Book Review: Do You See What I See? by James Sallie

Any book that starts with a warning about humor, has got to be good.  Do You See What I See is a book of “photo hooliganism” made up of modified images with the goal of making you laugh.  I have to say though, I think I missed out on the bigger picture because the book was only as big as my computer monitor (actually, half of my monitor) instead of in my hands which is probably how the book is intended to be read.  However, even looking at the book in it’s teeny tiny state, there were several of the photographs that did indeed make me laugh out loud.  (And probably a few that I just didn’t “get” because they went over my head)

I think one of my favorite photographs in the book was the one of the used car salesman – he was standing outside of his dealership but his shadow was a SHARK.  How perfect, right? Since it a common perception that used car salesman are sharks.  The image that made me want to read the book was the image on NetGalley for the books cover – a shark with braces!   Although I’m not sure I should really say that I “read” this book because there is more looking at and analyzing photographs than there is reading. (Although each image is captioned)

About the Book

The book is an amalgamation of photography, humor and art. An expression of the creator’s perception. By means of carefully crafted imagery, the book explores precepts and corresponding perceptions; moreover, each image is a projected vision of an alternate reality of what would be normally considered as a natural scene. James refers to his technique of manipulating the original photographs he takes as Morphography, or in his street terms ‘Photo-hooliganism. James is a professional photographer and graphic designer and has blended these skills with a distinctive brand of subtlety, to create a unique twist on everyday situations. The eclectic works combine to provide a new and interesting take on clichés, the puns and sayings of the titles compliment the images and trap the reader into having a longer, closer look of what each photograph provides. ‘The objective of this collection of work is to raise a smile or provoke a deeper thought with the audience, to allow the viewer a moment of escape and to share the vision I had at a particular time.’ ‘To see what I saw’ says James. There are no boundaries for James and this is what makes the book full of creative genius.

About The Author

A professional photographer and graphic designer James is easily distracted by composition of ideas, concepts and images that are not confined to his current profession. Prior to exploiting his creative talent and establishing Morphographics, James’ life has been diverse and intriguing. He has been a labourer, a farm worker, a miner and the General Manager of a large international company. He also spent two years in Bosnia, during the height of the Balkans war. James met his beautiful and very patient wife, Marilyn in Sarajevo. They have two amazing children, Madelaine & Harrison, and live in Perth Western Australia.

 

I received a free e-book from NetGalley in order to write this review.  I was not asked to write a favorable review and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Book Review: Heroes and Villains of the Bible

 

Heroes and Villains of the Bible is a release from Tommy Nelson that contains real stories and actual bible text.  Tommy Nelson is a division of Thomas Nelson, but with stories more geared towards children.  As you can probably tell bu the cover, this book has a bit of a comic book feel and each of the heroes and villains featured has an computer generated photo in the beginning of their section and even the fonts used on the photos are similar to those you’d see in a comic book.  The book is split in to stories from the old testament and new testament and shows heroes with a lion icon above the section of their story and villains with a snake icon above the section.

Using real bible text, it tells the story about why each person is either a hero or a villain and what they did to get such a title. At the end of the story there is a blurb which relates the story to real life and how you can be a hero or NOT be a villain by doing certain actions which will not go against Jesus.  I liked this personal touch because for kids, it will make the stories clearer. (Being a hero means saving the biggest cookie for your brother or sister, not eating it yourself, etc)

Book Features Include:

-Eikon Bible Art – amazing four-color, full-page digital images that bring to life these heroes and villains.

-Actual Bible Text  of 50 action-packed stories from the International Children’s Bible.

-Story introductions that establish important surrounding events and where the story comes in the Bible.

-Thoughts and suggestions at the end of each Bible story to help readers relate the situations to life today.

About the Book

50 true-life adventures of real people from the Bible—stories of good versus evil, right versus wrong, and heroes versus villains—and their life-shaping lessons that point children to God—the greatest hero of all!

The Bible is packed with stories of courageous people who loved and served God, and how He used them to do great things in the world. It is also filled with villainous people who disobeyed God and did horrible things. Heroes and Villains of the Bible encourages its readers to aspire to become great, courageous, and heroic servants of God, and reject all that is evil in the world.

