The Stream Runs Fast - Book Review

Just so you all know, I am still around, still reading and still making lenses on Squidoo.

The last book I finished reading was called The Stream Runs Fast by Nellie McClung. This was her autobiography. It covered her life from 1896 when she got married until 1945 when the book was published.

Nellie is a reasonably big name in Canadian History. At least she SHOULD be. She was a suffragette and a political activist. She helped Canada to bring in the vote for women and she also helped Canada to give women legal status by having them recognized as persons so that women could sit in the Canadian federal government. She was also a writer and wrote a number of books as well as numerous newspaper columns and editorials. Some of her writings can be read at Project  Gutenberg.

Nellie wrote The Stream Runs Fast towards the end of her life. It was first published in 1945 and she died in 1951. I wrote a lens about Nellie using The Stream Runs Fast to review all that she did in her life. Nellie really made a difference.

My edition of The Stream Runs Fast was published in October 2010 byThomas Allen Publishers.

Happy Birthday dear Bibliohistoria

This is just so you know what happening, or not happening as the case may be. Tomorrow (March 17th)  is of course St Paddy's day (and I am not Irish) and tomorrow is also the 4th birthday of this blog.

And obviously my interest in reading and reviewing books seems to have died down quite considerably. That is surprising to me but that's the nature of the scanner personality!!!

I am spending a lot of my time on Squidoo now - creating lenses (webpages) on all sorts of subjects. So far I have made 60 lenses. You can read them from my profile page.

I cant promise to keep my promise of reading and reviewing 2 books per month. Well actually I am still interested in reading the books. I just  seem to have lost all interest in writing reviews. So dont expect any regular updates to this blog. I will continue to post any interesting bookish news I read about.

Check out my Squidoo profile page (linked above) to keep up with what's happening to me. Since we have to keep our lenses Unique, Useful and Updated, I find that I make lenses about things that happen around me. Personal lenses do better for content and visitors than essay type lenses
Ciao for now.

Recent news about Mohammed Yunus

Bangladesh's Yunus loses appeal against sacking

Mohammed Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and then wrote 2 books about the Grameen bank and about microfinancing, has lost his appeal over the banks action of sacking him from the board of directors of the very bank he founded. This action was taken because he was considered to now be too old. The mandatory retirement age for bank officers in Bangladesh is 60. Yunus is currently 70 years old. Yunus also won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2006.

I write a review of Yunus's book called - Banker to the Poor - which was posted in January 2008.

The Women I was Born to be - Book Review

The Women I was Born to Be - My Story
By Susan Boyle
Atria Books (Simon & Schuster) 2010

Hands up anyone who has NEVER heard of Susan Boyle. Of course you have. She's the woman from Scotland who came out of nowhere to superstardom in April 2009 after just one audition on the TV show Britain's Got Talent.

If you haven't heard her sing or you want to hear her again - listen to her audition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8P9d0zGZl4

In January 2009 (2 years ago) Susan Boyle was an unemployed mentally challenged unmarried woman, in her 40s, living in the village of Blackburn just outside of Edinburgh in Scotland. Susan was the youngest of 9 children from a Roman Catholic family - her 8 older siblings are anywhere from 3 to 15 years older than her.

Susan had been deprived of oxygen for a short time at birth (she was born in 1961) and this had left her slightly brain damaged. She was relentlessly bullied in school and had difficulty passing exams. But she had always loved music and loved to sing. And as the youngest of the family Susan admits that she was a little spoiled by her parents.

Susan grew up singing in church choirs, and smoky pubs. She also loved listening to music on the radio and when the TV came long, she would watch the music show Top of the Pops - a long time weekly music show that did the top 10 countdown with the artists every week. Susan's most favourite music singer as a child was Donny Osmond. They both had similar backgrounds - they both came from large religious families where music was a big part of their lives.

Susan's father died in 1999. One of Susan's older sisters also unexpectedly died not long after, which devastated the family. Susan and her mother loved watching the reality shows and the music shows on TV. Susan's mother began encouraging Susan to think about auditioning for one of these shows. After her mothers death, Susan decided that the time was right to do something so she applied to audition.

In January of 2009 Susan appeard on a stage in Glasgow in front of Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan and sang. She and the audience were sworn to silence as she was invited back to the live semi-finals to be held after the auditions had aired on TV.

