Sheri Richey's Blog, page 37

2013 NetGalley Reading ChallengeThe 2013 NetGalley Readin...

2013 NetGalley Reading Challenge

The 2013 NetGalley Reading Challenge is hosted by Red House Books and I will be participating!  I have dozens of pre-release books from publishers and I will be posting reviews of those books as I read them.

For my first read/review of 2013, I've started GUILT (An Alex Delaware Novel) by Jonathan Kellerman (Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine Books) and the publish date is set for February 12, 2013. Check back soon to get the early scoop!

Banned Books Week 2010 (Sept. 25-Oct. 2)

As I'm dutifully reading my September 2010 AARP bulletin to assess my aging issues as I eat a BLT on top of it, I come across a page listing BANNED BOOKS. It's not a topic I've given much thought to and didn't realize that censorship was alive and well in the book world still today. I thought censorship of talk radio was the only threat still lurking. I was equally surprised to see the number of classics making the list.

The American Library Association (ALA) sponsors a Banned Books Week and has compiled listings of the top ten banned books by year. Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Celebrate BBW by reading a book from the banned books list and defy the small minded that seek to restrict your freedom of choice!

What will you choose? I think I may be risque and pick "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" first and then "A Thousand Acres" by Jane Smiley. They were both deemed socially offensive. I can't wait!

Finding Eden is now available as a Kindle download on Ama...

Finding Eden is now available as a Kindle download on Amazon.com!!

Finding Eden began as a single story that I planned to write for my mother as a gift. As it progressed I became so attached to the characters and enjoyed the writing process that I couldn't stop. The single story became the first in a series of five books that cover a 15 year period in the lives of this large pseudo family.

Read all five and let me know which characters are your favorites!

Celtic Thunder

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Online Dating Sites

Although I'm new to this phenomenon, I've quickly noticed there a few things that I find unbearably annoying about it. I've not looked at the ads women are posting so I can only speak on the men's profiles but a male friend shared his opinions with me on women's profiles, so I'll include a few of his insights, too.

For Men:
Don't post a picture of your body without your face. That says you're hiding something or you think I'm as shallow as you are.Don't post a picture with you and another woman. I don't care if you try to cut them out or not--I can tell. I also don't care if it's your sister. I don't know that and won't read far enough to find that out. It makes you look like a player and even for women shopping for flings, they don't want competition.Don't write about your long lost love in your profile--even if she's dead. Again, women don't want competition. They are insecure enough already. You may think it shows you are capable of true love and committment but it actually makes us feel as though we're second best and we'll never live up to your expectations. Don't send your first contact with some raunchy line that you wouldn't walk up to a stranger and say. I know some people are just raunchy in any venue, but most wouldn't meet someone new and tell them they are drug and disease free or tell them they like long foreplay. It doesn't belong in the first IM or email of introduction either. Internet dating feels sleezy enough without your help.Don't take a month to answer an email. It looks as though you are working on other options and only replied when those fell through. By the time you answer, I have moved on several times.Don't tell me your favorite movie was Message in a Bottle or The Notebook. I know that's bull and you look silly trying to put forth a sensitive facade. It is especially a turnoff to me, because I didn't see Message in a Bottle and I thought The Notebook was ridiculously sappy.Don't treat me like a child or tell me you want to "mentor" me. I've made it through life okay this far without you and I don't like being treated like I'm mentally challenged.

For Women: (opinions provided by a male friend who is on a dating website)

Don't post pictures of yourself hanging upside down, pole dancing or wearing clothes you wouldn't be seen outdoors in. It makes you look shallow, cheap, desperate and available to anyone who answers the ad. Even a man looking just for sex wants to feel as though he's accomplished something by getting it. You are ruining the challenge and he can just seek out a prostitute. Men will look at these pictures, but no quality man will contact you.Don't ask for money. Some men might give it to you but only if they think it's their idea. It's the sense of accomplishment thing again.Don't say you like to watch sports on TV if you don't. Not all men want that in a woman and few expect it. It looks forced and phoney.Don't act stupid if you're not. Contrary to popular opinion, men aren't looking for empty headed women. There are enough differences in the sexes that both have something to offer each other and most want a partner that is an equal.Don't act interested if you're not. When a gorgeous 25 year old is pawing all over a 55 year old paunchy bald guy, even he looks for the motive.If you see something you like, say so. Don't wait to see if they notice you. Men are very flattered by the first contact, even if the sentiment isn't returned. Don't email stalk them if they don't respond. Some just don't know how to handle saying, "no thanks". Women are used to it, but most men haven't had enough experience to be comfortable with being approached first and just avoid contact if they aren't interested. Email is like ping pong and you don't get two turns. Be patient. You may not get a timely response to your contact because their mother died or they've had their internet access turned off for failure to pay. (If it's the latter, you've lost nothing!) They may be trying to reply, wearing out the spell checker and struggling to phrase things correctly to you. Or they may just not be interested. Only time will tell.

