Puce Tuesday?

I've always imagined puce was some sort of purplish green color as it sounds absolutely horrid, but as it is the last extant color to have a day/cause of its own, I felt sorry for it and thought I'd have a book sale it it's honor.  Toddle over to smashwords.com and get 'The Last Shadow' for 50% off using the code PK94W at checkout or get the entire 'In Shadow' series 50% off using code CK78Z, hurry, there are only a limited number of coupons!

Breathes a life of gathering doom?

'Life is pain Highness, anyone who says otherwise is selling something...' 

~The Princess Bride~ 

The Dread Pirate Roberts might be onto something there.  I've always wondered why I've loathed the cheesy side of Christmas: all the fake, saccharine coated cheer forcefully manufactured by the retail industry and pop culture that has caused many a soul to wonder guiltily why they aren't as banally cheerful this holiday season as 'everyone else' seems to be, little knowing that we are all haunted by loneliness and fear and grief to some extent which the glaringly garish holiday lights only make all the more blatantly obvious to the eyes of our already disquiet soul.  Our hearts know innately what the over-the-top Christmas bonanza is trying viciously to hide: our Joy is ever tainted with sorrow.  And that's okay, that's how it has always been, even from the beginning, but amid that sorrow, that fear, that loneliness, that shame, there is 'Joy unspeakable and full of glory.'  Yes, glory, not ludicrous banality run rampant, a garish color of paint trying to hide a gaping defect in the very walls of our being, but a the true Something that can fill that defect and vanquish the sorrow.  The gospel accounts of that first Christmas are rife with it, as are the very best of the Christmas songs.  Savor the verses of 'We Three Kings,' for a moment, a song I've long overlooked and dismissed as a little odd and certainly ridiculous, but whose lesser known verses are truly full of the wonder and glory, and certainly the sorrow, that mark this intriguing season, or at least should:

We three kings of Orient are;

Bearing gifts we traverse afar,

Field and fountain, moor and mountain,

Following yonder star

O star of wonder, star of night,

Star with royal beauty bright,

Westward leading, still proceeding,

Guide us to thy perfect light.

Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain

Gold I bring to crown Him again,

King forever, ceasing never,

Over us all to reign.

Frankincense to offer have I;

Incense owns a Deity nigh;

Prayer and praising, voices raising,

Worshiping God on high.

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume

Breathes a life of gathering gloom;

Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,

Sealed in the stone cold tomb.

Glorious now behold Him arise;

King and God and sacrifice;

Alleluia!, Alleluia!,

Rings through the earth and skies.

What's on your bookshelf?

There were a couple advertising campaigns the title of this post might hearken back to, one for a frozen pizza company and the other for a ravening horde of ruffians promoting a certain credit card, does anyone else remember those?  It is probably a pretty sad commentary on our time that a catchy advertising jingle is more culturally relevant to most people than the best works of literature.  That being said, what's on your bookshelf?  If a stranger came over to your house and perused your library, what would it say about you?  What does your choice in books say about your interests and personality?  Hopefully it is a far better portrait of you than my memory of advertisements is of me!

On Turtles in unexpected places

Sadly, I don't have a living favorite author, mostly because I'm a book addict who MUST stay up and finish the last page, a thing that isn't such a great idea since I am now getting old (why is everything so much easier in college?), have small children to chase, and various other pursuits that demand most of my time and energy.  When I have time to read, it is best to stick to something that I know how it ends so there is half a chance I'll actually get some sleep.  Needless to say, I'm not avidly waiting (with drool encrusted tongue lolling from my mouth) for the latest release of any particular writer but when a book garners reviews and interest at two completely unrelated non-book sites (of the five I regularly visit!), it must be something special, or at least interesting.  And as someone who suffers from anxiety/panic attacks, it is even more interesting.  I'll leave it to you to decide what you think.  Here are the links to the reviews for 'Turtles All the Way Down:'

Review #1

Review #2

Maybe one of these years I'll actually get around to reading something new, until then, at least you can enjoy it!