Scribblings Blog

Find Books Recommended by Other Authors

11/18/2022

Just wanted to take a minute and share this site with you. https://shepherd.com. It's a great place to discover books that speak to a certain fancy.

I was contacted by by Shepherd.com to share my book Second Chances and recommend five other books in the same genre that would answer a certain need. I chose the topic "The best books for helping you think outside the box." I chose this because many of my books have a paranormal twist, and I've seen people dismiss a book if it is described as paranormal before giving it a chance.

Here's the link to the promotion of Second Chances along with the five reads I chose and why.
https://shepherd.com/best-books/helping-you-step-outside-the-box

Although I don't have a book in the category of Life Satisfaction, a new topic on their site, it is a genre in which I write. You may find something there you like.
https://shepherd.com/bookshelf/life-satisfaction

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Halloween, As Old as the Ghosts

10/26/2022

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On October 31, beware of munchkin monsters, pint-size goblins, and shrunken super-heroes knocking on your door asking for treats. Have you ever wondered where "trick or treat" came from?

On Halloween, jack-o-lanterns light up dark paths and peek out of windows. So how did this tradition start?

Have you ever tried bobbing for apples? I have. Why do we put ourselves through such torture?

The origins of Halloween date back as early as the fifth century BC. The ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (sow-in) celebrated a successful harvest and the beginning of the long, cold, dark winter.

In preparation for the celebration, the Celts allowed their hearth fires to burn out while the last crops were being gathered. After the harvest was completed, Druid priests lit a communal bonfire in the center of the village, where the residents prayed, danced, and offered sacrifices to the Celtic deities. Then, villagers rekindled their hearth fires with embers from the sacred bonfire to protect their families from harm during the uncertain days and nights to follow.

The Celts believed the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead opened during Samhain. Ancestors and other spirits were expected to cross over and stir up trouble. To keep the fairies away from their homes, the Celts left offerings outside the village. To prevent the ghosts from kidnapping any living beings, the villagers dressed up in animal skins and heads, disguising themselves as monsters.

After the Romans took control of Britain, they merged the Samhain festival with two of their own. On the last day of October, the festival of Feralia commemorates the passing of the dead.

The festival of Pomona honors the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. Her sacred symbol was the apple. Part of the celebration was to grab hold of a dangling apple without using any hands, hence the origin of bobbing for apples.

Many years later, the early Christians discovered they couldn't stop pagan celebrations, so they replaced them with religious alternatives. To replace the Celtic/Roman celebration of the dead, November 1 was designated All Saints Day to honor Christian saints and martyrs. The night before turned into All Hallows Eve.

I'm sure you can figure out the rest of the tale from there.

Other Halloween Traditions
I wonder if the first Celt who stuck an animal skull over his head ever realized he was starting a fad that'd still be practiced a couple of thousand years later. Of course, the celebration has changed over the centuries. I'm glad we've advanced from wearing animal hides and heads and no longer really believe that fairies and spirits come out to play on October 31. (They don't, do they?)

In any case, during its transition from a Druid ritual to a night of fun for the kids, Halloween has also picked up a hodge-podge of other traditions.

Trick or Treat came from the Irish peasants going from door-to-door begging for soul cakes. Failure to supply soul cakes resulted in fairies being set loose to play tricks and harass the unlucky victims.

According to Irish folklore, a character named Jack was a terrible person, always playing tricks and making trouble everywhere he went. He even tricked Satan into climbing a tree and trapped him there by carving a cross in the bark. Jack would not let the Devil out of the tree until he promised never to tempt Jack again for the rest of his life.

When Jack died, he was not allowed into Heaven because of his evil ways. He was not permitted in Hell either because of the nasty trick he played on Satan. Instead, Satan gave Jack a single ember to light his way through the eternal darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to make it glow longer. Jack now bore the name of "Jack of the Lantern."

When the Irish brought this tale to America in the 1800s, the turnip was replaced with a pumpkin. Then, somewhere along the line, a crude face was carved in the pumpkin creating the Jack-o-lantern we all know and love.

What I love most about Halloween are the ghost stories. Some of the tales, myths, and legends have survived for eons, like the story of Jack. Others are more modern and easier to believe. I mean, who would ever walk around carrying a turnip instead of a flashlight?

