NECHAMA. The word means “comfort.” Help those who need it find it.

NECHAMA. The word means “comfort.” Help those who need it find it.

I went back the office yesterday for the first time since my surgery, so the timing is just right…   I usually talk about my job in pretty vague terms here, but today is different. Today I am taking you where we’ve never gone before on this blog – to my workplace. I promise I won’t make a habit of dragging you there with me, but it’s for a special project, and we need your […]

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Packing my Bags – With Books! (Weekend Assignment #357)

Packing my Bags – With Books! (Weekend Assignment #357)

Weekend Assignment # 357: The Art of Packing When you go on a trip, do you travel light, or try to make sure you have everything you might conceivably need? Specifically, what do you bring along by way of electronics? Extra Credit: What’s the most important thing you ever lost, broke, or forgot to bring on your trip? I don’t usually pack for a trip until the night before I leave, but I’m thinking about […]

Sunday Salon: I Am Not a Professional

Sunday Salon: I Am Not a Professional

  Hey! Who are you calling “unprofessional?” That was the Question of the Week, directed at a romance novelist who responded to a couple of reviews that didn’t please her with a post on her blog, Authors Helping Authors, advising her fellow writers to steer clear of “unprofessionals” who “set themselves up as reviewers” and probably “never wrote anything themselves other than a grocery list.” I’m not linking to it myself, because plenty of others […]

Week-End Review: 5 for Friday, and a few more

Week-End Review: 5 for Friday, and a few more

Five things about my week: After two weeks of resting and recuperating, I went back to work this week, but I didn’t actually go to work – telecommuting FTW! Monday was very tiring and my shoulder was feeling it on Tuesday. Wednesday was better, but by yesterday my energy was pretty well used up. The only real drawback I find to telecommuting is that data travels very slowly between my computer and the remote server. […]

Book Talk: *The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks*, by Rebecca Skloot

Book Talk: *The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks*, by Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot Crown (2010), Edition: First Edition, Hardcover (ISBN 1400052173 / 9781400052172) Nonfiction (science/history), 384 pages Source: personal copy (gift) Reason for reading: Independent Literary Awards Non-Fiction short list (runner-up) Opening Lines: “There’s a photo on my wall of a woman I’ve never met, its left corner torn and patched together with tape. She looks straight into the camera and smiles, hands on hips, dress suit neatly pressed, lips […]

Book Talk: *The Warmth of Other Suns*, by Isabel Wilkerson

Book Talk: *The Warmth of Other Suns*, by Isabel Wilkerson

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration Isabel Wilkerson Random House (2010), Hardcover (ISBN 0679444327 / 9780679444329) Nonfiction/History, 640 pages Source: purchased (e-book for Amazon Kindle: ASIN B003EY7JGM) Reason for reading: Independent Literary Awards Non-Fiction short list (WINNER) Opening Lines: “The night clouds were closing in on the salt licks east of the oxbow lakes along the folds in the earth beyond the Yalobusha River. The cotton was at last […]

Teresa’s Journey Home

Teresa’s Journey Home

Please welcome Teresa back to The 3 R’s! Since she was last here, she’s set up a blog of her own, but hasn’t actually had time to post to it yet. However, she can sometimes be found in Café World or playing Scrabble on Facebook – when she can wrest the computer away from her sons, that is. Join her today on her long journey home. I suppose this is the time of year when […]

The Big Game’s Over! Readathon post-game summary

The Big Game’s Over! Readathon post-game summary

The Big Game’s On! Readathon is done…and I was off my game. It wasn’t quite a blowout, but I didn’t put up much of a fight. Mini-Challenge #1: Predict the Winner: Take a look at the books you plan on reading today.  Which do you predict will come out as the winner and why?  Do a post to answer this question. I didn’t participate in the mini-challenge, as I planned to devote the day to […]

Sunday Salon: Re-Reading, and Reading Along (maybe?)

Sunday Salon: Re-Reading, and Reading Along (maybe?)

  Between starting this blog in 2007 and last year, I didn’t re-read anything – the old “not enough time, and too many new books to explore” argument. But the “someday” I’ve had in mind for those books I’ve kept to re-read “someday” grows time-limited too, and I’m starting to think that three to five re-reads over the course of a year may actually be a very good use of time. Five of my 55 […]

Week-End Review: 5 things from me, and 5 (links) for Friday

Week-End Review: 5 things from me, and 5 (links) for Friday

Five things from me: Looks like things are going well 2 weeks post-shoulder surgery! The incisions are healing nicely and the X-rays look good. I’ve been given two new exercises to do 2-3 times per day. Otherwise, I’m to stay in the sling and basically try to forget I even have a right arm for another 4-5 weeks, and I see the ortho again on February 21, exactly one month after the surgery. Aside from […]

Mike’s Book Talk: *The Breach*, by Patrick Lee

Mike’s Book Talk: *The Breach*, by Patrick Lee

You may recall Mike from his guest-blogging visit last summer, when he reviewed a book way outside his comfort zone (and which I still haven’t gotten around to reading myself!). Please welcome him back again with another review; this time, the book’s outside my comfort zone. Mike occasionally talks about books on his own blog, Everything Under the Sun, but he talks more often about the weird things he sees on late-night TV and in […]