This post is a team effort: the good people over at iREAD Book Tours provided the questions, Brian VanDongen provided the answers, I provided the . . . er, well, intro? I really want to read this book after reading this, hopefully you have the same reaction.
| What made you write a book about play? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| How did you get those stories about play for the book? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Did you have a favorite story you came across during your research? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Seems dangerous. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Do you have a favorite place to play? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
— Read the book in question, Play to Live: Life Skills and Joy Through the Natural Talent to Play by Brian VanDongen.My thanks to iREAD Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials they provided.
Today I’m pleased to welcome the Book Spotlight Tour for Play to Liveby Brian VanDongen. I think this book good — especially for parents of kids who are about a decade younger than my youngest, but I can’t fit in to my schedule (at least not quickly enough to help out with the tour). Still, I thought it was potentially useful and wanted to help spread the word about it. So we’ve got this here spotlight and then a little later this morning a A Few Quick Questions with the author. But first, check out the information about the book and the givewway — or just go buy it. Either way…
Book Details:Book Title: Play to Live: Life Skills and Joy Through the Natural Talent to Play by Brian VanDongen
Book Blurb:Play To Live: Life Skills and Joy Through The Natural Talent To Play by author Brian VanDongen takes you back to your childhood to remind you about what being a child is all about. Playing! We all have those fond childhood memories of growing up playing with our friends in social settings. Developing social skills and learning how to handle friendships and relationships. What we didn’t realize at the time was that those skills we learned for the building blocks which lay the foundation for the rest of our lives. What are our children learning right now? How are they playing now and what part are we playing in how our children interact with the world around them. For many children, their idea of play and playing now consists of talking to friends online and playing with electronic devices, staying safe indoors, and not venturing further than their own small safe world which we have created. Inside Play To Live you’ll discover:
Inside Play To Live: Life Skills and Joy Through The Natural Talent To Play you’ll read about case studies and reports followed by tips, tricks, and information to help you. If you would like to rediscover what it means to play, then grab a copy of Play To Live right now! Purchase Links for Play to Live: Amazon ~ Apple Books
About Brian VanDongen:
Brian is a life-long “parks and rec kid.” Now, he is a parks and recreation professional. Brian has created, designed, and implemented transformational recreational programming for thousands of residents. Through his work as a park and recreation professional, Brian helps people play and find their natural talent to play. He believes everyone has that talent, but it is sometimes hard to find, or even suppressed in today’s society. Fortunately, play at its most basic level is easy, fun, healthy, and desirable. That playful talent just needs to be unleashed. Brian has helped thousands of people find their natural talent to play and become happier and healthier people through the power of play. Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Instagram
GIVEAWAY:Win a signed copy of Play to Live: Life Skills and Joy Through the Natural Talent to Play (1 winner / open to USA only) (ends July 13, 2019) https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js (if the Rafflecopter script isn’t working, just click here — it’s not as pretty, but it works) My thanks to iREAD Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials they provided.
Runnin’ late — been running late all week, really. No time for an intro, really. Go directly to the links, do not pass go, do not collect $200. The odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
This has been one of those weeks…I seem to have a lot of them, lately. I’ve barely been online — as this short list will demonstrate. Still, some good stuff. Also, I’ve been trying to adjust to Progressive lenses. Trying being the operative word. I’m spending a lot of time with my new lenses in my pocket, to be honest. Which is not what I spent the money for. My old glasses took up space in my pocket while I read for a lot less money. Any glasses that interfere with my reading are not going to spend a lot of time on my face. Anyone else out there dealt with Progressive lenses? Anyone have better success? Tips to share? Still, I cobbled together a few odds ‘n ends over the week about books and reading that caught my eye. You’ve probably seen some/most/all of them, but just in case:
Today I’m excited to welcome the Book Tour for the funny, clever, tragic and engaging Dead is Beautiful by Jo Perry. I already posted about the book back in February, so along with this spotlight post, I’ve been given a great excerpt to share here in a bit as well as a page that indexes The Irresponsible Reader’s Jo Perry/Charlie and Rose content in one easy to use post. But first, let’s focus on the book in question here: Dead is Beautiful Book Details:Book Title: Dead is Beautiful by Jo Perry Book Blurb:DEAD IS BEAUTIFUL finds Rose leading Charlie from the peace of the afterlife to the place he hates most on earth, “Beverly Fucking Hills,” where a mature, protected tree harboring a protected bird is being illegally cut down. The tree-assault leads Charlie and Rose to a to murder and to the person Charlie loathes most in life and in death, the sibling he refers to only as “his shit brother,” who is in danger. Charlie fights-across the borders of life and death–for the man who never fought for him, and with the help of a fearless Scotsman, a beautiful witch, and a pissed-off owl, Charlie must stop a cruel and exploitative scheme and protect his beloved Rose.
About Jo Perry:
She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, novelist Thomas Perry. They have two adult children. Their two dogs are rescues. Jo is the author of DEAD IS BETTER, DEAD IS BEST, DEAD IS GOOD, and DEAD IS BEAUTIFUL, a dark, comic mystery series from Fahrenheit Press.