On April 11, 2009 Susan's audition was aired on TV in Britain. Of course Susan watched it - along with her family and friends. That night the neighbours came banging on her doorstep asking for her autograph. The next morning her telephone started ringing and never stopped. When Susan called the TV show producers and asked what was going on, she was told, "oh your audition is on youtube, its gone viral." Susan did not have a computer and had no idea what you tube was.

This book is Susans memoir of her life and of the first 18 months after she was "discovered."

I found it very readable except for 2 small issues - but these are just my own personal issues about Susan, and have nothing to do with the book itself.

Susan's roman catholic faith is a big part of her life so she often refers to praying in church to help her cope with the stresses of life. She also writes extremely detailed accounts of her meeting with the scottish monsignor (cardinal) and the pope. I am not religious at all so these parts were somewhat boring for me.

The other issue I had was her constant use of the word "wee" meaning small. I know its how scottish people talk - but I feel it was quite overused in this memoir.

But other than that, this is a fascinating account of what it is like to rise from obscurity to stardom literally overnight thanks modern inventions like the internet.

Silence is golden....or not....

OK OK OK I know I havent posted anything for a month. I'm sorry.

The reason is that my scanner personality has taken over and I am spending a lot of my time on Squidoo, making lenses (mini webpages) and making friends there as well. I am also still reading fan fiction online and looking for a job.

So I will make a deal with you. I will read and review at least a minimum of 2 books per month this year, or until my passion for Squidoo dies down.

I find that reading books is getting a little boring. I think in part because I dont have the extra money to go out and buy books. I have to borrow them from the library. I frequently have to reserve and get them out on inter library loan - and then I am forced to read them to a deadline - usually 3 or 6 weeks. For some reason that removes the enjoyment out of reading them. I have no idea why or how.

J'Adore New York - Book Review

J'Adore New York
by Isabelle LaFleche
Harper Collins 2010
Author's website

The international law firm Edward and White in New York City is expanding. It sends out a compelling advertisement to its 45 offices in Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas. 

We are seeking talented and ambitious associates from our international offices to transfer to our ever expanding team in New York. These positions offer the opportunity to work on high-end transactions with the world’s leading corporations, financial institutions, and governments. The New york office enjoys a collegiate and partner-directed, not partner-dominated, work environment, which offers excellent career development opportunities.

There are only 3 job vacancies available at the NYC office. Catherine Lambert from the Paris office is lucky enough to get one of the coveted positions.

I don't normally read chicklit but when you read the blurb of a novel that combines french haute couture and large american law firms, you have the makings of a fun, bitchy and non-stop story.

If you want to know what really goes on in a high flying law firm, then you should read this novel. The bitchiness and back stabbing starts on page 1 and it doesnt let up until the very last page.

Catherine Lambert is thrown into the fray and must either sink or swim on her own. On her very first day in the office, she is sent out of town to conduct a due diligence review for an acquisition client. Amongst the documents Catherine finds a letter that indicates the CEO and the CFO committed fraud.

The second day on the job, Catherine meets Antoine, a securities lawyer who is transferring to Paris soon. He dumps all his workload onto her desk but sweetens the deal with a request for her to help with an intellectual property protection and counterfeiting investigation of the Dior brand. Dior is Catherine's MOST favourite brand.

Catherine also meets her paralegal assistant Rikash. An impeccably dressed Indian man, who is overtly gay with a penchant for French haute couture, Rikash and Catherine had previously bonded over the telephone.

Other characters that Catherine meets include Bonnie, the head of mergers & acquisitions, Nathan, a cocaine snorting lawyer, Scott, a managing partner of the firm and Harry the head of the entire litigation department. And then there are Mel and Jeffrey. Both represent large clients who are given to Catherine to deal with. One has an IPO (intial public offering) that is about to be released. The other is a hedge fund manager from a large financial firm.

In a matter of days Catherine comes under great pressure to make enough billable hours, and she watches both her social life and shopping life disappear. To make things worse, she also has to find her own apartment and that is not a billable expense.

Bonnie becomes the boss from hell as she demands that Catherine do all the demeaning business that a personal assistant would normally do, including picking up Bonnie's drycleaning.

