 1957 – Althea Gibson Becomes the First African American to win Wimbledon

Althea Gibson,born in 1927 in South Carolina, grew up in the Harlem section of New York City. Gibson’s athletic ability set her apart from her peers, and she drew more attention to herself when she won the Police Athletic League and Parks Department paddle tennis competitions. The recreation director and musician Buddy Walker recognized her [...]

Giveaway of “Star Gazing” by Linda Gillard

Thanks to the generosity of the author, I have an autographed copy of Star Gazing to give away. See my review here. I loved this book; the plot is innovative, the dialogue is clever, and it’s sweetly romantic to boot! I gave it a 5/5 rating! To enter this contest do any of the following: [...]