And Thus Begins Free Book Friday

This week wasn't such a great week for writing. Between sickness, ticking, and ferrying kids about I never seemed to have any brain juice left when I sat down in front of my computer. The ship had sailed; the mind was gone. What little I did have seemed to be occupied reading news and researching antique pencil sharpeners.

What? I didn't tell you about that? I bought an old issue of American Artist from 1952 because it had an article about Alex Raymond in it. Fabulous illustrator. His work on Flash Gordon is probably what you most likely have seen. As I was thumbing through the magazine, I was delighted by two things. One was an original ad for Dom Casual. This ubiquitous font looks fairly humdrum on screen and had been dismissed by me way back in Windows 3.1 days. As far as I was concerned it could win a font deathmatch versus MS Comic Sans, but that wasn't saying much. Even
Papyrus could take MS Comic Sans. Then I saw the ad. To think Dom Casual once needed to be marketed. And it was so beautiful as a display type. I had profound new respect for it.

The other thing that caught my eye was the Dux Variable Precision Sharpener. Yes, I don't draw much anymore, but I'm still an art geek at heart. I actually spent many ADHD fueled moments hunting around the internet for this antique only to discover to my nerdy delight it is still being made. I immediately ordered one from the nice folks over at Pencil Things. I might use it to sharpen a pencil or two. Even draw. The sky's the limit.

All was not lost this week, however. I did attend James Dashner's book launch for The Maze Runner. No one invited me to dinner or lent me their secrets filled laptop, but I did pick up a copy of his book and had it signed. He's a nice guy, and had a good sense of humor about me being so temporally challenged. I haven't started reading it yet. I have a long list of books awaiting that pleasure.

And that brings me to the point of today's blog, and only five paragraphs in. I had a wonderful email conversation with my friend, Brodi Ashton, about the amount of comments she gets on her blog. She admitted she hires her commenters off of Craigslist. I was shocked. No, really. The other things she does are to post on a regular schedule (Remember back in 2005 when I used to do that?), and give away books on Friday. What great ideas.

In order to get a drop on the "unoriginal hack" label that I will one day earn in book reviews across the world, I will shamelessly copy Brodi. I am announcing (again probably) that I will post on Tuesday and Friday weekly from this point going forward, and Fridays will offer free books. Because frankly, I have too many of them. You can see the stack I'm setting aside for you now. The pants are not included.

To make things even more thrilling, here is the stack of books in 3D. Just gaze beyond your computer screen in that Magic Eye way and the books will not only leap off the page at you, but demand ownership. It's that exciting.




Today I'm offering Wendy Aron's Hide & Seek, which I reviewed last February. It's a good book, especially for those of you who struggle with approaching 40, depression, low self-esteem, and finding purpose in life. All you have to do is answer the following questions and post them in a comment. I'll pick a winner at random on Monday and announce it here.

1. If you could be a character in a book, who would you be?
   
2. How many times did I type "book" in this entry?
   
3. Where are you from?
   

I'll start:

1. Gollum. He travelled the world, ate a lot of fish, and acquired fascinating jewelry.
   
2. You might need to remove your shoes to count this high.
   
3. Massachusetts, most notably Cape Cod.
   

Maybe there's somebody you know who could use this book. Spread the word & send them along Have a great weekend.