Introducing the new Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device, called BOOK
BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology; no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected, or switched on. It’s easy to use. Even a child can operate it.
Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere – even sitting in an armchair by the fire – yet it is powerful enough to hold as much as a CD-ROM.
BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information. The pages are locked together with one of two different custom devices, a BINDER or DOUBLE STITCH BINDING, which keep the sheets in their correct sequence. Opaque Paper Technology (OPT) allows manufacturers to use both sides of the sheet, doubling the information density.
Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly to your brain. A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet.
BOOK never crashes nor requires rebooting. The “browse” function allows instant movement to any sheet, forward or backward, as one wishes. Many come with an “index” feature, which pinpoints the exact location of any selected information for instant retrieval.
An optional “Bookmark” accessory allows you to open this device to the exact place you left it in a previous session — even if the device has been closed. bookmarks fit universal design standards; thus, a single bookmark can be used in devices by various manufacturers. Conversely, numerous bookmarkers can be used in a single device if the user wants to store numerous views at once. The number is limited only by the number of pages in the device. You can also make personal notes next to the text entries in this device with the optional programming tool, Portable Erasable Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Styli (PENCILS).
Portable, durable, and affordable, BOOK is being hailed as a precursor of a new entertainment wave. BOOK’s appeal seems so certain that thousands of content creators have committed to the platform and investors are reportedly flocking to the medium. Look for a flood of new books at your local library or bookstore!
Welcome to Throwback Thursday; I originally posted this in 2001! Still holds up. Wish I knew who wrote it but I could not find a definitive answer. Another internet mystery…
Comments Off on Introducing the new Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge Device | Ramblings | Permalink Posted by Stacy Alesi
Author Alyson Richman shares three books that she hasn’t been able to put down!
Click to purchase
THE SECRET OF CLOUDS by Alyson Richman
Named One of the Best 2019 Winter Books by PopSugar and Chosen as One of 9 Books to Read (or Gift!) This February by Instyle!
From the #1 international bestselling author of The Lost Wife and The Velvet Hours comes an emotionally charged story about a mother’s love, a teacher’s promise, and a child’s heart….
Katya, a rising ballerina, and Sasha, a graduate student, are young and in love when an unexpected tragedy befalls their native Kiev. Years later, after the couple has safely emigrated to America the consequences of this incident cause their son, Yuri, to be born with a rare health condition that isolates him from other children. Maggie, a passionate and dedicated teacher agrees to tutor Yuri at his home, even though she is haunted by her own painful childhood memories. As the two forge a deep and soulful connection, Yuri’s boundless curiosity and unique wisdom inspires Maggie to make difficult changes in her own life. And she’ll never realize just how strong Yuri has made her—until she needs that strength the most….
A novel that will make readers examine what it means to live life with a full heart.
I am writing you this letter because I love you and feel that you need a tiny bit of advice. Certainly not all of you, but some of you. Especially the newbies.
I am here to discuss your web presence and why it is important.
You may not know that I have been reading about a book a day for most of my life. I have long championed books and reading, and I was one of the first book bloggers out there. I started writing about books in the early 1980’s on CompuServe (if you’re old enough to remember that!) then discussed books in various chat rooms on AOL (waving at “Men with Minds”) then started my own website in 1994 using (the long defunct) GeoCities. I found it a great way to remember books I’d read and books I wanted to read.
A year or so later, a publicist (I think it was Miriam Parker from Time Warner, and I really, really wish I could remember the title of the first book I gave away!) reached out to me, asking me if I wanted to give away some of their books. I loved getting free books and figured other people would too so I jumped all over that. Oh, I was getting my free books from work, I was a bookseller for Borders. Another defunct company. We received galleys and one of the benefits of working there was getting a book allowance each month to purchase books. Plus a deep, dirty secret was that we were allowed to borrow books! Hardcover only, one at a time, and the book jacket was kept in the store to keep it pristine and help keep track of the books that were borrowed. But I digress.
In 1998, my husband bought me my own domain name and I started a book review site. It’s ridiculously easy and pretty cheap to buy a domain name; I use GoDaddy.Here we are, more than twenty years later, and I am proud to say that in addition to posting to thousands of reviews, I’ve also given away thousands of books. Yes, thousands. Sadly, I never really kept track of the books I gave away, an opportunity lost. But I do remember the very first book I reviewed for a professional, authoritative journal – Must Love Dogs by Claire Cook, for Library Journal.
Anyway, that’s enough background on how I ended up here. Now here is my two cents.