Jo Perry’s Social Media: Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Website ~ https://www.instagram.com/noirjoperry/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Instagram Purchase Links for Dead is Beautiful: Fahrenheit Press ~ Amazon UK ~ Amazon US
As usual, I can’t hear that phrase without thinking of Baldrick and Blackadder…which, actually, is kind of fitting given where Andrew J. Harvey goes with his. I enjoyed this, hope you do to: A Cunning PlanIt was during the process of developing the trailer for my Alternate History novel, Nightfall, the first book in my Clemhorn Trilogy, that I was shocked to discover how badly I had underestimated the general public’s knowledge of history. I have always been interested in history, even taking one unit at University when I was studying there, and had perhaps foolishly believed that like myself, people were interested in the past. Particularly given George Santayana’s warning that: “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Given the myriad mistakes and failings that humans are so susceptible too, the blindness to history’s lessons seems particularly dangerous to me. I was realistic enough to understand that it was unlikely that most people would have, as I did, entire bookshelves filled with history books, and the occasional alternate history novel, but I did at least expect that one or two history books would be displayed somewhere. As I said, I was quickly disabused of this while testing the book trailer for Nightfall, with the following teaser:
And discovered that the person I was speaking to had no idea that in our own history the Russian and British Empires had never, ever faced each other in America, let alone across the Mississippi. This resulted in the following rewrite:
As an aficionado and writer of Alternate History this was particularly disappointing given that Alternate History is a genre of fiction where stories are set in worlds in which one or more historical events unfold differently from how it did in our world. It is better appreciated with at least some modicum of how the historical event the author is writing about actually unfolded in our own reality. But I now have a cunning plan, and hope that anyone reading Nightfall will be interested enough to investigate how some of the alternate histories I portray in the novel actually played out in our history (hint in Nightfall the Mainline split from our own when in 1451 the Serbian Emperor Uros III captures Constantinople, triggering a Serbian rather than Italian renaissance). And of course if they continue to read the series, they continue to meet other alternates, and with fifty-four lines making up the Cross-Temporal Empire there’s more than enough to keep a reader delving into all sorts of histories for quite some time. Along these lines I leave you with a paraphrasing of George Santayana’s words, that is: “those who cannot remember the past may be brought to appreciate it by the ‘what ifs’ posed by alternate history.” — Read the novel that’s part of this cunning plan, Nightfall by Andrew J.Harvey.My thanks to iREAD Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials they provided.
Today I’m pleased to welcome the Book Spotlight Tour for Nightfallby Andrew J. Harvey. It’s another case of a book that looks good, but I can’t fit in to my schedule (at least not quickly enough to help out with the tour). Still, I wanted to spread the word about it, and in addition to this post, in about an hour the author, Andrew J. Harvey has provided me with a nice guest post that you should really check out. But first, check out the information about the book and the giveawway — or just go buy it. Either way…
Book Details:Book Title: Nightfall (Book 1 in the Clemhorn Trilogy) by Andrew J. Harvey
Book Blurb:After eighty years of war the remnants of humanity on the Nayarit Line struggled to survive in sealed domes, surrounded by radioactive wasteland and genetically engineered viruses. It was in the last, desperate years of the war that the first trans-temporal portal was developed at Chiqu, a small research facility on the west coast of North America. As the domes finally failed and civilization collapsed around them, Iapura led fifty-three survivors to found a new empire on a parallel Earth; an Earth where, in 1884, Russian and English armies faced each other across America’s Great Plains, totally unprepared for the technology of the invading Nayarit. The Cross-Temporal Empire now encompasses fifty-four parallel Earths. But with its ruling Council riven by dissent the death of First Leader Manet, sets the Council into a slow and irrevocable slide into civil war. A war that threatens not only the lives of the Clemhorn siblings: Conrad, Arnold, Donald, and Ivy; but the very future of the Empire. Purchase Links for Nightfall: Amazon ~ iTunes ~ Google Play
Book Trailer
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| You’ve talked about how everyone’s favorite character is Beltran (I demur), given his appeal/popularity—how hard is it to keep him from taking over the series? How are you going about that? | ||
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| Let’s talk about names for a minute: there’s a lot of creativity and strangeness in names (up to Rune from Earth), but then you give us Tate. An oddly Earthy name. Is that just to mess with people? I’ve always wondered, but never asked anyone—how do you come up with character names? Is the process different per series/world/book? | ||
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| Talk to me a little more about Arwin the wizard. First, how am I not supposed to think about Liv Tyler/the Lady of Rivendell? Secondly, the brilliant character who probably knows more about what’s going on than anyone, but plays the doddering, clumsy fool is a mainstay. How hard is it to pull that character off convincingly? And why have you gone that route with him—is it just because that’s more interesting than the super-powerful, all-wise type? | ||
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| Now that you’ve told me about it, the scene has to stay. At the very least it needs to be included as a cut scene in an appendix. Or there will be rioting in the streets! (assuming I can figure out how to instigate one)
Can you tell me about the timeline for this series? A lot has happened in less than 2 weeks in Eon (assuming my memory/math is right), your poor characters have barely been able to catch their breath—are you planning on some kind of time jump? Is it going to keep going at this pace? |
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| At the book launch, you talked a lot about what you’ve got worked out for the future in terms of plot and character—but I want to look at the world. How much of Eon have you mapped out (mentally or literally), do you know this world’s geography or is it more of a case of “I need an area like X, I’ll put it overrrrrr…here!” | ||
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| I’m glad you were able to find some time in your hectic schedule for these answers and hope Promises Forged is a big success (and that you survive the editing process for #3!) |
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