Many, many thanks to site members Ennui, and gambit3 for their work on the new banner. It’s wondermous and I like the way it fits in with the theme. Fantastic work, my friends. Thank you very much.

Just to let everyone know, we are currently in the first stages of concocting something wonderful for the site…
podcasts.
So, keep an eye out for something soon. It may not be posted on this page, but it will be posted somewhere, and everyone should know about it. Tell your friends. Tell your family. If your dog can access the internet while you’re not home then tell the dog, too. This is going to be great…

The Forgotten Daughter is a surprisingly good little story.
My first introduction to this book was skimming the shelves at the local library back home. It was in the children/teens section, I believe. The title caught my eye and the cover, while simple, was something that I thought beautiful. This story is set in ancient Rome…the main character, the “forgotten daughter”, is Chloe.
Chloe is the product of a love affair between her mother – who was kidnapped from Lesbos for the purpose of slavery and falls in love with her captor – and a Roman of “noble” origin who falls in love with Chloe’s mother because of her bravery and beauty. The Roman – whose name I forget at this point – wed the woman from Lesobos and takes her to his villa in the countryside so they can live in peace, because he knows his father would not approve of the union. A union from while Chloe is born while her father is away in Rome, being forced into an arranged marriage. When her father sends a servant back to find his wife and child, Chloe’s mother is dead and Chloe is claimed to be dead and buried with her mother because they believe that the servant has been sent to kill the child. In reality, Chloe is hidden away, claimed as the daughter of her mother’s most loyal friend, Melissa. The catch is that, as the child of a slave she is also a slave. Read the rest of this entry »

When the movie adaption of the best-selling Fantasy book ‘Eragon’ was announced, I am sure fans rejoiced that they would be able to see their favorite book in the big screen. After all, following the massively successful movie adaption of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, why wouldn’t they?

However, with its theatrical run pretty much complete by mid-March 2007, the 100 million dollar production has brought in under 75 million domestically. One is left to wonder… what went wrong?
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For those of you who have never heard of the Everworld series, it is a young adult/teenager series written by K.A. Applegate. I first came across these books in high school, and managed to collect all but the last three books. The sad part is that, as much as I loved these books, they went out of print and my set of books were permanently “borrowed” before I came to college. Imagine my excitement when, while over at my friend Jen’s place one day, I looked at her book case and spotted the entire Everworld series! I got to borrow the last three books from her and finish reading the series. It was really nice – and it was great to be able to talk to someone about the series who knew exactly what I was talking about…
Now, here’s the good news. Yesterday, Jen gave me my birthday present(s) early – yes it’s two months early, but shut up. The tortuous part is that I went to Wal-Mart with Jen and looked around while she bought the bag and tissue paper for my presents, then had to wait in her living room while she went into her bedroom and wrapped everything up – and I do mean wrapped. I reached into the bottom of the bag (I got Lindt truffles, and Raffaelo “almond coconut treats”, too, mmmm) and pulled out what appeared to be a very thickly wrapped book – only to find that it was three books from the Everworld series! I immediately went straight back into the bag to pull out the rest of the books and rip off the tissue paper. I got the full set of Everworld books! Jen found them all online and she is now the best friend in the history of the world.
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a little OCD and when I unwrap presents I typicall peel off the tape and unfold the wrapping paper – so it’s a sign of how surprised and excited I was that I ripped the paper off those books! They’re out of print, for cryin’ out loud, and now I HAVE THEM! Wooo!

In case you ever wondered just who the heck it was writing all of this…well, here’s one of them:

First, I’d like to give the readers of this post a little background on the author. Now, you could just go straight to his website, and I encourage you to – but I will post a quote from his webpage bio to sum some things up for you.

Lee was educated at the University of Missouri (Bachelor of Journalism degree, 1974) and Yale Law School (Master of Studies in Law degree, 1979). He was a professional journalist for 14 years at The Chicago Tribune and other newspapers, winning Illinois’ top honors for investigative reporting (which he shared with a team he led) and public service journalism from United Press International.

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I was standing in line at Walgreens last night – waiting to purchase my late night snack (aka binge) of ice cream and corn dogs, and sitting next to the check-out counter was a rack of books. Then there it was: top shelf, left corner – a book by James Patterson, hailed on the cover as #1 on the NY Times Bestseller List, entitled Judge&Jury.