Perfect Happiness is….

…reading a book you love, glancing at the time and realizing that you still have lots of reading time left.

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A Few Little Free Libraries

littlefreelibrary.org

U.S. Trend of “Little Libraries” Comes North

Picture source: Google images

Kevin O’Leary at Chapters

This one’s for fans of Dragons’ Den, Shark Tank and money management…Kevin O’Leary will be signing copies of his latest book, “Cold Hard Truth on Men, Women and Money”, at Chapters (Rideau Centre, Ottawa) on January 31 at 7:00 p.m..

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‘Tis the Season…

 

Source: Facebook

Why Does Santa Wear Red by Meera Lester

This is such a fun book for anyone who loves Christmas, fun facts, yummy recipes, crafts, pop culture, home decorating, traditions from around the world,  history….I love it! I haven’t even finished reading it from end to end (so far, I’ve zeroed in on information about Santa and Christmas traditions (in North America)). But, I would like to share a few interesting tidbits with you:

• Christmas was illegal in New England until 1681 and “it was only in the years after the [civil] war that Christmas began to win slow acceptance as a cause for revelry in various regions of the United States, and only at the dawn of the nineteenth century did any meaningful references to the man we would call Santa Claus begin to appear.” (Christmas was illegal????)
• “Why Does Santa Ride a Reindeer-Driven Sleigh? Santa flying around in a sleigh pulled by one reindeer…had long been popular in Russia where Father Frost arrived in villages in a reindeer-drawn sleigh. The Norse god Wodin was said to ride his horse Sleipner through the air to make sure people were behaving; in Holland, Santa rides Sleipner to this day.”
• “Why a Red Suit? Think bishop’s cape and you have the answer. Nicholas…..was the bishop of the church at Smyrna (Izmir in modern Turkey). He lived during the fourth century and was known to be kind and generous to children, especially to the very poor, giving away his wealth to them. Tradition states that he tossed special little gifts or bags of gold to them through open windows or down chimneys.”
• “The earliest Christmas ornaments consisted of edible goodies, typically fruits and nuts. Eventually, these made way for cookies, candy and cakes….the first commercial ornaments for Christmas trees were actually hollow, brightly colored containers that held good things to eat….originally, trees were the means by which presents were displayed  on Christmas morning before their owners claimed them.”
• “Why are red and green the colors of Christmas? No one really knows for sure, but there have been plenty of educated guesses. Green….is the color of the evergreens that symbolize so much that is important to the meaning of the holiday….the holly berry seems to be responsible for the red. This red berry lives through winter, thus symbolizing life in the face of death, a representation of Christ.”

Finally, (and this is not in the book, but it is for real) if you are planning to write to Santa Claus, you have until December 17. Yup, you can write to Santa and he will write back. You can write by regular mail to this address:

Santa Claus

North Pole HOH OHO

Canada

(No need to attach a stamp, if you’re mailing your letter from Canada.)

Or, click here to send an email.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

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Books from the Colosseum

A few pics of the bookstore in the Colosseum (so nicknamed since it stood by the colossal statue of Nero).

Chat with Justin Bieber’s Mom – Live

Well, I just found out about this, so I’m letting you know as fast as I can….today, you can chat with Pattie Mallette (Justin Bieber’s Mom) about her popular book: “Nowhere but Up”.

http://www.canada.com/entertainment/celebrity/Live+Chat+Nowhere/7365745/story.html

How I Bought My Very First Book with My Very Own Money

I was reminded of this story when replying to a comment from ligh4043…it’s about: how I bought my very first book with my very own money. Yup, I’m doing it to you; taking a stroll down memory lane.

Well, it was like this….I was eight-years-old and I wanted to take a course in German after school. (I’m not sure why; I hated school. It must have been that I’ve always loved language and culture and, at eight years old, I was much smarter than I was after and knew enough to follow something I really liked.)

