"The notion that such persons are gay of heart and carefree is curiously untrue. They lead, as a matter of fact, an existence of jumpiness and apprehension. They sit on the edge of the chair of Literature. In the house of Life they have the feeling that they have never taken off their overcoats."
- James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Christmas shopping and other stuff

I have a couple of topics to discuss here, and both need input. Yes, I suppose I could stretch this into two blogs, or talk about one here and another at one of my other blogs (http://gaylesbookshelf.wordpress.com/ and http://www.myspace.com/gaylesoo), but I've got other stuff to do today and I'm not a patient woman.

On publishing my memoir of columns: Now that I'm considering self-publishing my book of columns, I get an email from Publishers Weekly (yes, I'm one of their close, personal, mass mailing friends) about a deal being offered by BookSurge. Has anybody published with them? I need stories, anecdotes - give me the good, the bad, and the OMG ugly, please!

On Christmas shopping: Yes, I want to give books for Christmas. In particular, I usually give my dad a book for Christmas. He lives 2008 miles away, is approaching 80, and we have a strained relationship, so every year I find a book on Amazon about WWII, have it wrapped by the Amazon elves and shipped to him, and my conscience is clear. Dad's in very ill health. I think he'd like to die if he could just figure out how to stop breathing. I'm wondering if he's too ill and blind to even read anymore, but I can't think of anything else to buy him. Last year, we made a DVD of my son singing and playing guitar (my dad played), but he never indicated whether he liked it or not, so I'm back to the book idea. The question is: anybody know any good WWII books IN LARGE PRINT for a Christmas gift for Dad?

1 comment:

Morgan Mandel said...

I'm thinking of Lulu for my children't book, unless I can get a publisher.

Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com
http://www.morganmandel.com

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