She Treads Softly

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Amazon is recommending I purchase the Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants.

I wonder what brought that on?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: I forsee two possibilities:
1) your current reading obsession
2)Amazon wants you to sell your house quickly and thus giving suggestions to off your competition so that you can return to purchasing enough books to pay the CEO's yearly salaray.; April 28, 2007 at 1:21 PM
Anonymous said...: you guessed it--published with no proofin. in honor of LJ; April 28, 2007 at 1:22 PM
Tiffany Todd said...: ROFL!!; April 30, 2007 at 8:47 AM
Jane said...: LOL! On both comments.
And, something in honor of me?!
LOL Because I'm such a good speller & always type with correct grammar usage? ROTFLOL
Because I'm such a grammar queen that I don't need to do any proofin'? LOL

I'm glad to have signed up so I can leave comments. I check in here a few times a week to see what's going on. I love all of your book reviews. You make me want to read more.
And thanks for the Willa Cather recomendation. Will be starting a 3rd book of hers....maybe today.
:); May 1, 2007 at 9:44 AM

John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.