If you are a published author, if you have a book for sale anywhere, then you need a website. There is just no avoiding it. I am constantly amazed at how many authors don’t feel the need for one. Every month I give away a bunch of signed books in partnership with the International Thriller Writers organization (free membership for authors!) When I publicize those books, I like to include ways for readers to connect with the authors. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to, but especially today, here in 2019, there is just no excuse for not having a website and yet several times a year I can’t find a website for an author.
I don’t care if your day job is doctor, lawyer, or CIA chief, if you are selling books, you need a website. You don’t have to build it yourself! Here, contact xuni.com, they have been doing author websites since 1998! They are super easy to work with, really creative and professional and not only will they build you a website, they will take care of it for you. At, from what I understand, a very reasonable cost. Don’t like them? There are lots of others. Go to a few of your favorite authors websites and scroll down to the bottom. There you will usually find information on whoever built the site. If you can’t find it, ask me. I’m a librarian, I do research for a living and I’d be happy to help, gratis.
By the way, your website needs to look professional. You don’t have to spend a ton to make it look good but if you’re going to do this, do it right. I have seen some author websites that are truly awful. Even some NYT bestselling authors! I have even gently suggested that they might want to freshen up their web look. Not everyone takes my advice. So sad. Let’s face it, I am opinionated – hence the book reviews! Anyway…
Meet Loki. Yes, he is smiling. And reading on my iPad.
You also need a social media presence. At minimum, Twitter and the big, bad, evil empire itself, Facebook. You don’t have to link your personal FB page, you can build a Fan Page, it’s easy peasy. Here are directions courtesy of WikiHow. Once you have a fan page and Twitter feed, you don’t have to do a lot but you have to be there and check in once in a while. Instagram would be good, too. Post pictures of your book covers, author events, and your dog. Depending on the type of book you write, Pinterest. Have you been interviewed on TV? Then build yourself a YouTube channel. Have something to say? Say it on your blog or reddit or tumblr! This is not difficult or time consuming. I’ve even provided you with links! Just click and do it. Oh, and if you’ve published a book, you’re already on Goodreads so you might as well link to your page on your website.
If you’re not sure what authors should do or not do. go look. Here are a few that have great web presence: Lisa Scottoline;Chris Bohjalian; and just in case you think you have to be a NY Times bestselling author to have a strong web presence, check out Nancy J. Cohen, she has an amazing web presence. She could teach classes on it. In fact, she has! Which reminds me, if you belong to a writing organization like Mystery Writers of America, ITW or Romance Writers of America, etc. they often have great information on how to do all this stuff on their websites and at their conferences.
Which brings me to my next point.
If you do have a social media presence, or are in the process of creating one, please, please make sure you include links to your feeds on your website. Why do I have to Google the shit out of you to find your Twitter feed? That defeats the purpose! And just a bit of advice here, you may not want to create a FB or Twitter page based on your character’s name or book title. What happens when you branch out into something else? Be forward thinking, use your real name or your pseudonym. If you have to add “writer” or “author” or “books” to it to get that name, do so. Maybe shorten it up a bit by using initials, like Robyn Carr, or as I think of her, @RCarrWriter does.
Okay, I think that’s it. This stuff has been weighing on me for years. Years! Frankly, it amazes me that publishers aren’t forcing their authors into this stuff. The smart ones do. Oh, and if you’re self published, that is no excuse! It’s even more important for you to be out there and accessible to your readers. Will you get cranky hate mail? You may. Feel free to delete. Will you get into Twitter wars? With any luck, yes! Just remember that old adage, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Librarian at work (you can tell by the glasses)
Please, if you have any questions about any of this and don’t have a teenager to ask, I am here for you and happy to help. Librarian, remember? I am really good at finding information and happy to help you in any way I can. No, I won’t build you a website but short of that, ask me.
Thanks for reading; now go sell some books!
with love,
Stacy
your favorite BookBitch
PS: I cannot believe how many exclamation points I’ve used in this letter. Rant. Letter. Whatever. Just FYI, I loathe exclamation points. I feel that the words should be powerful enough on their own but apparently not here, not today. Moving on now…
Thank you to all my readers, those who comment, those who email, and those who just lurk. I know you’re there and I appreciate every one of you!
Last week I had another eye surgery and am slowly recovering. Hopefully, this will be the last, at least for a long, long time. I’m very hopeful that my vision will return soon. Fortunately, I am still able to read! This, working on a computer, is especially difficult right now. But this too shall pass.
I wish you all a joyous holiday season. I hope you get to share it with people you love and of course, good books to read!
