Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to Sniffly Kitty's Mostly Books!



Be sure to check out Sniffly Kitty's Mostly Books and leave a comment!


Email me so I can have the Amazon eGC delivered to your inbox.

Warms-
CYM

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Versatile Blogger Award ~ 7 Things About Me ~

Thank you Howard Sherman, Implementor for awarding me The Versatile Blogger Award last week!

The rules for this award is:

• Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post
• Tell us seven things about yourself
• Award 15 recently discovered new bloggers
• Contact these bloggers and let them know they’ve received the award(s)

Seven things about me:

1. I am in love with my Sweetheart, my children, and my grandchildren.  I am very lucky!
2. I am an emotional and curious person, a world traveler, and a hard worker with a day job (international tax lawyer).
3. I imagine stories in my head.
4. I love to write about what I feel, think, and see (in the world and in my mind).
5.  I love to read.  Every book reflects an author’s point of view.  I try to find that POV and then examine the story from that standpoint.  What is the author trying to communicate?  What does the author want me to take away from this read?
6. I do not have a literary education, am not a critic, and do not profess to be able to evaluate the quality of writing.  I just love to think about what people write and why they do it.
7.  I graduated 142/144 in my high school class then went to the Navy as Billy the Boot (beginning at the bottom and ending not too far from there).  I have no illusion about where I came from or have gotten in the world.  I am who I am and at where I am at.  I am very lucky

15 Book Bloggers who I am giving this award to. Your Turn:

1. Sniffy Kitty
2. Taming the Bookshelf
3. Throuthehaze Reads
4. Books Glorious Books
5. Wag the Fox
6. Under My Apple Tree
7. Colloquium
8. The Book Frog
9. Martha's Bookshelf
10. Book Diary
11. Paranormal and Romantic Suspense Reviews
12. Shredded Cheddar
13. Ellz Readz
14. A Few More Pages
15. Silver's Reviews

-CYM

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Book Review Party Wednesday (& giveaway) - Starts NOW!

Sorry I am late posting this...problems with Blogger!!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list (& now check out book covers).

-CYM

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Escape from Davao by John D Lukacs

Escape from Davao
by John D. Lukacs
Simon & Shuster 2010
*Full Disclosure HERE

Imagine that you were a U.S. Marine serving in a remote part of the world, striving to defend local people and your country’s interests from a hostile, well equipped, and superior force of advancing enemies. Your country provides the most rudimentary supplies and armaments, as its focus is in another part of the world. Your fate is in the hands of a famous general who departs for his own safety.

How would you react? Would you lose faith in your country, your comrades, or yourself? Would you shrivel up and let death take over?

Assume that you and tens of thousands of your comrades are then marched through jungles for miles with constant abuse and no edible food. You watch thousands die. A prison camp continues the abuse and death.

How would you be feeling about your country and yourself now?

Let’s say that you never lost faith, escaped through swamps and jungles to get to safety, were transported home, and forbidden to discuss the plight of those left behind because “no one would believe you.” Your own government still had other priorities.

How would you feel if this was your son or daughter and you knew that they were forbidden to talk?

This is was the experience of tens of thousands of U.S. military men and women early in World War II in the Philippines, and their families back home. Escape from Davao is the story of the heroism of ten men who experienced all of these emotions and events. John Lukacs weaves the stories of these men, and the brave Filipinos who helped them along the way, into a riveting story that I read straight through.

Whether you enjoy stories of war and heroism, testaments to the strength of faith and fortitude, or fine writing, you will breeze through this easy and riveting read. Luckas writes with confidence and aplomb, shedding light on a story that has been lost over time.

Escape from Davao is a great story. Perhaps more importantly for a general audience of readers is that it has meaning for you and me today. We encounter hellacious circumstances in our lives. They may not be as outwardly intense as incarceration during war. Nonetheless, the trauma that we feel, the stress on our bodies and mind, and desire to escape are every bit as real. The question for each of us in such circumstances, is the same as faced my the men in Bataan – do we give in or do we overcome?

Put this winner on your reading list.

Warms, Cym

Resources:
YouTube
John D. Lukacs
Facebook

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Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to Allison's Attic!



Be sure to check out Allison's Attic and leave a comment!