Mom said it was O.K., BUT I had to come up with money to pay for the text book. How does a child come up with their own money? That was the first question that popped into my mind (perhaps, it has popped into yours as well). The question was followed by an answer: take recyclables to the recycling station. There wasn’t, by far, enough recyclables in the home, so I knew I’d have to go around to the neighbours and ask if they have any old paper laying around their homes. (I’ve always hated asking for stuff, so this was the worst part of the entire endeavour.)

Plus, I didn’t have a wagon to take the piles of paper down to the station. Luckily, my Mom took that responsibility off my hands and asked a neighbour who, she knew, had a lovely red wagon.

I don’t know how many wagon loads I took down over the next few days. The recycling station was by the school and the school was a few kilometres away (and, by the way….yes, I did walk it, back and forth, every school day; during all of the seasons and during all weather conditions…just like your grandpa always complains about having done when he was young…and, he’s right, it does build character).

The first few coins that the person working at the recycling station gave me were disappointing, because I still had a ways to go. The next few coins were better, because I was getting closer. Once I had the full amount (plus, most of the cash I needed for an ice cream bar! wooohooo), my step became light as I bounced towards the school.

I remember walking up the stairs (not dreading the rest of the day, like I was used to during a school day), but knowing that that beautiful, shining book was going to be mine. Really, truly mine. I walked in to the main office, reached up to the top of the counter, lay all of the change down and stated my business.

And…there is was…glossy, hard cover, in black and white with yellow and blue highlights…I didn’t dare open it until I was outside.

The sun was just about to set when I turned the corner from the school and opened the book and released it’s new book aroma and touched the rough, recycled paper pages and thought: “This is really, honestly mine. All mine.”

This isn’t me, but it is how I felt.

…and, also, like this.

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Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff

I had been looking forward to reading this book for a long time. Many years ago I had a passionate love affair with ancient history and, every so often, I still feel it’s reverberations.

The book is beautiful, rich and engaging. Anyone interested in Cleopatra or her times needs to read it.

It’s that much more remarkable for it’s completeness given that we know very little about Cleopatra. What we do know, it seems, is based on educated guesses and the author seems to be Very educated on the topic (one would need to be to win a Pulitzer Prize).

As usual, I will not be doing any profound analysis (which, I often feel, doesn’t do any kind of justice to a book such as this); particularly given the book’s scope. But, I will say a few words about one of its many aspects that I found interesting.

For example, while reading Cleopatra, you will learn much about the ancient world and how it worked. Did you know that they had coin-operated machines? Again, not a profound observation, but I had no idea. And, does it not make you think twice about just how advanced our own society is? Perhaps, not very. And to what degree history repeats itself? It turns out that “Cleopatra’s subjects viewed time as a coil of endless repetitions”, which I would tend to agree with.

Even in Cleopatra’s time the Egyptian pyramids were already ancient and scrawled with graffiti, the most common one being: “I saw, and I was amazed”. Aren’t we still amazed by the pyramids? Doesn’t that sound quite like something that we might write about them? I just love when I can get into the skin of someone who has been dead for thousands of years and be able to relate. (Makes me think about God and reincarnation and how it’s-a-small-world-after-all.) The book is full of bits such as this, describing what people looked like, how they lived, how they thought.

Rich in history and filled with real-life intrigue, it’s one of those books that you keep forever.

To get a better idea of what the book is about, click here, to see Stacy Schiff speak about “Cleopatra”. If you’d prefer something quicker, here’s the author speaking about the greatest misconception that we have about Cleopatra.

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Wild by Cheryl Strayed – Live Chat with Author

Cheryl Strayed lost her mother, her marriage and almost all hope when she did something that few people would dare: with no experience, she hiked eleven-hundred miles through desert and mountains, staring down snakes, bears and facing extreme weather — and she did it alone. Her memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, has been at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for weeks and was the first selection of Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. Now, you can talk to Cheryl Strayed about her book and what inspired it in a live chat — be a part of the discussion, Thursday at 1 p.m. ET.