Amanda Witt's Blog, page 2

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Reviews

Praise for Amanda Witt

"Night Rose"

"Hottest of all--" Kirkus Reviews
"Arresting--" Publishers Weekly


THE RED SERIES
"A fast-paced, highly readable adventure with a touch of class." Unlimited Book Reviews

"Excellent writing and intriguing concepts--Witt writes like she's been doing this for fifty years with a team of creative advisors backing her every step of the way." Rebel Christian Book Reviews


Readers say:

"I was hooked from page one!"

"I have been a fan of this genre for a while now, but this series has quickly become one of my favorites. I could not put these books down!"
"Once I started reading, I didn't want to stop."
"I was downloading the second book within a minute of finishing this one!"
"What I was not prepared for was the sense of loss over finishing each book. These books are a great read."
"Starts out seeming like just another dystopian, but ends up being much classier than that. Read the whole series and it won't let you down."
"I love a strong female lead character and this book has it."
"Loved it - can't wait to start the next one. Halfway through book one and I was telling my book reading friends all about it."
"I loved [The Watch]! Better and cleaner than the Divergent Series, but with a similar feel to the story."
"A thoroughly enjoyable page-turner."
"The plot initially seems familiar, but it soon breaks the pattern ..."
"I loved this series! I was a bit hesitant at first, as I didn't want to read a re-tread of 'Hunger Games.' However, the characters and story are fresh, and the books are great reading for YA and adults."
"I appreciate that the book is free of erotic or crass wording."
"A fresh and engaging story."
"It would also make a pretty gripping film...."

Meta Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter
It isn't just one of your holiday games.
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have
THREE DIFFERENT NAMES!

T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

(If you need your own Eliot cat mug, they're available here.)

Vincent Van Gogh

Today is Van Gogh's birthday:

Vincent van Gogh was born in Groot Zundert, The Netherlands on 30 March 1853.

Van Gogh's birth came one year to the day after his mother gave birth to a first, stillborn child--also named Vincent. There has been much speculation about Vincent van Gogh suffering later psychological trauma as a result of being a "replacement child" and having a deceased brother with the same name and same birth date. This theory remains unsubstantiated, however, and there is no actual historical evidence to support it.

This site, which sells oil reproductions, has a page that captures Van Gogh's range of work.

Throwback Thursday: Funny uncle has a way with words

From 2007:

My sister's seven-year-old daughter fell yesterday on the way home from school--she "tripped" on her backpack, which she was using as a jump rope, and split her chin wide open on the asphalt.

My Dad, a retired physician, patched her up, but it was my brother who made her laugh. "It's not your fault," he told her. "And it's not your mom's fault. It's the asphalt."

Throwback Thursday: Panic-inducing Verb Tenses

An old email to my mother ...

Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 4:48 PM
Subject: Language development

Yesterday I gave into temptation and corrected [the four-year-old] for saying something wrong . . . was it aten instead of eaten? or something of that sort, and [my sister] admonished me, reminding me that according to linguistic studies correcting does no good; kids just sort of work it out on their own at their own rate.

Then this afternoon the boys had this interesting conversation:

The six-year-old comes running in, clearly delighted with himself: What's wrong with this sentence? "Tomorrow there was an earthquake."

The four-year-old (startled): There was? Here?

Six-year-old: No, no--listen closely. "Tomorrow there was an earthquake."

Four-year-old: Where was it?

I intervene: That's funny. I see what's wrong. "Tomorrow there will be an earthquake."

Four-year-old (alarmed): There will be! Where? Here?

Me: No, nothing happened or is going to happen.

Six-year-old (in sinister tones): .... that we know of.

Me: There was no earthquake. Not here. And I don't think there will be, either.

Four-year-old (very deliberately, as if determined to pin us down): What happened and where did it happen?

Me: Your brother was playing with words. He said, "Tomorrow there was an earthquake," but was is a word for things that have already happened. Will be is what we say about things that haven't happened yet. Like tomorrow.

