Photo from sxc.hu user bo_1963

So I decided to come up with a wacky title for this week’s links. Nothing to do with dancing, but it rhymed and Monday is Columbus Day. In 5th grade, I drove my social studies teacher crazy by repeating two lines of a Columbus poem. (In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In 1493, he sailed the deep blue sea.) I’m amazed she didn’t send me to the principal’s office now that I have kids who have done the same to me.

We’ve all done things to drive our teachers, parents and other adults nuts. What about you?

Brain food …

• 3 Tips for Professional E-Book Covers. Yes, we do judge books by the cover — ebooks included.
• How to Read More: A Lover’s Guide. Even book lovers like me fall into a reading slump. You get busy or choose to relax while watching TV. (It’s essentially reading for me because I read captions!)
• 10 Key Points Freelancers Must Know About LinkedIn. Good reminders. LinkedIn has so much going on. This cuts to the chase.
• Mobile Framework Comparison Chart. For my designer buds. Compare all the frameworks and choose the one that best fits your needs. [Link: Deborah Edwards-Onoro]
• Exquisite Tweets. Paste the URL from a single tweet in a conversation to get a one-page thread to share or save. [Link: Dana Chisnell]

And for fun because we’re allowed …

• 10 Coolest Lunch Bags. If you work in office with public fridge, first lunch bag and one other (ick) will stop theft. I like the lunch bag art bags.
• the difference 10 years makes. Cartoon covering TV, mapping, cell phones and more.
• 12 Hilarious Graffitis on Signs. Spoiler alert! Skip the first one if you haven’t seen Marley & Me …
• Size Comparison Of Famous Sci-fi Spaceships. Putting the end to “My ship is bigger” debate.
• Social Media Icons. I rarely follow the egg. Maybe twice out of the 8,000 I follow.

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My high school’s college fair — gathering of representatives from different colleges — looks pitiful compared to this week’s in Plano (a skip north of Dallas). Plano holds two nights of college nights at two of its three senior high schools in mid-September. Over 200 colleges come. We also went one last spring in Irving that was bigger. These give kids a great opportunity to meet many colleges and narrow their lists.

It’s best to start attending them in 10th grade because by the senior year, you should know where you want to apply because the application process mainly occurs in the fall of the senior year. Thank goodness we went to two of them last year. Now, we’ll be sure to go to at least two during our sons’ junior years. Maybe sneak one in 10th grade. It depends on many factors.

For example, our daughter wants to go to a school in the Northeast. Because of the Irving college fair, she found out about two schools that offer scholarships she can get based on her scores and grades that would bring down the costs. No, she’s not one of those who has a 4.0 GPA or super high SAT scores.

My older son wants to go to Texas A&M or TCU. But he’s 12. Of course, he could change his mind. When I was growing up, I wanted to go to A&M like my big brother did. I got accepted there, but ended up going to TCU for a year and finishing at American U in Washington, DC. What changed my mind was partly personal and partly the realization I needed a smaller school and a better chance of getting smaller classes.

Some kids know exactly where they want to go. In this case, the college fair is an opportunity to learn more about the schools and check out other options.

What was your experience in preparing for life after high school?

Brain food…

• If Things Aren’t Going Right, Try the Left! While focused on art, the advice can work for a lot of areas of our lives.
• 100+ Free HTML Email Templates. Wow. These are beautiful. They’ve also been tested in many of the most popular email apps.
• You’re Reading Too Fast. Better to read fast and get through more books, or to savor and absorb everything? I think it depends on book.
• Codecademy. If coding was this fun back when I took Javascript, Java, PHP, etc. classes, I might’ve been a coder today. Nahhh… like my writin’ biz.
• From Writer to Writer. Emily Suess asked writers — me included — to share their advice for handling rejection.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• To Boldly Go Where No Cookie Has Gone Before… Nom nom.
• You’re Mocking Me Aren’t You? Many faces of Buzz Lightyear.
• 10 Neatest Monopoly Boards. Three Monopoly games is enough. We have the original, kids’ version and the fancy one from Franklin Mint that we ordered years ago.
• Old Timey Star Wars. I love old timey pics.
• The Future According to Sci Fi Films. Better watch out… according to 2012 and I Am Legend, we’re facing the end of the world and zombies taking over next year.
• 100 Years of Fashion. 100 years, 100 seconds, catchy music and rockin’ dancin’.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

I smiled when I read Daphne Gray-Grant’s October 5 issue of Power Writing. (I recommend the newsletter especially for writers.) She wrote, “Finally, one important P.S. I’m no longer a member of a book club because I dislike being told what to read — especially when there’s a deadline. If a book club works for you, well, make that item #8. If not, don’t feel guilty about it! Reading should be about enjoyment, not guilt.”