With Heroes and Villains of the Bible, children will realize some of their favorite heroes aren’t from the movies, but are real people from the Bible.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol will be shown in a mind-blowing IMAX Experience in 300 theatres across the country starting December 16. (A full FIVE days before iits North American premiere)

Join Ethan Hunt and his team of rogue IMF agents, in this awesome spy adventure hat will keep you on edge of your seat from start to finish. With 30-minutes of scenes shot with IMAX cameras, fans will be able to enjoy certain sequences of the movie in larger than life proportions. You wil be right in the action as Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise) scales the world’s tallest building, the Burk Khalifa Tower in Dubai, as this and other thrilling moments expand to fit the entire IMAX screen. As an added bonys, IMAX will offer the first previews of the upcoming Batman film, The Dark Knight rises, prior to Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol.

Check out the IMAX Trailer here: http://www.multivu.com/mnr/53535-mission-impossible-ghost-protocol-the-imax-experience

And be sure to IMAX on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/IMAX

 

The information in this post was provided by IMAX through SocialSpark. By posting I am entered for a chance to win one of ten exclusive 4-packs of tickets.

Book Review: Flowers with Wings

I love butterflies, I think they are absolutely beautiful, so it is no surprise that I loved getting to check out the book Flowers with Wings A Collection of Butterfly Photos.  The book contains photographs by Deborah Carney and Vinny O’Hare and they are absolutely breathtaking.

In addition to the photographs, the book is full of quotes, proverbs and poetry about butterflies.  I never realized that they were mentioned by so many authors, but I guess I never stopped to look for it, either.

All of the photographs taken by Deborah and Vinny are taken of butterflies either in the wild or at butterfly conservatories. (And of course now I want to plan a trip to a conservatory to take some photos of my own!)

To find out more about this book, and others, be sure to check out:

http://nightfirepublications.com

 

The book is available for purchase on Amazon.com at the following link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006ANR2JS 

You can follow the following twitters for more information:

@CoolButterflies  @NightFirePubs

And if you’d prefer to find out more via Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/NightFirePublications

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cool-Butterflies-com/196821413684156

 

 

 

 I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Get Glue November Part 2

These stickers are ones I earned probably in October or November of last year.  My original account has thousands of stickers I earned, most of which I’ll probably never end up seeing which is why I now have a couple other accounts through friends to get the ones I *really* want.  Unfortunately this page got folded a bit weird so the last row of stickers are folded through.

Anne Rice
Arianna Huffington
Bridget Jones Diary
Burlesque Coming Soon
Carl Hiaasen
Conan
Critic
Danielle Steel
Dean Koontz
Deepak Chopra
Fall of Giants
Mysteries of the Museum
John Grisham
Jon Krakauer
Lee Child
Glee Quinn
Sara Gruen
Avatar The Journey Continues
Liver Sacks The Minds Eye
Ultimate Avitar Experience

 

Ticketmaster class action suit

Recently I got an email saying that a class action suit had been filed against Ticketmaster and that I was included because I had made purchases from ticketmaster in the time period of October 1999 to October 2011.   I didn’t read all the details of the email, but from what I understand is that anyone who purchased tickets is eligible for a $1.50 refund per ORDER.  This was exciting, since I logged in to my account and saw that in my history I had 48 orders – but that only went up to 2006. That’s $72 – and who knows how many more transactions I had between 1999 and 2006!

Then I saw the “fine print” (actually, I had it explained to me by someone else) – you are eligible for $1.50 for only up to 17 transactions – for a total of $25.50.  The money is not sent to you in check form but in voucher form to use on future transactions using ticketmaster.

Again, this was ok – I’m bound to use ticketmaster again soon because they seem to be in kahoots with about 90% of the venues I go to.  Except that then there was more “fine print”. You can’t use it all in one transaction but you can only use $3 of it at a time to discount future transactions.  So basically, if you want to use it you’d have to purchase at least 9 more tickets from ticketmaster. (9 separate orders)  Not that I’ll have a problem doing this – but I’d have been a lot happier with a $25.50 discount on one transaction – it might make the difference between me deciding to upgrade to VIP or to attend a show I wasn’t considering because of it being too expensive.

Oh well, at least I will hopefully be getting credits sometime in 2012. (I think they are scheduled to go out in April or May of 2012)  I thought that money was gone anyway, so in a way it is “free money”

Book Review: The Wedding Gift

The Wedding Gift is by Kathleen McKenna. The book starts with some newspaper articles about a family being killed brutally in their home and how the story progressed to it being that the wife had killed her husband, 5 children and then herself. Then there were more articles about their abandoned home (mansion) and a child who had died while sneaking around the “haunted” house.

