vote for bookbabie!

Posted on January 16, 2008 by Lilli Day aka bookbabie

I have some super exciting news today. A while back I had the local noon news on and the talking head briefly mentioned that Amazon.com was having a contest for new writers. The thought crossed my mind that it was an unusual thing for the news to be reporting on, and my first inclination was to go about my day and not look into it. But if you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know that I often write about the importance of paying attention to those little “taps” on the shoulder from the universe, so I figured I’d follow my own advice and go ahead and upload one of my novels just in case that was one of those moments. My book was accepted into the contest (which was pretty exciting in itself) and last night I learned that my novel, The Wonder of Ordinary Magic, was chosen from 5000 entrants to be a semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest! And here’s where you, my wonderful, smart, lovely, loyal readers come in (yes, that was a kiss up…too much?). I need you to go to Amazon.com, read the excerpt of my book, and like it enough to review it and rate it. Click on the contest badge (or any link in this post) and it will take you to my page in the contest. When you get there click on the “Download for Free” button. It takes you to a window that lets you read an excerpt on-line, download it, or e-mail it to yourself. If you like what you read please go back to my page and leave a good rating and a review, that’s your vote.

***I just found out that if you’ve never shopped at Amazon you have to create an account before you can review, and you can’t review unless you’ve bought something. I’m not happy about this turn of events and I certainly don’t expect anyone to buy something in order to rate my book. Apparently this has always been their policy for reviewing products on their web site, it’s their way of keeping the riff-raff out. Oh well, if you’d like to learn more about the novel click here and go to my website where I tell “the story behind the book”. Feel free to tell all your friends and family that bookbabie needs their vote!

the greatest lie

Posted on January 6, 2008 by Lilli Day aka bookbabie

“What is the world’s greatest lie?” the boy asked completely surprised.

“It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.”

When I read that part in The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, I stopped and reread it several times because it seemed to hold such an important truth for me. When we are children, the future is a never ending smörgåsbord of possibilities. What we will do for a living, where we might travel and live, the people we’ll meet and the adventures we’ll have are laid out before us and all we have to do is choose: this amazing future or that one, which will it be? But when many of us grow up we lose the part of ourselves that believes in those possibilities. We feel consumed by the basic needs of life. We have bills to pay, illnesses to beat, children to raise, husbands or wives or aging parents to care for, and before we know it we’re buying into the idea that we have lost control of our own fate. That life is something that is happening to us, the buffet is closed.

I remember getting an e-mail once from a family friend. She caught me up on what was happening in her life and then suddenly at the end of the note she wrote, “My life hasn’t turned out like I thought it would.” That ten word sentence stayed with me for days. I understood what she was saying, after years of poor health I sometimes felt that way myself. Yet her statement sounded so final and sad and she was younger than me, her life was far from over, our lives are far from over! In The Alchemist, Coelho writes that every living thing has a Personal Legend, or life’s purpose. The author Caroline Myss calls it your Sacred Contract. I believe that’s true. I think that the fearless child we once were is still inside us, still dreaming the dreams that hold the answer to the question, “Why am I here?” We simply need to be still and start paying attention to it again. I enjoyed reading The Alchemist. Written in the form of a fable, it’s a wonderful little gem of a book that really gets you thinking. Thanks for the recommendation Ann!

100 books

Posted on December 21, 2007 by Lilli Day aka bookbabie

I came across another list today while bumming around the internet. The website BookMovement.com keeps a club bestseller list of the top 100 book club books. The site was founded in 2001 as a kind of hook-up on a national level for book clubs. I think I’ll recommend the site to my book club members. We usually stumble along for twenty minutes or so at the end of meetings trying to agree on our next book. Often our favorite reads in the past were recommended by other book clubs and now we can tap into a whole new source for ideas. All the books listed have reading group guides too which will save us (me!) from hunting them down on the web. Excellent!

2007 book lists

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Lilli Day aka bookbabie

Young Girl Reading by Mary Cassatt

Once the hustle and bustle of the holiday’s die down, you may want to put your feet up and curl up on the couch with a good book. In case you need some inspiration and direction, I’ve gathered a few of the best book lists of 2007 below for your perusal…

Publisher’s Weekly

The New York Times

ALSC Notable Children’s Books

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Economist

Guardian Unlimited (writers and cultural figures pick their favorites)

bake a book

Posted on December 15, 2007 by Lilli Day aka bookbabie

When I’m not working on my iStock portfolio, I’ve been tinkering with book number three. It’s good to set a novel aside during the writing process, let it set up a bit, and then read through it with fresh eyes. Writing is sort of like baking bread, you work hard at it in the beginning and about the time you ask yourself why am I doing this when I could just run up to Kroger and buy a loaf of freakin’ Wonder Bread? you get to set it aside and let it rise on it’s own. I still have a ways to go with new chapters needed to bring it to a proper conclusion, but right now I’m enjoying punching down those chapters I already have and kneading them into shape.

Maxine stared a weathered redwood trellis on the other side of the terrace. It was draped in twining morning glory vines. When she first sat down the green vines were covered with open bell shaped flowers, hundreds of starry blue faces turned toward the cool morning sun: but now the flowers had begun to curl, to fold in on themselves so quickly that she could almost watch it happening.

best books?

Posted on December 7, 2007 by Lilli Day aka bookbabie

Girl Reading, Charles Edward Perugini

The New York Times has put out their 10 Best Books of 2007 list. Click here to check it out and see if you have read any of them and agree!

read it

Posted on November 27, 2007 by Lilli Day aka bookbabie

I finished Manhunt, by James Swanson the other night and I really liked it a lot. Whenever we choose a historical novel for book club I’m always afraid it will be dry and a chore to read. But the good ones pull you in and take you back in time and this is a really good one, right up there with one of my other favorite historical novels, Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen. Heavily researched narratives like this really do make history come alive. I felt like I was there in the audience at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. in 1865 watching the dramatic assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth, at Lincoln’s bedside as he lay dying, and I rode along on the engrossing twelve day manhunt for Booth that followed. A vivid can’t put it down good read!

shhhhh!

Posted on November 8, 2007 by Lilli Day aka bookbabie

I gave a dear friend of mine my audio copy of The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle this morning (and I promptly ordered myself another one!). What if someone told you that you are not the voice inside your head? You know, that incessant voice that says you’re not good enough, thin enough, smart enough, rich enough, healthy enough, pretty enough, the voice that tells you that you need to go there, do that, be this….well, you get the picture. What if you could step outside your mind and watch that voice, that manic (exhausting) egoic part of yourself? Observe it as it bounces from one anxiety and fear and problem to another, what would happen? I’ll tell you what will happen, you will take away it’s power and you will come to understand that you don’t need to deal with that lousy past that you are dragging around behind you and you don’t have to anticipate every possible future conversation and scenario that may, or may not occur. Look around you. Can you deal with right now? As you sit there reading this blog, can you handle this moment?

The Power of Now will help you shed that annoying little voice and be fully present in your life. I listen to the book often, it’s a meditation for me, a gift I give myself when that voice takes over and I begin to lose myself in all the noise. I hope my friend finds some peace (and quiet) in Eckhart Tolle‘s wise words.