In this issue, she gave seven ways to make sure your reading helps you writing. I suppose I should share the seven tips to avoid torturing you while reading this. The tips are hers and the comments that follow are mine.

1. Be sure to read only those books you enjoy. It took a couple of books for me to learn to just cut the book loose if it stinks. Well, unless, my college class required it.
2. Read only a limited amount of crap. How do people get an accent where they live? Because they hear it so much, they sound like it. Same thing with reading bad writing.
3. Read the kind of writing you aspire to produce yourself. This doesn’t mean reading Jane Austens. It means if you write white papers, read the white papers from the best writers and books about white papers from reputable white paper writers.
4. Never feel obligated to finish material you don’t like. Before I pick up a book or agree to do a book review, I research it to see if it’s worth my time. Sure, I’ve posted a few reviews of books I didn’t like. In these cases, I was doing a job as a reviewer not reading a book I chose.
5. Keep a record of what you have read. Books read PDF file. ’nuff said.
6. Have a good system for tracking the names of books you want to read. I keep a file with this info that I can access on my mobile device. You never know if you find a deal while out and about.
7. Give books away when you’re finished. The only books I keep are references that I can refer to again, autographed books and special books such as those where I contributed.

I agree with her that reading should be about enjoyment and not guilt. My book club has given me the opportunity to read books that I would otherwise never get to read especially fiction. Because I do non-fiction book reviews and other book-related work, I don’t get to read fiction.

Thanks to the book club, I’m currently reading The Help and read Time Traveler’s Wife. If I don’t like a selection, I don’t read it. Other members have admitted to not reading or finishing a book and we respect that. I also discovered books I would not have considered like The Secret Life of Bees and The Freedom Writer’s Diary. I’m sure every book club operates differently. I appreciate mine for their flexibility, insightful discussions and delightful company.

Daphne Gray-Grant is a writing and editing coach and the author of the popular book 8 1/2 Steps to Writing Faster, Better. She offers a brief and free weekly newsletter on her website. Subscribe by going to the Publication Coach.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Meryl Evans

The success of Harry Potter and Twilight has brought about a new argument (might require free registration) that college students pick books to read like 13-year-olds, aren’t motivated to read books that help them make a difference in the world and don’t debate issues. First, we must give these series credit for lighting a fire in kids to read. If it weren’t for these books, some kids may never voluntarily read a book. Besides, these stir plenty of debate about paganism and witchcraft.

Second, kids in colleges still have to read good literature. They don’t get to choose all of their books. Of course, some may get away with avoiding such classes that assign classic or radical literature. Besides, good professors know how to encourage them to speak their minds about hot topics.

I’m grateful I took the two literature classes in college even though I stupidly took them in the same semester (picture me reading EVERYWHERE when I wasn’t in class) with over a dozen books to read between the two classes. In fact, literature courses were my favorite — I also took children’s literature and African literature.

Thanks to these classes, I had the opportunity to read Billy Budd (hated it), Heart of Darkness (ditto), Things Fall Apart (classic African lit — Chinua Achebe, author, visited my campus), Shakespeare’s The Tempest to name a handful. Not all of them were from many decades ago. We read Margaret Atwood and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ 1985 book, Love in the Time of Cholera.

As for caring about issues and making a difference — my mom instilled that in me with her mighty volunteer work and strong interest in politics. I’m not as big on politics as she is, but I always vote and do my research before voting. I’m an active volunteer with PTA and we advocate for kids by writing letters to our representatives and senators whenever we’re concerned about an issue.

I have three children. One is a freshman in high school. She didn’t read a lot though I stacked her bookshelf with books of all interests. But then, she discovered Twilight (she was the appropriate age and didn’t even like the later books), Georgia Nicholson stories and Mitch Albom. She gobbled these fast. So for her, it’s a matter of finding books she likes. I leave her alone because she never listens to my recommendations aside from Georgia Nicholson (shocked me).

She loves to debate until everyone is blue in the face. She also started a group at her high school to talk about helping other countries. She managed to do that without any books.

My 10-year-old son, on the other hand, hated reading. But he has some issues and attended an intensive program. Since completing that program, he’s more open to reading. He took turns reading Harry Potter and all of HJ Ralles‘ books with Dad. I bought him books on cars, which he loves. It’s a step forward and I’ll take whatever I can get. He’s no pushover, that’s for sure.