In closing there are a few things that apply to everybody~> Be honest, be safe and be single.

Monster Mothers

OLPE, Germany -- The bodies of three German babies, all of whom appear to have been newborns when they died in the 1980's, have been found stuffed in a basement freezer in the cellar of a detached house in the town of Wenden, about 60 miles east of Bonn. The bodies were found after police received a tip from the woman's 18 year old son who discovered the bodies while searching for a pizza and she has been arrested. The woman has been placed under medical supervision after confessing because of her mental state and the corpses, which were wrapped in plastic bags, will undergo autopsies once they have thawed. The three children were not stillborn and would be approximately 17-23 years old if alive today. The woman, (Monika H, 44) her 47-year-old electrician husband, and three grown children (two sons, aged 18 and 22, and a 24-year-old daughter) have lived for years in the town but the mother claims the other family members were unaware of the babies in the freezer. The woman is believed to have hidden the three pregnancies from her family, giving birth in the bathtub and then placing the newborns in plastic bags, where they suffocated, before hiding them in the freezer.


Germany has been hit by what amounts to an infanticide epidemic:

In April 2008, a dead baby boy was found hidden under rubble in a roadworks in Saxony, another baby turned up in a rubbish recycling center and yet another in an attic.
In February 2008, police were called to a home in northern Germany where a dead child was discovered in the cellar.
In January 2008, a 28-year-old German woman was charged with manslaughter after the remains of three babies were discovered in her house and the home of a relative.
In December 2007, a 31-year-old woman was arrested after police recovered the bodies of five children aged between three and nine years old were found in a house in Darry, near the northern city of Kiel after being drugged and strangled.
The same week a woman was arrested in Plauen in eastern Germany on suspicion of killing three newborn babies she had given birth to. The bodies were discovered in a trunk in the cellar, on the balcony and in the fridge.
Last November 2007, a 35-year-old woman from Erfurt was sentenced to 12 years in jail for killing two of her babies and hiding their bodies in a freezer.
In January 2007, a 21-year-old admitted giving birth to three children and then hiding their bodies in her garage in the town of Thoerey in the eastern state of Thuringia.
Another woman, Sabine Hilschenz, was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 for killing eight of her babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border. She is currently serving a 15 year prison sentence.
Last year a 39-year-old Bavarian mother was put on trial for strangling her baby daughter and putting her in the icebox. One dead infant was found dumped in a car park litter bin. Others have been dropped, wrapped in plastic shopping bags, into lakes.

The motivation for baby killing appears to be rooted in a sense of being overwhelmed by responsibility, and the terror of change within a male-female relationship. “Some women have a greater fear of losing their partners than of losing their child,” says the criminologist Professor Helmut Kury. “They take desperate measures to save a relationship.”

[NOTE: The spokesman of the Hagen murder squad described the family as a "completely normal, middle-class family."] YIKES!

Compiled from The Irish Times, RTE.ie News, Berlin AFP, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, BBC News, Times Online, Deutsche Welle and The Associated Press

British TV

I know that we all have 400 channels now but there is still nothing on TV. You have a few months out of the year that you scramble to see a couple of new shows until the reruns take over. Searching madly for some background noise that I can't lip sync, I tried BBC. I've greatly enjoyed a number of the British dramas once I was able to overlook the aggravating accent.
Most Americans have heard of Doctor Who but few have probably watched it. It's an amusing show, along with the spinoff, Torchwood. Jekyll was another that I was temporarily addicted to but my current favorite is Wire in the Blood. A strange title, I agree, but it is currently in its fourth season and the story lines are based on books by Val McDermid about a peculiar shrink who assists police much like a profiler. Val McDermid is still writing and has other series in addition to the Dr. Tony Hill series that created Wire in the Blood. I'm going to need to read a few and hope I don't feel compelled to read them all. I have a tendency to over-do sometimes...

Having recently just returned from England, I can attest to one thing. When you are over there, there's not a damn thing to watch on their TV either.

Reality Rewrite

Being a fairly frequent viewer of a variety of reality shows and living a piece of reality myself for a number of years, I have concluded that reality is terribly disappointing and reality shows are embarrassing. I just watched a portion of a reality show called Workout that revolves around a lesbian gym owner named Jackie and her simple minded employees. It is a shameful display of the most shallow petty people I've ever witnessed. These players know that they are being filmed. They are talking into the camera and yet they don't even attempt to portray themselves admirably. They don't have enough sense to see how demeaning their character looks in the bright lights and I feel compelled to feel embarrassed for them but it is exhausting. It probably is realistic, however sad that admission makes me feel.
I think that's what keeps literature alive-- the fact that reality isn't all that fulfilling and people aren't what you wish they were. Because of this, you write them to be acceptable, honorable, exciting or satisfying. You can create an inviting fantasy to give yourself comfort. Reality is fairly uneventful for most of us but even when something monumental does happen, we usually wish later that we would have said or done something differently. Writing it instead of living it lets you use that hindsight to your best advantage.