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  Queues, dodgy carols, aching legs, confusion over what size feet my nephew has. Not for me, this Christmas. This year I’m avoiding the festive-season shopping chaos and buying everyone a book and a pig (or maybe an orangutan). Here’s what my Christmas list looks like. For my Teen Son: Legacy by Tim Cahill Blurb: The […]

It's one thing to shop local. You're supporting neighborhood businesses. When you buy local products, you're supporting both a business and an artisan - two entities within your community. That's why when you give a book as a gift this year, please choose to purchase one written by a Fort Collins author.

Here are some suggestions for kids and teens on your list. And if you don't have children, why not donate a book to your local public or school library, or give one to your Toys for Tots drive. They are always in need of gifts for teens.

By Colorado Book Award Winner, Laura Resau

If you're looking for thoughtful gifts to give this Hanukkah and Christmas, check out my online bookstore for ideas for booklovers. There are my favorite children's books, books written by my friends, Kindles, funky laptop carriers, reading lights and items relating to book characters.

Suggestions: The Lovely Bones is coming out in a movie. Why not give someone the book to read first? Or, if you know a dog lover, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a good one, and appeals to men as well. (My husband loved it!) Or, if you have someone who's in the armed forces, Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle by my friends, Mary Nethery and Kirby Larson, is a heart-warming war time story.(You might have seen Nubs the dog on The Today Show).

So, enjoy a leisurely browse through Cookie Monkey Books by clicking on the post title above, and take care of your shopping in a snap.

NOTE TO SELF: SEEMS WE HAVE A LOT TO WORRY ABOUT THIS CHRISTMAS AND HOLIDAY SHOPPING


As soon as she had found the perfect present for her niece and dropped it in her shopping cart, Lovey Lane had a nagging worry.

"It just hit me -- this is made in China," the Dundalk resident said, checking the Disney princess costume box and scrutinizing the beads adorning a tiara as a possible hazard. "I thought I'd better put it back."

But the Pirates of the Caribbean ship for her nephew stayed put in the cart, as Lane reasoned that the plastic toy was not likely tainted by lead.

"Of course, we don't know what paint they're using," said Lane, shopping yesterday morning at Toys "R" Us in the Golden Ring area of Baltimore County.

After months of recalls that have seen millions of toys pulled from store shelves -- including classics such as Thomas the Tank Engine, Dora the Explorer and Big Bird -- anxiety was palpable in the toy aisles on the day after Thanksgiving. Warnings of lead paint and choking hazards, and even chemical coatings that could be transformed into a "date rape" drug if ingested, have gotten shoppers' attention.

Full Story Here:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-te.bz.toys24nov24,0,3673506.story

Toy safety tips
• Children under age 3: Avoid toys with small parts, which pose a choking hazard.

• Children under 6: Avoid building sets with small magnets. If they are swallowed, serious injuries or death can occur.

• Children under 8: Avoid toys that have sharp edges and points.

• Riding toys, skateboards and in-line skates can cause fatal falls. Helmets and safety gear should be worn and sized to fit.

• Projectile toys such as air rockets, darts and slingshots, intended for older children, can result in serious eye injuries.

• Chargers and adapters should be supervised by adults to prevent burn hazards.

• Read toy labels for age and safety recommendations.

[Source: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission]

Shopping for children's toys has become complicated. Perhaps it's time for consumers to seriously consider buying products and goods made locally.

Guess I'll stick with the plan and list five for Friday, although not much has been going on.

1.The weather is finally 'cool' in Florida...down in the forties last night, and only into the sixties today. Very nice for outside activities during the day. I know that is nothing like much of the rest of the country has, but for me, who is cold if it goes below 80, it is cold enough.

2. I have scrapped several chapters of my WIP and am rewriting a whole section of the book. I think it is going well, and will test it out on my crit group in a few days.

3. I have been enjoying the Robert's Snow Cure for Cancer artist interviews on several websites. Check out the artists' snowflakes for the upcoming auction.

4. Plans for the Space Coast Writers' Guild annual Pen-to-Print V conference are progressing nicely. This week I have been following up with the agents, editors and authors who will be presenting to take care of any final details. I have enjoyed setting the conference up with so many great presenters.

