I hope you have a lovely Christmas and that you new year is always happy. To help you with that, my website has had a change of emphasis to focus on Happiness Hints: How to live a peaceful and fulfilling life, my cat column (I'm picking up a new Burmese cat in February and I still have more videos of George to share), and, of course, book reviews (I'll be reading more non-fiction of the kind that will support the new emphasis along with the usual fiction genres). I hope you'll find my posts helpful and inspirational, and if you want posts on writing and publishing, they will now be on my AIA Publishing and Editing website, so you can subscribe to the blog there if that's more your thing than my take on 30 years of meditation and study on working with your mind. I hope I'll see you in both places. And, of course, if you're interested in my Masks and Steampunk Accessories, there'll be more great photos, arty posts and practical steampunk on that website. (I'm separating my interests … [Read more...]
A beautiful children’s picture book for Christmas: The Night Before The Night Before Christmas: Jay Dee & Darren Geers
This is an excellent children’s picture book for Christmas. The story is beautiful, written by Jay Dee in simple but elegant and evocative prose, and the illustrations by Darren Geers are beautiful, colourful without being garish and with a truly lovely light quality. The book has also been beautifully produced, nicely printed and well laid out. The illustrations create a large part of the book’s charm. The artist has imbued the drawings of Elfie, the other elves and Santa Clause with a great deal of expression. They beam off the page. But the story itself does something wonderful; it merges the story of Santa Clause with the birth of Jesus, and also makes a clear statement on the kind of dedication required to achieve perfection. Santa Clause and his role as gift bringer to the good, and Christmas as the story of Jesus Christ’s birth can easily seem like two unrelated ideas of Christmas, but this story shows that it doesn’t have to be like that. I love this story so much that I … [Read more...]