The youngest, a kindergartener, loves reading — both being read to and reading. But we’ll see if that lasts once school becomes more work and less play. He already speaks his mind about plenty of things and has a stubborn streak. Could be the Taurus.

I always read. Newspapers, magazines and books. My kids see me reading. That’s all I can do along with talk about something from a book that fascinated me within an earshot or to them.

But I can’t help but wonder how reading will affect the Twitter and Facebook generation. While this generation may not read as much radical lit, they do care about making a difference in the world — just not necessarily with the help of books. The Internet is not bad for them. They connect with others and share their thoughts.

So don’t let go of hope that our young generations don’t care about making a difference or pick books that aren’t as challenging. Embrace anything they read and show them the importance of helping others.

It’ll be OK.

In Get in the Mood for Love, I mentioned that a book could explain how I managed to get my book love groove back. That book is One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer. This was the fourth book I read since reuniting with my books (I read five books in a couple of weeks). Because of this, I knew this process worked.

People try to exercise more often, stop a bad habit, practice writing or improve at something. Maurer says the answer isn’t jumping in or quitting cold turkey. That can lead to failure.

Instead, start small. Exercise for one minute. Smoke one less cigarette. Write 100 words a day adding another 10 or 100 words per day or per week. Whatever pace suits you.

That’s the idea behind kaizen. Kaizen is a Japanese word that means “improvement.”

Thus, I stumbled on this by accident in “returning to regular book reading.” Fried Green Tomatoes, although a good read, was a longer book and didn’t quite push me. The next three books all had fewer than 200 pages and those stimulated me to keep on reading.

I just finished Girl, Interrupted and started Ordinary People. A friend loaned me those books, so I wanted to finish those to return back to her. Next, I believe, will be Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich because I enjoyed reading a magazine story about Hill and his life. Plus, so many speak highly of this book that I want to see for myself.

After that, the plan is to read three books waiting for a book review. And I hope that reading groove sticks with me for a long time to come. Maybe I’ll get through more of my own purchased books.

So if you struggle to meet a goal or make changes — start small. In the case of reading, it meant starting with shorter books. The tricky part is finding short books that captivate enough to motivate you to keep reading.

This process works beautifully for companies. Too often, employees think they need to come up with ways to save thousands of dollars and do something big. No … no … start small. Those little steps can and do turn into giant steps.

Don’t worry about reading a Jane Austen or tackling a literary classic. Just find books with no more than 200 pages with a topic of interest or ask for recommendations. My spark started with Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking — hardly the book I typically read.

What small changes have you made that led to bigger changes? How can you make a change beginning with small steps? What small books do you recommend and why?

Photo credit Katie Tegtmeyer

Married couples often hit a dry spell especially after children come along. They find less time to spend together alone and in the bedroom.

I ran into problems of my own in the bedroom. Between my hand injury and doing many game reviews, I had a dry reading spell. How I missed ending my day cuddled in bed with a book. Goodness knows, many books sit on shelves waiting for me to caress them and feel the love in exchange for giving me knowledge.

A hand injury preventing me from reading? Indeed. No matter what I did, the pain made me grimace. I tried a few tricks so I wouldn’t have to use the injured hand to hold the book. However, the hand hurt constantly causing me not to pay attention to the contents of the book.

It took one book. One small one to get my reading groove back. The book only had 176 pages — officially. A few pages didn’t count because of photos and the line spacing went wider than the average book. So the book was more like 100 pages. It made me laugh, too, an important aspect of a happy relationship.

The book? Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher. Hardly the kind of book I typically read. Before we get into that, let me back up.

I finally worked up the nerve to watching Fried Green Tomatoes based on the book by Fannie Flagg. I heard about a young boy’s death in the movie and didn’t know if I could handle it. Oh, sure, I’ve seen sadder movies. All the movie recommendation sites said I would like the movie. When it appeared on cable, I recorded it.

I liked it. I hated the boy’s death. Nevertheless, it was necessary as it kick-started a friendship in the movie. It didn’t happen the same way in the book, but the death’s impact was important in the development of a character. After the movie, I picked up the book from the library.

In this case, watching the movie before reading the book did no harm. You can do it either way. I also liked the book. Despite this, it didn’t kick start my reading habit. It took a couple of weeks to finish it since I read it during physical therapy while my thumb sat in the sauna (heating pad).

Back on a dry spell until last week. While sitting in the waiting room for over an hour, I found Carrie Fisher’s book. The gal I had been chatting with in the waiting room every Friday told me she left it there for others to read saying it was a fast and funny read. I took her up on it reading all but the last 20 pages when my son finished his meeting. I took it home and finished it that night. Yes, I returned the book to the waiting room.

