A Tale of Two Empires

Hello, Dear Readers. You all remember my blog about Chuck Tingle, John Scalzi, and the infamous attention whore, Vox Day (Theodore Beale)? Well, rabid little Voxxie is back doing what he does best- being the biggest puddle of pond scum he can make himself.

John Scalzi has released a new novel, The Collapsing Empire, and Voxxie, who just can’t seem to accept Scalzi is a much better author and person, has also released a new book, The Corroding Empire, with an almost identical cover, title, and author name. (I’m sure it’s just an unfortunate coincidence. Yeah, right.)

Beth Elderkin has more of the story here.

 

World Book Day

Ballade of True Wisdom

While others are asking for beauty or fame,
Or praying to know that for which they should pray,
Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame,
Or chasing the Muses the weary and grey,
The sage has found out a more excellent way –
To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers,
And his humble petition puts up day by day,
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

Inventors may bow to the God that is lame,
And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray;
Philosophers kneel to the God without name,
Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they;
The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay,
The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours;
But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay,
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

Oh! grant me a life without pleasure or blame
(As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day
With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame)!
O grant me a house by the beach of a bay,
Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play
With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!
And I’d leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray,
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

ENVOY.

Gods, grant or withhold it; your “yea” and your “nay”
Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours:
But life IS worth living, and here we would stay
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

Andrew Lang

100 Must-Read YA Books for Feminists and Feminists-in-Training

Reblogging this from Book Riot because you can never have to many books in the TBR pile.  I’ve already ordered one book from this list and  I think I’ll try to limit myself to buying 1 or 2 a week because buying all 100, even used, would be more than the budget could support.

 

This post is sponsored by Girl in Disguise by Greer Macallister.

The streets of 1856 Chicago offer a desperate widow mostly trouble and ruin—unless that widow has a knack for manipulation and an unusually quick mind. In a bold move that no other woman has tried, Kate Warne convinces the legendary Allan Pinkerton to hire her as a detective.

Battling criminals and coworkers alike, Kate immerses herself in the dangerous life of an operative, winning the right to tackle some of the agency’s toughest investigations. But is the woman she’s becoming—capable of any and all lies, swapping identities

like dresses—the true Kate? Or has the real disguise been the good girl she always thought she was?

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There are a number of solid, worthwhile lists around the internet for readers seeking feminist books. We’ve done some here, and there are entire projects, like the annual Amelia Bloomer List, that round up the best of the best — a list that, if you don’t keep tabs on or build your TBR from, you absolutely should.

This list, like those, seeks to highlight some of the best feminist books in YA. But this one goes a little broader: this round-up of 100 must-read books is a round-up of books for YA readers who are seeking to broaden their understanding of what feminism is. This won’t be entirely about “strong female characters.” This won’t be about those books that everyone puts on a list because the female-lead character does things that aren’t “traditionally feminine” — a trend that, for this feminist, is belittling to the wide range of human experiences that fall all along the gender spectrum, “traditional” or not. Sure, some of these books feature those kinds of characters, but this list isn’t about showing off the strongest, the boldest, or the most unfeminine.

Rather, this list is about the broader issues feminists care about. It includes stories of class, of race, of sexuality, of gender, of belief, of mind and body wellness, and more. Many of these books might not be what you immediately think of when asked to come up with a feminist book; that’s a good thing. These are books that build upon the base knowledge of what feminism is: equality for all.

Continue reading here.

Beware of Sharks in Publisher’s Clothing

DO you read The Book Designer? If not, then you should and here is one excellent post why.

 

by Judith Briles on March 1, 2017

Tate Publishing bit the dust and formally closed its doors on January 24, 2017. There are millions of dollars in lawsuits including one from Lightning Source (that’s Ingram) for over $1.8 million. In February, a default judgment was entered against Tate when its owners did a no-show in court. I can’t even imagine the number of authors and books who have been damaged.

Why another column on what I call the Publishing Predators?

1. The self-publishing / indie publishing avenues now publish far more books than the traditional publishing stream from New York.
2. Whenever there is growth, it identifies opportunity.
3. Opportunity encourages darker forces to surface. The floodgates opened for self-publishing went into high drive when Amazon introduced BookSurge, the predecessor of CreateSpace in 2007. Scammers paid attention.
4. In other words, scammers, publishing cons and publishing predators are breeding.

 

Continue reading here.