Author Lee Child announces a new mashup book series for his butt-kicking character Jack Reacher… it’s Reacher in classic literature, as you’ve never seen him before!
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This year I have much to be thankful for. Not just at Thanksgiving, but every single day of the year.
First and foremost, I am so grateful to my husband and kids for all your love and support. I love and appreciate my friends for putting up with me, laughing and crying with me, and always being there for me. My life is infinitely richer for having you all in it.
I’m always grateful for all the wonderful books I get to read. I’m grateful to the authors who work so hard to tell me a great story and help me escape from this often fraught reality. As Hemingway put it, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Thank you.
I appreciate all the publicists and marketing folks who let me know about the books that make them love their jobs.
I am grateful to the International Thriller Writers for supporting me and my website and helping me give away well over a thousand books – and still giving away more.
In this often troubled world, I hope all my friends, my readers, and your families can find something to be truly grateful for.
Anna Drezen & Todd Dakotah Briscoe present A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANEY | Last Minute Book Report
After reading A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANEY in 10 minutes, Anna Drezen & Todd Dakotah Briscoe (co-authors of HOW MAY WE HATE YOU?) stumble their way through a book report on John Irving’s classic.
All I can say is they need to read the book in its entirety as it is one of my favorite books ever. EVERYONE needs to read this book!
Also, do not ever watch the movie. It was so bad Irving made them change the name of the main character from Owen Meany. The movie is called Simon Birch, and has a 44% on the Tomatometer. The audience score is higher but obviously those people never read the book. Rant over.
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick
Click book cover to purchase
I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.
In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy’s mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary.
Comments Off on A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANEY | Last Minute Book Report | Ramblings | Permalink Posted by Stacy Alesi
Welcome to The Wedding from Hell Part 3: Exclusive Excerpt of Consumed!
A free downloadable e-book! If you haven’t read J.R. Ward yet, now is your chance.
Available: August 28, 2018
Gallery Books | E-book Original
ISBN: 9781982105389 | Free
The Wedding from Hell, Part 3: Exclusive Excerpt of Consumed is the final part of J.R. Ward’s The Wedding From Hell ebook serialization. Don’t miss this exclusive teaser to her upcoming standalone romantic suspense, CONSUMED (available in October 2, 2018). See why “Consumed takes it to a whole new level” (Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author).
About the Book:
From the creator of the #1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series, get ready for a new band of brothers. And a firestorm.
Anne Ashburn is a woman consumed…
By her bitter family legacy, by her scorched career as a firefighter, by her obsession with department bad-boy Danny McGuire, and by a new case that pits her against a fiery killer.
Strong-willed Anne was fearless and loved the thrill of fighting fires, pushing herself to be the best. But when one risky decision at a warehouse blaze changes her life forever, Anne must reinvent not only her job, but her whole self.
Shattered and demoralized, Anne finds her new career as an arson investigator a pale substitute for the adrenaline-fueled life she left behind. She doesn’t believe she will ever feel that same all-consuming passion for her job again—until she encounters a string of suspicious fires setting her beloved city ablaze.
Danny McGuire is a premiere fireman, best in the commonwealth, but in the midst of a personal meltdown. Danny is taking risks like never before and seems to have a death wish until he teams up with Anne to find the fire starter. But Danny may be more than a distraction, and as Anne narrows in on her target, the arsonist begins to target her.
About the Author:
J.R. Ward is the author of more than thirty novels, including those in her #1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series. There are more than fifteen million copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published in twenty-six different countries around the world. She lives in the South with her family.
Harbor Street and Eighteenth Avenue
Old Downtown, New Brunswick, Massachusetts
Box alarm. One-niner-four-seven. Two engines and a ladder from the 499, responding.
Or, put another way, Anne Ashburn’s Friday night date had showed up on time and was taking her to a show. Granted, “on time” was the precise moment she had sat down for a meal at the stationhouse with her crew, and the “show” was a warehouse fire they were going to have to chorus-line for. But if you judged the health of a relationship on its constancy and whether it brought purpose and meaning to your life?
Then this firefighting gig was the best damn partner a woman could ask for.
As Engine Co. 17 turned the corner onto Harbor with siren and lights going, Anne glanced around the shallow seating area of the apparatus. There were four jump seats behind the cab, two forward- facing, two rear-, the pairs separated by an aisle of gear. Emilio “Amy” Chavez and Patrick “Duff” Duffy were on one side. She and Daniel “Dannyboy” Maguire were on the other. Up in front, Deshaun “Doc” Lewis, the engineer, was behind the wheel, and Captain Christopher “Chip” Baker, the incident commander, was shotgun.