The topic of Jonathan Livingston Seagull came up in a conversation with my mom. How? I don’t remember, but she encouraged me to read it. Saying it was a short and powerful read. Went to the library to check it out and finished it that night.

I could feel the craving for books returning. In reading a weekly email newsletter, the writer mentioned that she received a book and was embarrassed she took so long to read this little book. I happened to have that book and pulled it from the shelf. Almost done with it, too.

Ironically, the lesson in this book could very well explain how I got my yearn to read books again. What book? That’ll be another post.

While earning my degree in education, I learned about the Fog Index, Flesch-Kincade, and other ways to measure comprehensibility. This helped us understand how to measure content to determine its reading level.

Along the same lines, Denny Hatch [Link from Cincom Expert Access] introduces colleague Bob Scott. Scott uses Robert Gunning’s Fog formula to make writing clearer and more comprehensible. He explains how to use the formula, which is based on two qualities that Gunning believed important in determining readability:

* Average number of words in a sentence.

* Percentage of “hard” words.

Microsoft Word comes with a feature that calculates readability scores based on Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. To use it, click “Tools,” “Spelling & Grammar” and ensure there’s a check in the checkbox next to “Show Readbility Statistics.” Run the spellchecker and after it goes through your document, a pop up box appears with the Counts, Averages, and Readability.

I admit I don’t think about this when I write articles. But I would use Word’s tool more often if we could get the readability scores without running the spellchecker. I’d love to have the tool sit on the toolbar next to the word count.

For non-Word documents, Flesh is a freeware Java-based application that calculates Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. Juicy Studio has an online tool to check a Web site’s readability.

This entry’s Flesch Reading Ease: 50 (easily understood by 6th and 7th graders)

This entry’s Flesch-Kincade Grade Level: 9.8 (probably doesn’t help that I need to use words like “comprehensibility” and “readability.”

University of Texas has a nice table adapted from Flesch’s The Art of Readable Writing. showing what the scores mean.

I review books because it forces me to read books, something I enjoy but have trouble making time for. Leveen is the founder of Levenger, the company that sells “tools for serious readers.” Readers requested something that he couldn’t provide and he attempted to do it with the book: time for reading. Talk about great customer service.

The book didn’t focus much on making time to read, but making the most of what you read. A book still bores you after 50 pages? Stop reading it. Try again later, if you wish. Books that turned us off at 16 might delight us at 30. Every year, we grow and gain experience, which might help us appreciate a formerly disliked book.

I despised memorizing poems in school. But guess what? Some of those memorized poems later became my favorites. Kipling’s “If,” Alfred Noyes “The Highwayman,” Shakespeare’s “All the World’s a Stage” from As you Like It, and Edgar Allan Poe’s “Eldorado.”

Leveen shared the process of experiencing a book, absorbing it, and making it valuable. He suggested writing notes in the margins. Me, the book preserver, hates writing in books. I hate it when I see marks, folded pages, or any damage to a new book.

Leveen shared the perspectives of those who like to write notes and those who like preserving books. I could see the benefits of writing notes and such, but I just can’t do it. The only time I ever did it was in college when I highlighted passages in textbooks. It didn’t do much good, which is probably why I don’t like to mess up a book. But I know writing notes isn’t the same as highlighting text. I might give it a try. I didn’t write in this book despite the encouragement.

One thing I’ve been doing is keeping a list of books I’ve read. After reading this book, I went back through the list and added notes about each one (what I could remember anyway). I’m glad I started this list and of course, I wish I had started it sooner. My list (pdf file) is available so others can discover new books and authors just as I did because of the recommendations of others.

Though I can’t use audio books, I discovered the audio books chapter was worth reading. The book held my attention from beginning to end. It took little time to read the whole book and I absorbed much of it. Book lovers will appreciate and enjoy reading this one.

Title: The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life
Author: Steven Leveen
Publisher: Levenger Press
ISBN: 1929154178
Date: April 2005
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
Cover Price: USD: $17.50 Amazon: $11.90

Gnooks is a seld-adapting engine that helps you find new writers based on writers you like. Also, enter a favorite writer and it creates a map of related writers. It does the same for movies and music. There’s a section called Web, but it works differently from the others. Very cool! Book lovers, go straight there!

Another resource is WhichBook.net to find something to read. Go through the checklist to look for the kind of book you want to read next. The selector also allows you to find a book based on your preferences in character, plot, and setting.