Ganymeder

on the right side of the page directly underneath “Recent Books from my library.”

I finally figured out (or stumbled upon the solution) how to add free charity links to my sidebar instead of just as a blog entry. Please click on these sites daily. They are all worthy causes, and it won’t cost you anything but a moment of your time.

Just a note for anyone who might be unfamiliar with the concept of free charity sites, these sites get money from sponsors based on the amounts of clicks they get daily. Once you click on the donation button, it takes you to a “Thank you” page where you will see advertisements from their sponsors. So the sponsors are in effect paying for selective advertising, you’re donating to a worthy cause for free, and the charity benefits. Please take the time to click daily. Most of the sites only allow one click per person per day, with the exception of Free Rice. If you forget things easily (like me) you can even make one of the sites your startup page. Thank you.

EDIT: Update Feb. 5, 2008.

I have also added some additional links to the left side of the page above the blogroll. These links might be of interest to aspiring writers, since I am preparing for NanoEdmo next month. I have joined the Nanoedmo.net site, but right now I’m having difficulty logging into their system. Hopefully this will be resolved soon so I can post about Nanoedmo (National Novel Editing Month) in preparation for March. In the meantime, I will be content with adding the links for any aspiring writers and/or editors that may be reading this.

Also sometime in the not too distant future, hubby may be adding Forums to this site for me.  I was thinking of starting with the categories I already have and then adding subcategories if the need arises.  I don’t really foresee anyone other than my family wanting to use this feature, but anyone who is interested will be welcome!  It’ll be great to be able to discuss issues, current events, and books.

Free charity sites for those who want to donate to good causes but might lack funds. With just a few clicks you can donate to charity for free. Most of these sites work off the principal of sponsorship. When you click on the charity’s donate button, it takes you to a “thank you” page where you view the sponsor’s advertisement. The sponsor will donate a small amount based on the number of people who see the add – who click on the “donate” link. Most sites only allow 1 click per day, and each click adds up. So do a good deed and click daily! www.care2.com

“Click to donate” button on the top right corner of the Care2 page will bring you to multiple free charity buttons. Just go on and click on the donate button for each charity and then move on to the next charity’s tab. When you reach their page click to donate again. This shouldn’t take more than a minute or so and allows you to donate to multiple charities daily.

http://www.freerice.com

This site donates a small amount of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger. It’s also sort of fun. You are quizzed on your vocabulary, and each correct answer increases the amount of rice donated.

http://solvepoverty.com

The clicks on this site help pay for community development through jobs and education in poor communities.

http://www.ecologyfund.com

This is another multiple click site where you can donate to several green causes for free.

http://www.tree4life.com

Click daily to plant trees in deforested areas of Brazil.

http://www.matercare.org

Click the Lifesaver icon on the top right corner of the page. MaterCare International (MCI) is an association of Catholic Obstetricians and Gynaecologists dedicated to helping mothers, expectant mothers and their children. Each click helps pay for surgery to repair a mother’s obstetric fistula.

www.TheLiteracySite.com The Literacy Site was founded to help promote literacy among children from low-income families nationwide. Partnering with First Book and Room to Read, the site makes books available to children around the world, giving many children their very first book. With the generous support of sponsors, each click provides 1% of a book. This site helps foster a love of reading.

There isn’t much else to say about this since the title says it all. The Amazing Change is an abolitionist website dedicated to eradicating modern human slavery. On their website you can download a petition that you can sign and get others to sign, then mail it to their office (address on the bottom of the petition). They also currently have two books out about modern slavery. One is “Not for sale” by David Batstone, and the other is “Be the Change” by Zach Hunter. I am currently half way through “Not for Sale” which I have partially reviewed in my “All about books” section. “Be the Change” is the next paperback book in my cue.

Please download the petition from their site and get as many signatures as you can. Post it at your library or on your grocery store billboard, link it from your website, blog about it… anything you can. Bring this issue to people’s attention. Slavery is not a thing of the past. It’s happening right now. EVERYWHERE. Possibly even in your community. Read about it. Become informed. Spread the word. And actively get involved in stopping it.

Thank you.

I actually read this book several months ago and couldn’t put it down. It was in ereader format here for free, of course.

This book is a page turner, or in the case of ereader for the Palm a button pusher? Anyway, it’s great. The “Winner” on Anvhar is simply the person who beats every other person on the planet in The Games – not just physical like in the Olympics but mental challenges also such as chess. Brion Brand has just become “Winner” which make him uniquely qualified for a particular covert assignment. He is recruited to save an entire planet from destruction. The inhabitants of the planet Dis are seemingly bent on a suicidal course of action. It’s Brion’s job to stop their self annihilation and save both their planet as well as the civilization of the planet that might be forced to destroy them in self defense. It’s Harrison’s peculiar brand of futuristic pseudo-utopian politics mixed with adventure, intrigue, mystery, and mayhem. You HAVE to read this book. That’s an order!