Four-year-old (obviously thinking his brother and mother are lunatics): Just don't tell me when it happened. Tell me where it happened.

I try again, with a slightly altered repeat of above, concluding, "So 'tomorrow' is a word that hasn't happened yet, and 'was' is a word that has already happened. Now do you understand that there was no earthquake? Nothing happened? Your brother was just playing with words?" (Granted, this was not my most articulate moment ever).

Four-year-old (indecisively, backing away from me): Yeah. Okay. (flees the room)

Human Numbers

In For the Time Being, Annie Dillard writes:

I find the following three approaches to the mystery of human numbers hilarious. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, after his arrest, could not comprehend the fuss. What was the big deal? David von Drehle quotes an exasperated Bundy in Among the Lowest of the Dead: "I mean, there are so many people."

One R. Houwink, of Amsterdam, discovered this unnerving fact: The human population of earth, arranged perfectly tidily, would just fit into Lake Windermere, in England's Lake District.

Recently, in the Peruvian Amazon, a man asked the writer Alex Shoumatoff, "Isn't it true that the whole population of the United States can be fitted into their cars?"

Throwback Thursday: Weird Tales from the Past

The etymology of weird: fate or destiny. Something outside the tangible/physical realm, reaching in and changing it or us.

From 2006: 

A couple of days ago I was out running errands, and stopped by to see a ninety-two-year-old woman who goes to church with us. I like visiting older people; they know how to sit around and talk, repeating stories that they've told a hundred times--not because they're senile, but because the stories are good ones, interesting markers in their lives.

On this occasion Nora got to talking about her parents, who grew up in Missouri.

"One night my mother dreamed that a certain bridge went out," Nora said. "And the next morning, she learned that sure enough, it had. And I'll tell you another thing. We had a friend who worked at the school building. One night she dreamed that a big truck backed up to the school. The next morning they discovered the school had been robbed--the thieves hadn't backed in to begin with, but after they'd broken in another door they backed their truck up just where she'd dreamed they had."

During this tale Nora's daughter had come in the front door, and now was standing beside her mother. Nora hadn't so much as looked up.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi. I can tell you this: We're capable of more than we know. We knew an old man from New Zealand once, and he told us that years ago, when they lived way out in isolated places and didn't have telephones, they still knew when something happened to someone in the family. He said that he thought our quick methods of communication made the natural ways unnecessary, so we sort of turned them off. We ignore them."

"But I can get closer to home," Nora said.

I wasn't sure whether she was answering her daughter, or continuing her string of tales.

Her daughter nodded encouragingly. "Yes, she can get closer to home," she said.

"One night," said Nora, "I dreamed that a family friend was talking on the telephone, and he said 'Frank is dead.' Frank was my daddy. Well, when I woke up I telephoned right away, and sure enough my daddy was in the hospital with a burst appendix. I stayed at that hospital with him for six weeks."

I waited. Nora nodded meaningfully at me.

"Did he ... did he die?"

"He was a long way from the hospital when that appendix burst," she said. "But no, he didn't die, not then. But I tell you this: When we were at the hospital, every time I saw the particular sort of telephone that had been in my dream, I avoided it. Bad news came on that sort of phone, and I didn't want any of it."

By the side of the road

May your coming year be filled with unexpected pleasures.

Reparations and Resolutions

From Morris West's The Devil's Advocate:

The question of reparation worries me greatly at times. I am changed. I have changed. But I cannot change any of the things that I have done. The hurts, the injustices, the lies, the fornications, the loves taken and tossed away. These things have changed and are still changing other people's lives. I am sorry for them now, but sorrow is not enough. I am bound to repair them as far as I can.

But how? It is winter. The paths are closed before me and behind ...

Such a sad sentiment, but one that bears remembering at this time of year: Our choices have tangible, unavoidable consequences, for us and for others.

May we all resolve to make good ones.