It’s Cyber Monday, a great time to buy books on amazon or at BarnesandNoble.com for the holidays. As I posted yesterday, if you purchase a copy of The Travelers (Saguaro Books, 2016) starting today, Cyber Monday, through December 31, 2016, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to two charities focused on reading and books. And since it’s Cyber Monday and we’re talking about books, I thought it might be nice to tell a little ebook fairy tale. So here it goes. Once upon a time... a man had a story inside him, a story he had to tell.
Everyone has a guilty reading pleasure, right? Well, in my world my characters do also. Therefore, in this blog I’m going to talk about the books my characters would recommend and their secret guilty pleasures, including books on vampires, zombies (ooo, shiver), pants (yes, you read that right, pants) and Mandalas. What's a Mandala you ask? Read to find out!
Today is Black Friday, if you're braving the malls and high traffic areas - good luck! We're going to play table tennis and watch Gilmore Girls. Tomorrow, however, I will brave the shopping areas because it is Small Business Saturday, at least according to Kristen Bell. (You may know her from Frozen fame and the great new show The Good Place. She'll always be Veronica Mars to me. Go Marshmallows!) She's done a series of commercials to support the day and they worked on me, at least! I'm in!
Did you know a study indicated that if everyone became a vegetarian we could solve world hunger? Kind of interesting, huh? OK, calm yourselves meat-lovers, I’m not trying to take away your turkey right before Thanksgiving and the thought of Tofurky is unappealing even to me. However, I did find this little tidbit of scientific information compelling. It made me me think about food, hunger, books and reading. I wondered if anyone has ever studied the relationship between food and reading. So, I went searching...
It's Tuesday and, as I established last week, I plan to devote Tuesdays to a blog based on one of my husband's many interesting t-shirts. Now, I could have chosen my husband's pessimism t-shirt. It's very funny and would have resulted in an interesting blog. BUT, today I already decided to go rogue. I'm going to base it on one of MY t-shirts instead. (Sorry pessimism. Another Gilmore Girl's blog isn't the worst thing that could happen. 😉 )
Thanksgiving is coming soon. For many of us, it's usually about turkey and pie. Of course, this year, it's also about super awkward conversations and silences as we all try avoid talking about the giant orange elephant in the room. (No insult meant to real elephants. You're adorable). We all know what we learned in school about Thanksgiving. The pilgrims and the Native Americans come together, two very opposite cultures, and break bread peacefully. But this made me wonder - what is the real story of Thanksgiving? Here are common misconceptions about Thanksgiving I found.
It’s no secret among my friends and family, and anyone who follows me on twitter, that I have a tiny obsession with the Gilmore Girls. It’s one of my favorite shows of all time. I’ve seen every episode more than once and my favorite episodes so many times I can’t count. Since the premiere is only 5 days away, I thought it might be fun to rank my top 5 favorite Gilmore Girls episodes. Trust me, this wasn’t easy and, to be clear, these are not even what many might call the “best” episodes. But, I have a personal connection to them!
It's finally Friday. And I'm in much need of a distraction. So let's have some silly Friday Fun and pretend for 5 minutes that all the world's problems could be solved if we just cared about each other as much as we cared about our dogs. I mean. I get it. I love my dog, even when she wakes me up at 5 am to throw up on my carpet (which she does more frequently than I'd like). How could I not love that face though? Look at her, she's adorable and she loves books! She's perfect! Alright, so we've established dogs are adorable and great. Let's take this up a notch. Since I had so much fun writing a blog on “if my characters were Barbie dolls,” I thought I’d try a variation on this theme. In this blog, I’m going to do, if my characters from The Travelers were dogs.
The Travelers, my first published novel, falls into the young adult (YA) genre of fantasy/paranormal/sword and sorcery (I never realized so many genres and sub-genres of YA existed!) People often ask me what inspired me to write for young adults. I had several reasons. For one, young adults seem to actually read books. More importantly, they are more open to ideas and exploration of truths. I wanted to write a book that was fun and exciting. But, I also wanted it to be more than just a book about two teens who fall in love and overcome obstacles. I wanted it to say something, maybe even teach something.
K.L. Kranes 