For anyone who has given this site more than a cursory glance, you probably know what a big fan I am of ereader for the Palm Pilot. I do most of my pleasure reading this way, especially since I can get free ereader books at www.manybooks.net Even if I buy books from the ereader site, they are generally way cheaper than paper books, less wasteful (paper-wise) and easier to carry around. Since I always have my Palm Pilot with me, those books tend to be read faster too. So without further ado, I’ll talk about the last 2 ereader books I’ve enjoyed.

Actually they aren’t really books so much as short stories. I’m sort of a blossoming science-fiction buff, and my husband recommended Harry Harrison to me. I just finished reading “The Repairman” and “The Misplaced Battleship” courtesy of manybooks.net. “The Repairman” is hard to describe. He’s sort of James Bond if James was an indentured servant who repaired interstellar beacons. This guy is under contract to repair interstellar beacons for hyperspace travel. He has an assignment to repair a particularly ancient beacon on a planet where a civilization has grown up and starting waging a religious war around it. He has to venture into the middle of this chaos and repair the beacon without messing up “the locals.” It’s a pretty awesome short story.

“The Misplaced Battleship” is a short Stainless Steel Rat story. James DeGriz, Master thief and Stainless Steel Rat, has been recruited by Special Corp, a covert secret agency that’s responsible for manipulating events to keep a peaceful equilibrium in the galaxy. The rat had been recently recruited (read: threatened to join or else be executed) by the Corp and was put in a room full of paperwork for 6 months to teach him discipline. While perusing the files he uncovers plans to build an outlawed Battleship on a peaceful planet. The plans have been filed to look like an ordinary cargo ship but with a few tweaks (to be filed after the work has been changed) would result in a formidable weapon of destruction. By bringing the plans to the attention of his superiors at the Corp, he gives himself his very first assignment. This story has all the charm of the other Stainless Steel Rat novels without the length. It would be fun to read as an introduction to the Stainless Steel Rat series or just as background if you’ve already read the other stories.

I will be sure to blog about some of the other Harry Harrison novels I’ve read at a later date. If you’d like the briefest post I could give about Harry Harrison, here it is. Read anything by Harry Harrison you come across.

This book is absolutely amazing, so I thought it would be the first I would talk about in the new “All about Books” category. This will only be a short entry though since I’m only on chapter two. I didn’t know about this campaign when I initially bought the book, but apparently its associated with “The Amazing Change” campaign. The introduction outlines some of the broader aspects of Modern slavery, and then delves into some of the personal tragedies of its victims. The book has already given some inspirational stories of ordinary individuals who have inadvertently come across slavery in their own backyard and decided to do something about it. Though the stories themselves are heartbreaking, the message seems hopeful and the author promises to give advice on how to actively fight modern day slavery. I can’t wait to finish it.

EDIT (01/08/08)

I’m a little over halfway through the book now. One of the things I love about this book is that you follow the personal stories of individuals caught up in the slave trade. They focus on a particular victim and parallel their story with the story of the person or organization that eventually helps them out of bondage. So far each story has had an escape at the end with a hopeful future, though truthfully the aggressors never seem to face justice. Still the message is one of hope, and I look forward to finishing this book and then moving on to read “Be the change” (by Zach Hunter). Both books are associated with the Amazing Change campaign. To find out more, please visit theamazingchange.com

At the start of the New Year 2008 I thought it would be a good idea to start an entirely new category geared towards the promotion of literacy. So since I do a fair amount of reading, both for pleasure and information, I thought this blog would be a good place to start. I am devoting this new section “All about books” to reviewing and discussing books that I have read and suggestions for future selections. Every bibliophile out there only has a finite amount of time to devote to reading, so why waste time with terrible books? So I figure we can each benefit from each other’s experience. If I read a great book I’lll suggest it, review it and maybe even give a brief synopsis. If I read a terrible book, I’ll explain why I think its not worth the time spent to read it. We can agree or disagree, but either way we get an idea of what material we’d rather spend our time on. My library consists of fiction and nonfiction, sci fi, fantasy, classics, cookbooks, children’s books, current events, inspirational books, and books about social injustice.   It will obviously take me a little time to type in, but I plan on updating this regularly. Just click on what you’d be interested in and off we go!