Monkey Business: Fun with Idioms by Laura Hambleton and Sedat Turhan

'Monkey Business: Fun with Idioms' by Laura Hambleton and Sedat Turhan is a book that shows you a bunch of idioms and like

many books of its nature where the answers are in the back after you read the idioms. 

This is an educational book with no story that would be best used to inform people who speak another language about the odd points of English. 

Who should read this book? Folks having trouble with idioms. 

Books read: 79 of 5000

Moo, the Cow Cat

5^th December 2011

Dear Cassi,

I do not recall if I have spoken to you of my favorite part of my trips to Yorba Linda. On this occasion I had been invited to a holiday dinner and having not seen the eaters for more than a month I grew lonesome for the company of their family cats. This home keeps a number of cats of which four are my normal companions. Their three dogs are likewise happy to afford my company. 

       

In this lot there is an animal called a Twist by cat fanciers, and she is black and white, large in body, social to the visiting folk, and vial to her fellow felines. Adorned with a cow bell round her neck and having a large belly that hangs down she does her name proud. They call her Moo the Cow Cat.

       

On arriving I took the mini-cow into my arms as I always do, but her claws sank deeper than normal into my skin. I reached round her to loosen her grip, and for the first time in my recollection she hissed at me.

       

I detached the ornery feline and put her down to have her drop down on her back and put a leg up to expos her belly. Apology accepted I gave her tummy a rub.       

Cats can be funny things, and I think this one took a moment to remember who I was, or perhaps she was just startled. I believe few are willing to lift the large cat. She is hard on clothing with her claws and being black and white she gets fur on everything.

       

I can forgive all of Moo’s short comings, because she knows how to apologize. Who could stay mad at a cat to begin with?

Stay safe, Cassi.

Richard Leland Neal

The Loch Ness Monster by Jacqueline Laks Gorman Book Review

The Loch Ness Monster by Jacqueline Laks Gorman is an examination of the legend of good old Nessy and the evidence there of. This is definitely not an in depth look at the monster or the

possibility of it's existence, but rather this book is a summery of some of the work done to look for the beast.  

Now, if your kid is a junior monster hunter then this book may keep their interest. I will, however, need to point out that there is a lot of information that could have been in this book that is missing.   This could be because of copyright or just book length but if you're looking at this as anything it's just a place to start.  Monster hunters will find this only deepens the hunger for more information. 

Who should read this book? Junior Monster Hunters 

Books read: 78 of 5000

When You were a Tadpole - Langdon Smith

Combing Through Old TV - Bill Maher

Loss of Your Company

18^th January 2018

Dear (Book Geek),

My condolences on the loss of your company as it would appear it has gone under. This isn’t the first book publisher I’ve seen that fell to the bad economy, but with the world turning more and more to used books and books about politics coming more and more into the public eye you can hardly be surprised.

However, with nothing left to lose or gain I do have two questions to ask. The first is ‘may I publish the correspondence between myself and your company’, and the second being ‘what was the real truth behind what happened to my work’?

I publish almost every letter I write or receive of a page length or longer on my blog, and so I think it would be helpful to other writers to publish at least one of the letters you sent me. I will remove your name and the name of your company, not that it would make a difference, and I will never speak of who wrote them. I simply believe that the advice I was given may be of help to others.

As for my second question, there is no secret to the fact that I was feuding with another author and that it was him and his friends who gave my book bad reviews. You asked for harsh criticism, and I gave it to you, but everything I wrote was honest. This fellow took it personally and got his friends to gang up on me. Then you took both of our books down.

I know this to be a major outlier, because there were books that sat for more than a year with no reviews and still were left on the site, but the two of us got the ax without a definitive number of reviews. I also noted that I could still access my book on your page but that, unlike other books that had been taken down, moderation had been removed.

If I offended you I’m sorry, if I caused you trouble you have my apologies, but it still looks as if there is more to the story, and I would like to know. It may even do you well to tell.

Best,

Richard Leland Neal 

Justice be Done - John Quincy Adams