Saturday Review 2-28-09

Bulletin Board
** This week’s announcement is actually me asking for a favor. **

The agenda for BlogHer’09 will include some member-programmed sessions under the umbrella “A Room of Your Own,” and the session that I have proposed was one of three featured this week on BlogHer.com. I’d love to see a Room for the book-blogging community: “Book Bloggers: So Many Words, So Little Time.”  There’s no guarantee that it will get on to the agenda, though, so I’m asking for your help to make it happen!

Please click on that title link to go over and read the description, and if you think it sounds interesting, click the “I would attend this session” link at the top of the post. Voting is anonymous and does NOT commit you to attending, but I’m sure they are looking at interest and potential attendance to determine which sessions will make the cut. (You don’t need to be registered for the conference to vote, but you do have to be a member of the BlogHer community.) Voting will close in mid-May, and 12 sessions will be selected at that time. Thanks for your help to get book bloggers on the agenda!

Also, if you’re a book blogger who would be interested in playing a bigger role in this session – if it happens – please also click the “I would be interested in presenting on this topic” link. Again, you’re not making a commitment at this point, but if this does happens, I’d really like NOT to do it alone!

Oh, and one more thing – if you would be also willing to mention this on your blog with a link to the session page, you would have my tremendous appreciation!

(I hadn’t planned to mention this over here at this stage since I’m not sure how many of y’all are even thinking of going to BlogHerCon, but if Anna Lefler can lobby for her cause, so can I – and while you’re over on BlogHer.com, vote for her session too!)

New to my Google Reader

Tome of the Unknown Blogger (via his wife, Anniegirl1138)
Jennsylvania, author Jen Lancaster’s blog (again, not letting the fact I haven’t read an author’s books keep me away from her blog)

Across the Blogiverse

How do you balance the “it’s all about me” aspects of blogging with making it interesting and relevant to someone who’s not you?

Then again, is it “all about me,” or all about marketing? It seems like the discussion topic of the week is the evolution of the blogger, particularly bloggers of the “mom” variety, into a marketing force

Sunday-morning rituals of the former churchgoer

Economic stress –> relationship stress: what about “for richer, for poorer”?

Taking her frustrations to the chair

A “spa music” channel on satellite radio? I’m not sure you should be that relaxed when you’re driving…

Have you ever fed a teenager? If so, does this sound familiar? And someone’s not a teenager any more – it’s the big 4-0(h, boy!) (Happy birthday, Mike!)

I don’t usually link to the biggest biggies in the blog world (they certainly don’t need me!), but this Huffington Post item was the funniest Oscar recap I read on Monday. In vaguely related news: the Momcademy Awards are announced

Driving a hard bargain, via Not Always Right

Hot Dog Cart | Rochester, NY, USA
(It’s the end of the day on my mother’s hot dog cart, when I was about 17. We stop cooking and decide to hang up a sign selling the remaining cooked food 2-for-1. There’s an annoying guy that’s been badly playing the accordion next to our cart all day.)
Accordion guy: “Closing, eh? I’d like four Italian sausage, two cheeseburgers, and two hot dogs!”
(My mom happily packs up the order into a box as I ring up the total.)
Me: “That’ll be $10.50.”
Accordion guy: “What? No! It’s $4!”
Me: “Cheeseburgers are $3.50, sausage is $3, and hot dogs are $2. We’re having a special right now, but there’s still no way it adds up to only $4.”
Accordion guy: “NO! Your sign says two-for-one! Two things for one dollar! I got eight things, so it’s $4!”
Me: “That’s not at all what that sign means. It means you get two things for the price of one.”
Accordion guy: “Yes it does! That’s exactly what it means!”
Me: “Sir, I wrote the sign myself. Several customers have come up to the cart in the last few minutes, and haven’t had any trouble with this concept.”
Accordion guy: “It’s $4!”
Me: “You saying that doesn’t make it true.”
My mom, quietly, to me: “Whatever. If he’s eating, he can’t play the accordion!”
Me: “Sir, that will be $4, please!”
Bookmarks: Reading-related reading

From the “reading challenges I might join if I did challenges” files: The Try Something New Mini-Challenge, running through March, hosted by Nymeth of Things Mean a Lot

You know you want this: directories of book trade people and authors on Twitter (via Bookopolis) – now go out and follow!

Speaking of authors, take note of these 10 things to remember about them (most of which fall under the heading of “they’re people, too” in one way or another)

The impossible, unanswerable question: “What’s your favorite book?” (For me, it’s tied with “What’s your favorite song?” And I daresay that if you have just one of either, you might not be a very big reader or music listener…)

Books that caught my eye this week:
Laura Rider’s Masterpiece: A Novel, by Jane Hamilton
The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir, by Annette Fix
Feminist Mothering, edited by Andrea O’Reilly

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