Today or tomorrow, depending on your time zone, is the first quarter moon, time for another poem from Mary Oliver’s Twelve Moons. Today’s poem is Turtles. I think I mentioned, when first blogging about my plan to use this book as a lunar calendar in 2011, that some of the poems would inevitably not appeal to me, and this is one of those, so I won’t say anything more about it.
In an email to a friend yesterday I told him that I felt like I had a book report due. Lo and behold, Michelle brought home a package from the mail, a pair of books from a publisher of self reliance titles.
If you’ve followed the blog, you’ve seen occasional reviews of books that interest me in some way, usually because of how they relate to our lifestyle. I’d been approached by the publisher about the possibility of reviewing some of their titles. I agreed, after naming my terms, which I’ll lay out to you as well so you know where I’m coming from when I talk about these titles.
Up till now, all the books I’ve discussed here on the blog have been ones I’ve read on my own. I try to be completely honest on the blog (if oblique) so when I review books on request, I want to be upfront about it being sent to me for review. I don’t see that as lessening a book’s value at all, it just clarifies that it’s not something I went out and found on my own.
That also means that my reviews will be honest. I can’t imagine this happening, but if a book turned out to be an absolute stinker, I’d let the author or publisher know first before broadcasting my opinion on the blog. They say there’s no such thing as negative publicity, but I’m not sure I believe that.
I am not being paid for reviewing the titles this publisher sent, other than a copy of each book.
Having said all that, the two titles we received yesterday look great. I can’t wait to get into them. If I like them, you’ll hear about it here.