5. I started my Christmas shopping today by ordering a magazine subscription for my grandson with autism. He really loves non-fiction, so the Kids Discover magazine seemed like the perfect gift for a kid who doesn't really like or use many things. Am hoping I can find a good magazine for my 12-year old grandson, too. Any suggestions?

Shakespeare's inner thought process will be the subject of a panel discussion held at Yale tomorrow, October 30. "Shakespeare the Thinker" will be at 4:30 p.m., in the Yale Center for British Art Lecture Hall, 1080 Chapel Street. The panel is free and open to the public.

Among the notable panelists are literary critic Harold Bloom and Connecticut Poet Laureate John Hollander. The event is hosted by Yale University Press, the Yale Center for British Art and the Whitney Humanities Center.

According to the Yale University Office of Public Affairs, the event was organized in honor of the late A. D. Nuttall and the recent publication of his book, Shakespeare the Thinker.

A. D. Nuttall’s study of Shakespeare’s intellectual preoccupations is a literary tour de force and comes to crown the distinguished career of a Shakespeare scholar. Certain questions engross Shakespeare from his early plays to the late romances: the nature of motive, cause, personal identity and relation, the proper status of imagination, ethics and subjectivity, language and its capacity to occlude and to communicate. Yet Shakespeare’s thought, Nuttall demonstrates, is anything but static. The plays keep returning to, modifying, and complicating his creative preoccupations. Nuttall allows us to hear and appreciate the emergent cathedral choir of play speaking to play. By the later stages of Nuttall’s book this choir is nearly overwhelming in its power and dimensions. The author does not limit discussion to moments of crucial intellection but gives himself ample space in which to get at the distinctive essence of each work.

Read an excerpt, or view the table of contents.

For more information about the panel discussion, click here or contact Manana Sikic at 203 432-0673.

In today's New York Times, Holland Cotter lauded "Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor," a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Cotter called the exhibition "awesome in its exacting detail" and "a demonstration of beauty of a very particular and surprisingly personal kind." The epic tapestries, she says, are "a form of art you can care about in some personal way."

Thomas P. Campbell, who curated the show at the Met, also edited the catalog raisonne, Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor, recently released by Yale University Press. In her review, Cotter calls the exhibition catalog "seven pounds of pure information."

Conceived as a sequel to the critically acclaimed Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence (2002), this lavishly illustrated volume is the first comprehensive survey of 17th-century European tapestry available in English. From the Middle Ages until the late 18th century, European courts expended vast sums on tapestries, which were made with precious materials after designs by the leading artists of the day. Yet, this spectacular medium is still often presented as a decorative art of lesser importance. Tapestry in the Baroque challenges this notion, demonstrating that tapestry remained among the most prestigious figurative mediums throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries, prized by the rich for its artistry and as a propaganda tool.

The book features forty-five of the finest surviving examples from collections in more than fifteen countries, as well as a number of related designs and oil sketches. Through these it examines the stylistic developments of tapestry between 1590 and 1720, when such masters as Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, Simon Vouet, Charles Le Brun, Pietro da Cortona, and Giovanni Romanelli responded to the challenges and opportunities of the medium in the context of contemporary artistic developments.

Read the full New York Times Review.

Charles B. McClendon's book The Origins of Medieval Architecture: Building in Europe, A.D. 600-900 has won the 2007 Otto Gründler Prize sponsored by Western Michigan University.

Presented at the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies, the Otto Gründler Prize is awarded to the author of a book or monograph judged by the selection committee as an outstanding contribution to the field. It has become a major international prize for scholarship in the area of medieval studies. The Medieval's Institute's Congress attracts some 3,000 scholars from around the globe to Western Michigan University each May, making it one of the largest medieval studies events in the world. For more details on this year's 42nd annual Congress and The Medieval Institute, please click here.

Published by Yale University Press, The Origins of Medieval Architecture: Building in Europe, A.D. 600-900 draws on rich documentary evidence and archaeological data, demonstrating that medieval Romanesque and Gothic churches owe much more to the architectural achievements of the Early Middle Ages than has been thought. Charles B. McClendon, a distinguished historian of architecture, examines the transformation of the Early Christian basilica from 600 to 900 A.D. McClendon is the author of The Imperial Abbey of Farfa: Architectural Currents of the Early Middle Ages, also published by Yale University Press.