The story is from the point of view of Leann Worthier who is the sister of the boy who died at the haunted house and is about to marry the nephew of the man who was brutally murdered in the home. Leann is just graduating high school and her fiance (and baby daddy) is in his mid 20s. The fiance is one of the Willets, a rich family and he is the heir to their fortune.

When I picked out this book – I saw that it was listed as Horror / Ghost but I figured I could handle it.  (Why I thought that, I don’t know because I am a total scaredy cat!)  When I made it through the whole first part of the book (it is 3 parts) and there was no mention of anything other than the brutal murders, I figured I’d be home free. WRONG!  I have a very over active imagination and it doesn’t take much to freak me out.  When the ghost was first mentioned in the story, it was just about time for me to head to bed to get a good night’s sleep for work the next day.  I opted to stop reading at that point so I wouldn’t end up awake all night freaked out.  The next night was the day before Thanksgiving, so I was able to push through it and not have to worry about getting a decent night’s sleep.

The book is very well written and a great mystery. I love a mystery that I can’t solve before the book is through and this was definitely one of them.  It was definitely interesting the back and forth with whether or not Leann really loved George, if the ghost Robina was bad or good, if the ghost was even real or a figment of Leann’s (and my) imagination.

The book comes in at about 250 pages and took me 2 nights to read. It would have taken 2 nights even if not for me stopping the first night.  I tried not to give too much away in the review because everyone should check it out.  Although, maybe not if you spook yourself out easily! 😉

About the Book

Leann wasn’t good enough for her uppercrust in-laws, so they gave her the mansion none of them wanted. Years ago, something or someone in the house killed Leann’s brother. Will its violent secrets kill her, next?“ . . . a spine-electrifying supernatural tale where a huge Southern States mansion contains one of the most terrifying, violent and indeed psychopathic ghosts to haunt any town. It is also a murder mystery—why did Robina Willets apparently kill all five of her young children, and her husband, before stabbing herself to death? And, if you are in the camp of believing that ‘Justice . . . just is not,’ then this will have you frothing at the mouth with righteous social fury.”—Tim Roux, author of Missio and The Dance of the Pheasodile

I received a free copy of this book to read from the publisher through NetGalley.  I was not asked to write a favorable review.  All opinions are my own.

Book Review: Smitten

I thought Smitten was a pretty neat book – it has 4 authors – Collen Coble, Krisitn Billerbeck, Denise Hunter & Diann Hunt and each of them wrote approximately 10 chapters about their character, so in a way it was a book made up of 4 smaller books.  But the cool part is, each of the stories went together about 4 best friends and each story covered one of the 4 seasons so you got to find out what went on in Smitten, VT year round!

The story revolves around 4 best friends – Natalie, Julia, Shelby and Reese.  All are single and looking for love and all are looking to spruce up Smitten and get more tourists there now that the mill closed to try and generate some revenue for the town.  Natalie has her own coffee shop and for the whole book was trying to perfect gluten free cookies to sell.  Julia was looking to open up a spa after coming back to Smitten after helping run a spa in New York City.  Shelby taught a school to young women on how to be a lady and Reese, the athletic one of a bunch, wanted to start up an outdoors store.

They hope that the return of Sawyer Smitten, now a country music star, to Smitten for his wedding would help bring in media and tourists and they are trying to get everything up and running by the wedding on Valentine’s day.  Meanwhile, they all seem to find love in places they probably wouldn’t have otherwise looked – all because they put their faith in God that they could get the town up and running and making money again.

This was a relatively quick read and I quickly had an attachment to all of the characters and was rooting for them to find a man! (Although it was a bit too convenient that there were 4 single ladies and 4 single men in town that otherwise never seemed to look at each other, but I’ll let that slide lol)  I was kind of bummed when I finished the story because I wanted to read more – but good news! Another story will be coming out in December 2012.  Ok, so that is quite some time to wait… but that’s ok!

Book Description

Four friends devise a plan to turn Smitten, Vermont, into the country’s premier romantic getaway-and each finds her own true love along the way.

