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President’s Day

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The Presidential Prayer Team has been organizing prayer for today. They have almost 4,000 people enrolled so far.

I saw a headline this morning which raised a question for me. If you could declare another U.S. president for honoring on this day or another President’s Day holiday, who would you recommend? I ask this despite my reluctance to recommend any of them. I like many of our presidents, but making holidays isn’t something I want to think about. So, I blogged it instead.

I see a new president for 2009 has already been declared.

Uncategorized

President's Day

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The Presidential Prayer Team has been organizing prayer for today. They have almost 4,000 people enrolled so far.

I saw a headline this morning which raised a question for me. If you could declare another U.S. president for honoring on this day or another President’s Day holiday, who would you recommend? I ask this despite my reluctance to recommend any of them. I like many of our presidents, but making holidays isn’t something I want to think about. So, I blogged it instead.

I see a new president for 2009 has already been declared.

Bookselling

Book Sales Figures Are Inflated

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How many copies did Sahara actually sell? As many as the publisher says it did, according to the LA Times. “Publishers are notoriously reluctant to divulge sales numbers, and the complex, arcane nature of bookselling makes it hard to determine how well or badly a title is doing,” writes Josh Getlin. “Publishers routinely withhold full sales figures, saying the information is proprietary. The only people legally entitled to know those numbers are authors and their agents.”

Apparently, most books don’t sell well, even losing money for the publisher, so insiders keep real sales figures, if they can be known, to themselves. If an author claims his book sold 100,000, you have to trust him. There’s no public record to verify it.

Non-fiction

Judge Not Lest . . .

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Here’s a book for those who think they understand Jesus’ intent behind his command to avoid judging others lest we fall under condemnation. Making Judgments Without Being Judgmental: Nurturing a Clear Mind and a Generous Heart, by Terry D. Cooper.

Religion

Out of Egypt on the Lutheran Confession

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Presbyterian blogger Donovan praises some Lutheran doctrines and criticizes others. He writes, “. . . though I love the first part of the section on Election (and think that the best Calvinist practice is in line with its cautions), find the second part (which teaches the doctrine of resistable grace) to be in conflict with the FoC’s own teaching earlier on, in the section on Free Will. And not in a paradoxical sort of way either, just an out-and-out contradictory sort of way.”

You don’t have to thank me for bringing this to your attention. I blog because I care.

Fiction

All Ten Best as Chosen by Writers

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I’m late to point out another of Frank’s interesting reviews (Books, Inq. is a top ten litblog anyway, so you probably should read him first and scan this one when you have the time.) He reviews J. Peder Zane’s The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books, in which the ten favorite books taken from the submissions of 125 writers are revealed. Anna Karenina tops them all.

Strange also, to me at least, is the omission of Austen. I think the inclusion of Lolita and Gatsby is odd, too. Nothing wrong with either, mind you. Both are bona-fide masterpieces. . . . Paging through the 125 individual lists, what proves interesting is how many of the books chosen were written in the 20th century, and often pretty late in the century – which only reinforces the impression that these are books the writers have learned from.

Frank offers his own list here and links to a great list from a Master of Arts program. Further, J. Peder Zane has a book site with reader contributions.

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Present company excepted of course…

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Jeffrey Lord writes at The American Spectator site today about the Democratic Party and race.

I think he makes a lot of sense.

He particularly reinforced my prejudices in regard to questions of war and peace:

It is striking that Democratic Party history shows a repeated pattern of wanting to declare failure and come home in the Civil War, Vietnam and Iraq or opposed involvement in Grenada, the first Gulf War over Kuwait or stopping the genocide in Rwanda – all wars that involved liberating non-whites.

I’m probably being judgmental, even though I used to be a Democrat myself (never a peace-at-any-price Democrat, but a Democrat).

In any case, this argument certainly does not apply to any Democrat who happens to be reading this.

Writing

You Talk and You Talk. Where’s the Action?

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Mr. Bertrand blogs, “For all our speculative theorizing, precious few of us can make our theories work out on paper. The rhetoric of Christian fiction is a more exalted thing than the reality, in part because we understand our ambitions better than we do our abilities, but also because rhetoric is always more exalted than reality, no matter who’s talking.”

Read “The Whole Truth.“

Writing

You Talk and You Talk. Where's the Action?

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Mr. Bertrand blogs, “For all our speculative theorizing, precious few of us can make our theories work out on paper. The rhetoric of Christian fiction is a more exalted thing than the reality, in part because we understand our ambitions better than we do our abilities, but also because rhetoric is always more exalted than reality, no matter who’s talking.”

Read “The Whole Truth.“

Book Reviews, Creative Culture