Mormon Bloggers

-as seen this week on Blackpurl’s Knitpickings  Read More →

In 1998, we moved back to the US from Venezuela, where I’d been working for three and a half years. During our time there, we had collected a lot of books – church books, children’s books, reference books and others. It has been this way in each of our overseas assignments: each trip back to the US included an expensive trip to the bookstore since we could not get English reading material in our host country. (In Japan, we could buy English books, but they were very, very expensive, so we tried very hard to stay out of the English bookshop in Hiroshima.) As we were preparing to move, I wondered about moving all those books home. Logistically it was no issue: the company was moving us and there was certainly room in our shipping container. But I thought about the church members we’d come to know there. We attended a local ward and new some new members and others who had been members for most of their lives. Quite a few read English and others were anxious to learn. Leaving... Read the rest of this entry »

Your book is about to be published, now what do you do? When you received word that your book was going to published, the excitement which poured through you was tremendous. As the rewriting, editing, and final edits commence, the cover design, etc. there comes that moment when you realize, as much as you wish it were different, that all the marketing, branding, booksignings, schedulings are all on your shoulders. That can be a very daunting thing. But lucky for you, Candace Salima has been there, done that, and has developed a day-long training which will give you all the knowledge she had to gather for herself. At the conclusion of this training, you will have the knowledge you seek, and will only have to put in the blood, sweat, and tears to make it happen. Marketing your book well will guarantee your success. The harder you work, the more it gets out there, the happier your publisher will be. It’s a win/win. Let me teach you how to make yourself a successful author. Saturday... Read the rest of this entry »

The library in my town has been bounced from one location to another. As a maniacal reader, this really ticks me off. It’s basically a walk-in closet.Right now the library board is trying to win a contest sponsored by Pepsi’s refresheverything.com. The library has some funds to build it’s own building, but needs funds to actually put shelves inside it.Please go vote here and if you’re a Pepsi  Read More →

Monday, 20 June 201111:00 A.M. to NoonListen on your radio dial KTALK AM 630 (Utah Market)or listen to it streaming live on www.k-talk.comwww.buybackamerica.com Show now archived, and can be listened to here. Chris Stewart’s interview begins in the second hour of the show. I devoured this book. I was inspired and uplifted by it and believe it to be a critical addition to every home library, not to mention Freedom Library. Host: Tim AaldersCo-Host: Candace SalimaGuest: Chris Stewart On June 20th, Tim Aalders and I will be interviewing author Chris Stewart on Buy Back America Radio. I, for one, am very excited. I’m a big fan of his writing, and have all of his books, I think. However, his latest book blows them all out of the park. 7 Tipping Points that Saved the World. Wow, what a book! Put it on your calendar and be sure to tune in! “Imagine a world with the means of mass destruction–nuclear warheads, biological weapons, chemical and conventional attacks–held... Read the rest of this entry »

I’m speaking at this event from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. and would love to see some friendly faces if any of you can make it. I’m sure all faces will be friendly, but people I know are a happy bonus   WHAT  ~ Utah Festival of Books WHEN  ~ Saturday, June 4 2011 WHERE ~ Provo, BYU Campus, Brigham Square adjacent to the Wilkinson Student Center TIME     ~ 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. What’s happening? “Everyone is invited to attend and celebrate reading by enjoying wholesome entertainment, including vibrant performances, author signings, literacy activities, engaging guest speakers and more,” said BYU Bookstore director Roger Reynolds. Festival attendees can meet New York Times best-selling authors, including James Dashner, Ally Condie, Kiersten White and Brandon Mull. “This will be a great time for families and children to meet some of their favorite authors,”... Read the rest of this entry »

Buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom I admit to enjoying a Malcolm Gladwell book every once in a while, but often those “entertaining non-fiction” genre pieces turn out to just be one massive exercise in stating the obvious. This book claims to revolutionize our ideas about why people respond to advertisements the way they do, and some of the brain studies he mentioned were kind of interesting. But he seems shocked to learn that people lie. Duh. Of course people aren’t honest about why they buy things, because the real answers are usually pathetic. I know this, and I am neither an advertising expert nor a scientist. Additionally, in his afterward about the 2008 financial crisis, he mentions that since the recession, condom sales have gone up. Lindstrom postulates the reason for this is that in times of stress, people find solace in their sexuality. Or maybe people are just worried about getting pregnant during a financial crisis? Sheesh.... Read the rest of this entry »

Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman I didn’t realize this until after I bought a copy of each volume, but there are only two volumes in this series and they are more often sold condensed into one book. Art Spiegelman was apparently approached by people who wanted to make his books into movies, after-school specials, etc. I’m glad he didn’t. One of the best things about this series (and about a lot of autobiographical graphic novels, more so than other biographical works, in my opinion) is its unflinching honesty. Spiegelman is very blunt about his flaws and his father’s flaws, and it makes the entire work much more humanizing. Whereas sometimes we continue to dehumanize those that survived the Holocaust by refusing to acknowledge their human flaws, this does the opposite. These books are incredible. Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin Dooland I don’t read a lot of this type of non-fiction, but I’ve been following Dooland’s... Read the rest of this entry »

“The nursery rhyme ends when a spider comes along and frightens Miss Muffet straight off her tuffet.  I have wondered about what kind of lesson this is for a young girl.  If you’re eating your curds and whey and a spider comes along, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with picking up a newspaper, smashing it, and going back to your breakfast.” -Sloane Crosley, How Did You Get This Number  Read More →

I know you’ve been waiting for this on the edge of your seats. I promise to try to blog every 5-6 books from now on instead of every 10+, to make these posts easier to digest. Starting next time. Pinky swears. Anyway, these are the books I have read so far this year: Go Ask Alice by Anonymous This was not the cover on the copy I read, by the way. It was green and a little less YA-looking. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Diaries are often considered YA fodder, anyway. This was part of my banned books project, and it was another one of those books that made me cry and sent me into a brief period of despair when it was over. Not to be a Spoiler Spencer, but the end of this book is really, really sad, and also very unsatisfying. The girl who wrote this diary is an amazingly talented writer. It makes me angry that this is the only piece she ever had published. I will probably force my teenage children to read this book and they will be like, geez, Mom,... Read the rest of this entry »

Once upon a time, there was a little girl that was supposed to be taking a nap. Her mother lovingly put her in bed, tucked her in, gave her her sock monkey to cuddle with, and gave her a goodnight kiss. A little while later, her mother decided to check on her, since she was being quiet. (Her mother is weird, and loves to see her sleeping, so when she thinks the little girl is asleep, the mother always puts her head in to watch her for a second or two…) Well, the monkey was enjoying her nap: Sock Monkey enjoys her nap And the little girl was enjoying it too: Aurora reading books, passing time away until Sock Monkey wakes up from her nap The end.  Read More →

“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectation.” -Michael J. Fox,  A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Future  Read More →