International Women’s Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, IWD is a national holiday. The first IWD was run in 1911. Next year is IWD Global Centenary 1911-2011.
Check this site for more on the history of International Women’s Day and on the current plight of women around the world.
For ‘Shutter Island,’ the wait may be worthwhile – latimes.com:
Just six weeks before director Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel about the criminally insane was scheduled to hit theaters last October, Paramount Pictures pulled the Leonardo DiCaprio-starring movie from its year-end lineup.
I had started seeing trailers for this movie last fall and wondered why its release had been postponed. Dennis Lehane is one of my favorite authors, and this book is particularly–well, it’s hard to say more without spoiling both the book and the movie. But the postponement gave me time to reread the book before the movie release, for which I’m grateful. I’m eager to see how this film adaptation works.
Not another top 10 list – latimes.com:
Now, personally, I enjoy making up my best books reading list at the end of each year. I also enjoying seeing other peoples’ book lists and comparing them to mine. But columnist Meghan Daum is ambivalent about all these “listicles,” as you’ll see here.
‘Conversations With God’ Author Accused of Plagiarism – ArtsBeat Blog – NYTimes.com:
Neale Donald Walsch, author of the best-selling series ‘Conversations with God,’ recently posted a personal Christmas essay on the spiritual Web site Beliefnet.com that was nearly identical to a 10-year-old article originally published by a little-known writer in a spiritual magazine. He now says he made a mistake in believing the story was something that had actually happened to him.
Oh dear. People who do this are always sorry–when they get caught. I stand firmly with Candy Chand, the woman whose work was lifted:
“I have strong issue with anyone who would appear to plagiarize my work and pretend it is his own,” said Ms. Chand. “That takes away from the truth of the material, it takes away from the miracle that occurred, because people begin to question what they can believe anymore. As a professional writer, when someone appears to plagiarize, they damage the industry, they damage other writer’s credibility and they hurt the reader because they never know what to believe anymore.”
And the fact that the man who got caught doing this is supposedly a man of God–well, I stand with Candy Chand on that point, too:
She added that it was ironic that Mr. Walsch in particular had been the one to appropriate her writing. “Has the man who writes best selling books about his ‘Conversations with God’ also heard God’s commandments?” she asked. “’Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie, and thou shalt not covet another author’s property?’”
Most of the year’s best books listed compiled by book reviewers cover only books published during the current year. My list, however, includes books that I read during this past year, regardless of when they were published.
Being a full-time student has cut way, way down on my pleasure reading. This past year I only got through 38 books (exclusive of textbooks, of course!). Here’s my list of best reads for 2008, arranged alphabetically by author’s last name:
The Top 10
Honorable Mention
Happy New Year to all!
Floral Department Santa
Happy Holidays to all,
And to all a good night.
Let it Snow
With best wishes to all our friends in New England, the Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest. Stay safe, happy, and warm.
Here’s a list of some of the things I’m thankful for as this Thanksgiving weekend winds down:
Comments are not automatically posted; I have to manually approve each one. Any comment that is not substantively related to the topic of the original post will not be approved, so it will do you no good to submit a list of bogus links here.
While it is certainly a tedious task for me to go through a long list of spam comments and delete each one, I assure you that is what I will continue to do.
Did you hear John McCain call Barack Obama “that one” last night?
It’s not quite as bad as “you people,” but it’s close.