Email me so I can have the Amazon eGC delivered to your inbox.

Warms-
CYM

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The Art of Book Folding

Book of Art on Flickr

Book of Art on Etsy

See you next week!

Beachbrights

(guest blogger)

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Book Review Party Wednesday (& giveaway) - Starts NOW!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list (& now check out book covers).

-CYM

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Blood of Victory by Alan Furst

Blood of Victory
by Alan Furst
Random House 2002

One of my favorite genres is international thrillers. I have spent much of my life in international travel and business. In addition, this is the genre in which I enjoy writing.

Alan Furst has a wonderful talent for blending the sights and sounds of war, international intrigue, ambiguities of the Balkans, and the history of World War II. In Blood of Victory, we follow a Russian living in Paris during the Vichy regime. We come to know his friends in Paris, the expatriate Russian community, and Serebin’s participation in an effort to interdict the flow of Bulgarian oil to the Nazi war machine. We are also treated to a tour of Istanbul, the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and France.

Serebin has accumulated loves along the way of his circuitous life, each of which requires a certain periodic touch. Amidst the horror of the war, including disruption of the lives of all of Europe, we see the evolution of one love as another comes to an end, with a few episodic encounters along the way.

We are also treated to an understanding of the Russian’s friendships amongst a range of people with as eclectic a background as Serebin himself.

It is always interesting to pick up a back list book when in the mood to move away from our normal reading habits, say for international travel and intrigue.

Whatever your choice of genre, put this fine book on your list, then relax and enjoy a different world in which you feel immersed.

Warms, Cym

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Beachy

It's 29 degrees in Rosemary Beach, FL this morning but we're headed out for a beach walk anyway. Later today, it's suppose to be sunny and near 60 degrees. Lots of people from Atlanta are here this week and weekend--think they got tired of the icy conditions there and migrated south.

I hope everyone is having a blessed Sunday - where ever you are!

-CYM

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Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

And the winner of the Starbucks Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to A Few More Pages!



Be sure to check out Katy@afewmorepages and leave a comment!


Email me your shipping address so I can have the Starbucks GC mailed to you!

Warms-
CYM

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Back It Up, Baby! How to Backup Your Blogger/Blogspot Blog

Yes it happens.  True Story. A girl owned a blog. She poured her heart and soul into her blog. Then one day her email account (gmail) that was associated with her blog (blogspot) got hacked by some nasty hacker type.  This girl was unable to login into her email and was not able to access her blog.  So this girl called Google, talked with all sort of smart people and was not able to get her blog back. Google said the only way she could get her blog back was if she had backed it up. Really? Backed it up? Duh.

Back up your blog RIGHT NOW.

1. Go to your blog's DASHBOARD or CONTROL PANEL.
2.  Click on the SETTINGS tab.



3. At the top you will see the options: IMPORT   EXPORT   DELETE.
4. Click EXPORT to save your blog on your hard drive.



5. Click DOWNLOAD BLOG.

5. Breathe a *sigh* of relief.

XOXO-
Beachbrights
(guest blogger)

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Book Review Party Wednesday (& Starbucks Giveaway)

$15 GC

<a href="http://www.cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller or you can just name your web site.

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviews using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list (& now check out book covers). If you have trouble with Linky, leave your review link in the comments. I will add it to the list for you.

-CYM

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Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Book Review Wednesday STARTS this week!

Quo Vadis
by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Xander Cricket Library 2009;
original in 1896 contributing to a Nobel Peace Prize

What is your relationship to God? What are your religious beliefs? If you believed in one way and met the love of your life who believed another way, would your faith evolve into the other person’s? What if such a change would cause you to lose all social privilege and financial power? Would you still evolve?

These are fundamental questions.

Quo Vadis is a book originally written in Polish in 1896, and contributed to the author’s Nobel Prize. I had never read it before.

Not surprisingly, there are as many reviews and analyses of this phenomenal story as anyone could ever one to peruse. I ignore reviews and commentary before reading any book, so that I can form my own impressions.

I have strong religious feelings. This story is set in A.D. 64 when Nero was Caeser, which is the same time that the Romans undertook to drive the last Jews from Palestine (with the standoff at Masada being, the Romans hoped, one of the last battles. Rome had degenerated.