The hedge fund manager turns out to be a sexist bastard and within a few weeks he has invited Catherine to a gala that he claims his wife is involved with. At the gala, the wife turns out to be the ex-wife. Mel gets drunk and gropes and propositions Catherine in a very obvious manner. When Catherine turns him down, he threatens to get her fired. The next day he sends an email to Scott and Harry (copied to Catherine) saying that she engaged in inappropriate behaviour in his presence - specifically becoming intoxicated and embarrassing him. He sees no point in staying with their firm and will be taking his business elsewhere. To Catherine he sends an email saying - Too bad you didn't exercise your good judgement last night....

Jeffrey's company is preparing to go public and Catherine is hard at work preparing the prospectus and the IPO.  Jeffrey wines and dines her and showers her with jewellery. She thinks she is in love until the day he gives her a ring and asks her to move some shares from his portfolio into another name so he can sell them and make a profit. The rules say that shares are locked for several weeks after an IPO opens for this specific reason - so that the company shareholders dont use insider trading to make a profit.

Catherine is shocked. She calls Jeff on the phone a few days later, turns on her dictaphone and asks him to explain the details of his scheme. Without committing herself, she decides its is time to get out of NYC and starts looking around for a new job.

The head office decides to have a retreat for all partners and Catherine is forced to take a weekend off to attend. Fortunately she meets up woth Antoine (still at the Paris office) and their relationship flares up again. She tries to meet the legal counsel (head lawyer) for Dior who is staying in the same hotel but is unable to do so. She made an appointment to meet with the lawyer but the lawyer skipped town early the next morning.

When she returns to NYC, Catherine complains to Rikash about the Dior lawyer who skipped out on an appointment. Rikash promises to fix the situation and the very next day Catherine gets a telephone call from Paris from the Dior lawyer herself - the very one she had the appointment with.

Catherine is asked to fly to Paris to attend an interview. It turns out that Rikash had fedexed Catherine's resume to Paris on coloured paper that turns out to be the colours of the brand new Dior couture collection.  The Dior counsel tells Catherine that the head of the Intellectual Property dept of Dior is retiring and Catherine's resume looks as if she has the required skills and experience. Catherine is thrilled and she and Rikash break open a mini bottle of champagne to celebrate.

The Author.
Isabelle Laflèche worked for over ten years in Toronto, New York City and Montreal as a corporate attorney in a large law firm and on Wall Street. In 2005, she was responsible for the business affairs of a Quebec based fashion designer where she developed her penchant for haute couture. This is her first novel. She lives in Montreal, Quebec.

And she's off.....

I hope you all had a Happy New Years.

In keeping with my Scanner Personality, I have found a new interest.

"Oh no, not again...." I can hear you whispering.

Now I love creating web pages and blogs, but blogs are time consuming and webpages means writing a lot of HTML code. If you have checked out my dashboard page here for all my blogs, you can see that I currently have 19 blogs. Some of my blogs are for book reading challenges and others are for various areas of interest.

And last week I found a new way to create web pages for all my varied areas of interest. It satisfies my drive to educate and teach others, and to create, and it satisfies my need for the method to be relatively easy and painless. It is called SQUIDOO.

For Squidoo, one can create a singe page for a specific area of interest and creating the page is as easy as clicking a few buttons. Each page is called a LENS and their creators are called LENSMASTERS. A lensmaster can have as many pages as they choose. It is not unusual for some lensmasters to have 500 pages or more.

Squidoo supports itself with ads. Most of the ads run at the top and bottom of each page and down the sidebar on the right. There is still plenty of space to write up about your interests. Lensmasters can also use various affiliate programs to sell products - the most common one used is Amazon.

Some lensmasters have worked hard and are now creating a decent income with their lenses - anywhere from a few hundred dollers every month to several thousands every year. For others like me, the money is secondary (not important) and the stronger desire is to teach and educate. If our pages do generate any money, it gets sent to charities of our choice.

My plan is to gradually move most of my blogs over to Squidoo and delete the blogs. But don't worry!!! I will be keeping this blog. I am not throwing away almost 4 years of hard work. No way!!

As of today I have already created 7 Squidoo lenses and am in the middle of creating 2 more. I did say they were easy to make. The community at Squidoo is wonderful. There is a very supportive forum where one can ask questions and get help.

My main Squidoo page or main lens is called a LENSOGRAPHY. It has information about me and links to all my other lenses. On Squidoo I call myself SERENIA. That is an old Egyptian name found on papyrus in Egypt.

Serenia Lensography

I hope you will visit my various lens pages and either leave a comment or click the Liked It button at the bottom of each page.