With Smitten Lumber closing, residents wonder if their town can stay afloat. Then four friends and local business owners-Natalie, Julia, Shelby, and Reese–decide the town is worth saving. How will they do it? They’ll turn Smitten into a honeymoon destination!

As Natalie, Julia, Shelby, and Reese work to save the town, each discovers romance in her own life. Meanwhile, the faith of a little child reminds the whole town what it means to have real faith in the God who is the always and forever Love.

Discover a novel written by four of Christian fiction’s most popular romance novelists- friends in real life who’ve drawn an amazing story of four friends! Includes a Reading Group Guide as well as “Conversation over Coffee with the Authors”.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Book Review: How To Stop Procrastinating

I will admit, procrastinating is definitely one of my biggest flaws.  I am notorious for putting off things that need to be done NOW to instead work on things that can be done later.  In fact, as I am writing this review I had 3 books that I could have read.  Based on the schedule I had made up for the blog – the other 2 books I want to have reviews posted for earlier than this one.  But which book did I read and am now reviewing? You guessed it… the one that has the date the furthest away!  That book is – how to stop procrastinating.

The second chapter is titled “How do you currently spend your time?” and it is the one that hit home the most for me. Trevor suggests that you create an Excel spreadsheet and in 15 minute intervals record what you are doing for a week to figure out what you spend your time on.  The fact is, I do not even need to do this exercise – I *know* that when I am home most of my time is spend doing “stupid stuff” on the computer rather than working on my websites, classes or blogs. (Not that these are all THAT important, but I often end up getting behind on updates and then flustered and overwhelmed with I realize I have no free time and LOTS of stuff to do).

The book then goes on to teach techniques on how to handle things that need to be done.  One of them being “Do The Big Stuff First” Which I am totally not doing right now – I picked this book to read over the other 2 that I have to read because it is only 20 pages and the other two are 200+.  Even with my weekly “weekend to do list” I am always doing the tiny things so I can feel better about the list by crossing a few things off without doing much work.  I guess I need to work on this!

And I have to say – the “Avoid those bright shiny objects” chapter cracked me up. I am constantly getting distracted by something else when I am working on things.  It doesn’t even have to be something shiny 😉

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Book Review: Cliques, Hicks and Ugly Sticks

Cliques, Hicks and Ugly Sticks is the Confessions of April Grace by KD McCrite.  This is the second book in a series and I had no read the first one.  However, I didn’t have any trouble following the story and the characters that were used in the book.

April Grace has just started junior high and on top of all the drama and changes going on with that – the St. Jameses are staying with her family while Isabel recovers from an accident.  Isabel is a bit of a drama queen and her husband Ian is at her beck and call.  Meanwhile, April thinks that her mother might be sick and tells her father that she is concerned.  Both her mother and father assure her that everything is fine, but April thinks that day by day her mother is getting sicker and sicker.  Plus, April has to deal with one of the cliques at school – The Lotties.  The leader, Lottie, used to be friends with April and her best friend Melissa – but this year she is not allowed to speak to any of the Lotties without her speaking to them first.

The holidays are fast approaching and April is worrying that her mother is really, really ill.  Instead, she finds out that her mother is expecting a baby, but was afraid to tell April and her sister until she was a bit further along in the pregnancy.

The book really pulls at your emotions – there are funny parts (especially when April talks about her older sister Myrna Sue),  stressful parts like all the drama with the St Jameses moving in, Grandma moving in, switching houses and bedrooms around and sadness when April’s mom goes in the hospital a month and a half before the baby is due and ends up giving birth!  Overall, the book kept my attention and was a quick read.  It is definitely recommended for the young adult crowd.

 

About the Book

 

Just when April Grace thought the drama was over . . .

After an automobile accident, Isabel St. James—resident drama coach and drama queen—needs help putting together the church play. Mama insists April Grace and Myra Sue will help. April’s fall is now devoted to spending every afternoon with Isabel and Myra Sue—if anyone is as big of a drama queen as Isabel, it’s Myra Sue. Plus, she’s dumb. (Okay, not dumb, but “older sister dumb.”) If that’s not enough, Isabel is wreaking havoc in the community trying to get Rough Creek Road paved, the new boy at school will not leave her alone, and then Mama drops the biggest bombshell of all . . . April Grace is no longer going to be the baby of the family . . .

Girls will completely relate to April and love her sense of humor as she deals with siblings, boys, and the many changes that come with growing up.

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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