Her nickname was “Sister.” Which was what happened when you were the sibling of the great Fire Chief Thomas Ashburn Jr., and the daughter of the revered—falsely as it turned out— Thomas Ashburn, Sr.
Not everybody called her that, though.
She focused on Danny. He was staring out the open window, the cold November wind blowing his black hair back, his exhausted blue eyes focused on nothing. In their bulky turnouts, their knees brushed every time the engine bumped over sewer access panels, potholes, manholes, intersections.
Okay, okay, she wanted to say to fate. I know he’s there. You don’t have to keep reminding me.
The hardheaded bastard was a lot of things, most of which carried terms you couldn’t use around your grandmother, but he knew she hated the “Sister” thing, so to him, she was Ashburn.
He’d also called her Anne—once. Late at night about three weeks ago.
Yes, they had been naked at the time. Oh, God . . . had they finally done that?
“I’m gonna beat you at pong,” he said without looking at her. “Soon as we get back.”
“No chance.” She hated that he knew she’d been staring at him. “All talk, Dannyboy.”
“Fine.” He turned to face her. “I’ll let you win, how about that?”
His smile was slow, knowing, evil. And her temper answered the phone on the first ring.
“The hell you will.” Anne leaned forward. “I won’t play with you if you cheat.”
“Even if it benefits you?”
“That’s not winning.”
“Huh. Well, you’ll have to explain to me the ins and outs of it when we’re back at the house. While I’m beating you.”
Anne shook her head and glared out the open window.
The first tap on her leg she ascribed to a bump in the road.
The second, third, and fourth were obviously—
She looked back at Danny. “Stop it.”
“What?”
“Are you twelve?”
As he started to smile, she knew exactly where his mind had gone. “Not inches. Age.”
“I’m pretty sure I peak more like at sixteen.” He lowered his voice. “What do you think?”
Between the sirens and the open windows, no one else could hear them—and Danny never pulled the double entendre if there was a risk of that. But yes, Anne now knew intimately all of his heavily muscled and tattooed anatomy. Granted, it had been only that once.
Then again, unforgettable only had to happen one time.
“I think you’re out of your mind,” she muttered.
And then they were at the scene. The old 1900s-era warehouse was a shell of its former useful self, sixty-five thousand square feet of broken glass panes, rotting beams, and blown-off roof panels. The outer walls were brick, but based on the age, the floors and any room dividers inside were going to be wood. The blaze was in the northeast corner on the second floor, billowing smoke wafting up into the forty-degree night air before being carried away by a southerly wind.
As Anne’s boots hit the ground, she pulled the top half of her turnouts closed. Her ponytail was up high on the back of her head, and she stripped out the band, reorganized the shoulder length, and cranked things tight at her nape. The brown was still streaked with blond from the summer, but she needed to get it trimmed—so all that lightness was on the chopping block.
Of course, if she were a woman “who took care of herself,” she’d get it highlighted through the winter months. Or so her mother liked to tell her. But who the hell had time for that?
“Sister, you sweep the place with Amy for addicts,” Captain Baker commanded. “Stay away from that corner. Danny and Duff, run those lines!”
As Captain Baker continued to bark orders out, she turned away. She had her assignment. Until she completed it, or there was an insurmountable obstacle or change of order, she was required to execute that directive and no other.
“Be safe in there, Ashburn.”
The words were soft and low, meant for her ears alone. And as she glanced over her shoulder, Danny’s Irish eyes were not smiling.
A ripple of premonition made her rub the back of her neck. “Yeah, you, too, Maguire.”
“Piece’a cake. We’ll be back at pong before ten.”
They walked away from each other at the same time, Danny going around to the stacks of hoses in the back, her linking up with Chavez…
Comments Off on The Wedding from Hell Part 3: Exclusive Excerpt of Consumed | Ramblings | Permalink Posted by Stacy Alesi
Posted by Stacy Alesi 
You may not know that I have been reading about a book a day for most of my life. I have long championed books and reading, and I was one of the first book bloggers out there. I started writing about books in the early 1980’s on CompuServe (if you’re old enough to remember that!) then discussed books in various chat rooms on AOL (waving at “Men with Minds”) then started my own website in 1994 using (the long defunct) GeoCities. I found it a great way to remember books I’d read and books I wanted to read.
In 1998, my husband bought me my own domain name and I started a book review site. It’s ridiculously easy and pretty cheap to buy a domain name; I use 
bunch of signed books in partnership with the 