Marcus Vinicius is a military tribune, a patrician, a potential Caeser. In his own right. He meets Lygia. She is a Christian. Nero burns Rome, blames the Christians, then rounds them up to be fed to lions among the many means of group murder.

Saints Peter and Paul are in Rome. Lygia is imprisoned to be the supreme spectacle of punishment. Will the faith of these people be rewarded with anything other than martyrdom?

I found it difficult to get into the story, largely because of the idioms of the 1890s writing, and a style that is, to me, a lot like a drawn out Biblical story, which it could be. Once into it, I found myself thinking through my own religious and emotional feelings. How would I react under these circumstances?

When I closed the book, I felt confirmed.

If you feel like a serious story that will cause you to evaluate your own feelings, then put Quo Vadis on your list. It will also make for an excellent basis for book club discussion, as our Philosophers’ Club will do next week.

Warms, Cym

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* * * * * * Snow * * * * * *

Lake House OUTSIDE

Lake House INSIDE




Stay Warm & Safe-
CYM

*Lake house located at Cedar Creek Lake, TX

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Here and There...

1.  Book Review Wednesdays starts back next week.  Linky will be open Tuesday (1-10-11) night to allow all time zones to link up.  Remember, any genre review (old or new).  Lot's of good prizes this year :)

2.  The World's Most beautiful Libraries from The Great Geek Manual.  Have you visited any of these?

3.  "How-To" build a kid's library cart from Anna White.

4.  Have you registered for BEA or Book Blogger's Convention (or both!)? Drop me a line if you are going!

Additional Stuff:

• I registered for NetGalley this week: NetGalley is an inexpensive and green way for publishers to share their digital galleys securely. Professional readers—reviewers, media, bloggers, journalists, librarians, booksellers and educators—can all use NetGalley for FREE to read and request galleys they want to review.

• Mindful Musing's Bookblog has a great "Reader's Choice Awards" for 2010.

• The New Dork Review of Books reviews Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart.

• Bookalicio.us is giving away a Nook. Happy Anniversary!!

Have a safe weekend and see you at the link up next week~

CYM

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Blue Collar Crime ~The Band~

Click Here to Listen: House of the Rising Sun, Instrumental

Click Here to Listen: One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer

My friend, Marty Lowey, is a member of the band Blue Collar Crime, a phenomenal blues group. Marty married my Sweetheart and me over a year ago. He also has a new album on the street "To a Life of Crime." You'll love it as I do.

(picture taken w/ my iPhone)

{From Blue Collar Crime}

In the summer of 2001, River Guy decided Dallas guitar legend Mark Pollock needed to be playing in public again. No one disagreed and Blue Collar Crime, a Texas Blues Brotherhood, was born kicking and screaming and wailing the blues. The band plays the blues Texas style and draws from classic Freddie King, Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed as well as more modern influences such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tracy Chapman, George Thorogood and The Fabulous Thunderbirds.

50% of Blue Collar Crime's profits go to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Warms-CYM

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A New Year

(credit)

These are my thoughts for the New Year, not necessarily resolutions, but some working thoughts to help guide me in 2011.

1. E-Publishing. Amazon Create Space is the way forward for Dust Scenario. Maybe also to put Riddle of Berlin there (in addition to iUniverse, which is a dead end I have decided vs. Amazon which has the market clout).

Just watching Miss Dale download books is convincing about the potential of offering $ 2.99 or free downloads.

2. E-Marketing.  In addition to Amazon Create Space for Dust Scenario,  I need to devise a marketing plan, including how to get cover art done. I paid the designer about $ 5,000 for the covers done to date. I think the covers are too complex. We should explore the Create Space approach or the designer that Joe Konrath suggests, Carl Graves.

It will take time for me to devise a marketing promotional campaign on the internet, as well as beginning to attend meetings where on-line marketers gather.

3. Agent and Standard Publishing. I still think we should pursue AgentFest and contact other agents that come across our sights using the manuscript 30,000 Camels. I have re-written much of Harvest of Gold, but it needs serious attention to make it far more riveting. I need to cut about 60,000 words to get to 100,000.


Happy New Years-
Cym

Dust Scenario
Riddle of Berlin
30,000 Camels
Harvest of Gold

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