You Just Gotta Love Lennon and Maisy - Enjoy

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It's Dog Blog Time!

Boy oh boy.  That Barney Saltzberg.  Finally, a guy who knows that us furry people need and deserve glasses as much as the not so furry types.  But, why he looked past the wonderulness of me for his main dog, I'll never know. 

Arlo is a nice name, though, and the name of my friend Terri's mom.  Arlo is probably an OK dog and this is a very good book.  I first started it on Saturday and am already on page 5. Zippin' right through this one.    Arlo likes to play but he just can't seem to find the ball once it is in play.  I always find it.  When You-Know-Who throws it, I go and stand by it so she knows where it is and will come and pick it up to throw it again.  Then I run and stand by it and she comes and picks it up and throws it again.  Then I go and stand by it and she comes and picks it up and throws it again.  Then I am tired and walk away.  YKW throws it anyway.  I do not budge.

I cheated a little and nosed my way through all the pages.  There are things to pull to make the ball fly.  My dog pals can even take a doggie eye test and try on glasses to find a pair that will make them look almost as cool as I look in mine.  Of course, they will have to make their own eyebrows and mustaches.

If you need glasses, it would be a good idea to take your dog friends  with you for a check up.  If she gets to see better, then she can read books like me.  Since I got my specs, I feel like a super hero movie star.  I also have these books ready to read after I finish the one about Arlo:

Can I Have Another Treat?

Virginia Woof

Dog Tired

How Long do I Have to Sit and Stay?

Dog Gone with the Wind

The Old Dog and the Bone

To Chase a Mockingbird

Fifty Shades of Milkbones

Winnie the Pooh in the Yard

Nice chatting with you.  Gotta go.  Really, I gotta go.

GB (AKA Mrs. George Burns)

The Flanders Panel

Beating up on Dan Brown two weeks in a row seems especially unfair, but I sure didn't plan it that way.  After years of moving The Flanders Panel to the bottom of my read-one-of-these-days pile, it was time.   I read The Club Dumas by the same author years ago, and although it challenged me,  I won the battle. 

This book is shaping up to be a mystery with all the trappings of The DaVinci Code, only better.  Don't get me wrong, I liked The Da Vinci Code, but was mostly facinated by the masonic history, and the explosion of information on Opus Dei and other organizations I never knew existed.  For me, the  mystery at the center of the story was secondary to all that. 

Flanders focuses on the efforts a fine art historian/restorer, to solve a 500 year old murder.  Julia uncovers a cryptic message reading "Who killed the knight?"  buried in a Flemish painting depicting a chess game between the Duke of Ostenburg and his knight.   Her curiosity moves her to do some amature sleuthing, leading to a series of murders committed in quick succession. 

Of course, I'm not done, so I can't tell you if the resolution is satisfying, but so far, so good.  Oh, at times the characters seem flimsy, that coming through mainly in the dialogue, but I credit that to the translation.  If you liked The DaVinci Code, I am quite sure this book will work for you.  The cover tells me it was made into a movie called "Uncovered" starring Kate Beckensale. 

****I have tons of Heart-A-Rama news to share on the HAR blog as soon as I find some time to catch up.  We have a theme, and plans are moving forward for the show we're doing with UW-Manitowoc.

*****Yes, I still have fun store news to share, but am waiting for the go-ahead from someone else.  By the time I write about it, I think many of you might already know...since not everyone is as good at keeping mum when told to do so as I am!

*****My dog GB (Mrs. George Burns) turns 12 this month.  She apparantly partied long into the night last night.  When I got up this morning, she had toys all over the living room and hall.  Generally, she ignores most of her toys, sticking to an overstuffed., pink jalapeno pepper with an obnoxious squeeker.  Last night the yellow sheep, a giraffe, a Lambchop puppet, and a long, hairy green critter joined the festivities.  Over the years, she has managed to comandeer two fleece throws as her own, and they were all cattywompus also.  Glad she had a good time.  Spring rejuevenates us all.

Thanks for stopping by.



Forgive Me for Ranting!

This much anticipated offering - certain to be a blockbuster - turned out to be nearly as exhausting and disappointing as Barbara Walter's Audition.  The success of both of these is clearly built on reputation and not substance.

The premise is worth consideration.  I don't want to give too much away for those of you die-hard Brown fans, but the plot  involves a plan to inusre the longevity of mankind.  The anagonist, who commits suicide on page seven, worked for an organization dedicated to eliminating segments of the population to ensure there would be enough natural resources to sustain coming generations.  That's scary - especially since Brown's disccliamer on the opening page asserts that such an organization exists, but he has changed the name.  Scary also is the truth that we are consuming far too much, far too fast and are not looking at the big picture when it comes to preservation and replenishment.

For me, the book's weaknesses begin with  assumptions  Brown makes about his readers.   He assumes we need to be schooled in the whereabouts of Venice, for example, and the fact that the city is floating amid a series of interconnected canals.  He assumes we need to be remined time and time again who carved The David, that Dante's The Divine Comedy is composed of three parts, along with teaching us the purpose of a baptisimal font.  Thanks Dan. 

Granted, the guy did a tremendous amount of reserach , but he sure doesn't weave it smoothly into his plot.  Instead., the story often comes to a sudden halt while he shifts gears.  At the lowest points, the book reads like the trascript of a Humanities class lecture.  Yet other sections seem  like a guide commissioned by some Italian tourist organization.

Then there is the product placement.  It appears that Dan Brown sold out.  I stopped counting how many times he mentioned Armani suits, along with an exclusive Italain shoe designer, and a fancy French eyewear company.  It has to be product placement because there are far too many instances where he could have, but did not name a specifice brand.  With all the drinking some characters did, he problably could have negotialted a geat deal with some high end liquor companies. 

Should I even mention the blatant plug for Ereaders?  Yes, he did plug them, and for emphasis, he put that sentence in Italics.  Cheesy, transparant and insulting.  Now, I know this is not the way for me to sell  books, right?  But when a writer thinks he can command a whopping $29.95 for a work of fiction, it better be built on something more solid than reputation.  I have ahe same gripe with JK Rawling, whose final Harry Potter boook retailed for $34.99.  In her case, the greed was even more egregious because it invoved kids.  Those books were like crack.  Kids were hooked on the first one in the series, and anguished of cries of children in withdrawal waiting for the next fix  could be heard throughout the land.  Yup, she gave some money to charity, but was it really charity when she went an made a big production out of it?  And in reality, who was actually making those contributions?

Oh, it appears that this has been an installment of  Big Rants Monday.  I will end now but not before telling you I still have some fun news to let you all in on real soon.  Stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by.

One more thing...here's a great quote, and an even greater decision, by the CEO of Barefoot Books

Quotation of the Day

'Life's Too Short'

"At a certain point, you realize life's too short for this. We couldn't even talk to a human being. It's not a very satisfying way of doing business."

--Nancy Traversy, co-founder and CEO of Barefoot Books, speaking with IBTimes about why the publisher decided to stop selling to Amazon, a decision that came after years of "lowball price-fixing, delayed payments and frustrating interactions with Amazon's automated publisher services