I like all kinds of spooky tales, except horror stories. They're just downright too scary for my taste.

Here are a few of my favorites:

For children
Patchy and Calico’s Ghostly Adventure by Greta Burroughs
Corduroy's Best Halloween Ever! by Don Freeman and Lisa McCue
The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Trick or Treat, Little Critter by Mercer Meyer
Peter Rabbit and the Pumpkin Patch by Beatrix Potter
What Was I Scared Of? by Dr. Suess
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Cara Stevens
Clifford's Halloween by Norman Bridwell

For middle grade, teens, young adults, and adults
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Kiwi series by Vickie Johnstone
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe

How about you? What are your favorite Halloween stories?

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Writers Step Into Reality Television Genre

10/12/2022

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Kwame Alexander, Host

Full disclosure: I am not a fan of so-called reality TV. First of all, it’s not reality. Second, the plethora of these shows is all about competition. Some of the game shows are entertaining for those who like games. The productions which follow people in their private lives are pure theater, but their out-of-control behaviors, the backstabbing, and the emphasis on winning no matter what (all for ratings) do not create desirable role models whose behavior should be emulated.

The Real World in 1992 was one of the earliest “modern reality shows” when ordinary people were presented rather than characters. It was cheaper for the producers than what is usually involved in producing a scripted, character-driven show with actors. Survivor catapulted the reality show concept into a phenomenon in 2000, followed by Big Brother in 2001. It created a thirst for competition where winning is all that matters.

People watch and/or participate in reality shows for various reasons. Psychologists say wish fulfillment is a number one reason for many participants, either in terms of career advancement or financial gain. Many watch celebrity reality shows because it somehow makes the celebrities more relatable. Others watch the drama-driven shows because watching others being humiliated makes them feel superior.

So, What Does This Have to Do with Books?

Well, believe it or not, someone has figured out a way to join the fray by pulling in amateur writers (who are obviously desperate to be noticed) to audition for ... wait for it! ... America’s Next Great Author. That’s right! They will have one minute to pitch their book idea to a panel of publishing experts. The six winners all get to live together at the Writer’s Retreat for 30 days during which time “these talented amateurs have to start their books from scratch on day one of the Retreat and finish the novel by the end of the thirty days.” But wait, they also have to participate in storytelling challenges and work with mentors to develop their stories while learning how to market and promote their books. Not sure how much time the extracurricular activities leave for writing from the heart.

Okay, so Arielle Eckstut and David Sterry who are behind this new reality show also co-founded Pitchapalooza (Book Doctors) 15 years ago. It appears to be the model for America’s Next Best Author. With Pitchapalooza a hopeful writer gets 250 words to pitch their book. Twenty are chosen to have their pitches critiqued on a live webinar. The winner receives an introduction to an agent or publisher appropriate for their future manuscript.

I have no problem with Pitchapalooza. The issues I have with the proposed reality show are 1) being forced to write your book in 30 days while meeting all the other challenges noted, and 2) having to live “Big Brother-style” with five other writers while trying to find a creative space to write.

Being an introvert may color my perspective on the close quarters situation, but being forced to write a book in 30 days with all the interruptions going on is not something I could support. I do realize that some writers today believe if they spend more than six weeks working on a book that it’s a sign they need to pursue another profession (read this on a social media writers’ group).

Bottom line: This would not be my cup of tea, but I’m sure it will have as many participants and watchers as all the other reality shows gracing the airwaves.

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Literary & Character Tropes

6/30/2022

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We talked about story tropes last month, but I’d like to address literary and character tropes.

Literary tropes include tools, such as irony, allegory, metaphor, and metonym. These tools are utilized to elevate one’s writing. Metaphors occur quite often in fiction as a means of enriching a commonplace situation. They can help the reader see things in a new light and help the writer succeed in showing, not telling.

A Character trope is another type of trope. Certain character tropes allow the writer to build characters more easily because of the intrinsic expectations of the reader for that type character. We often hear people referring to a trope as a cliché. However, just because a trope has been used often does not make it a cliché. A cliché occurs when a trope is used poorly. In other words, the writer makes no effort to round out their character with his/her own unique characteristics, but rather displays a 2D version of a known trope.

Character tropes can be rounded out by having your character, who may be identified by a specific trope, be portrayed with an unexpected gender or race or displaying quirky passions usually not related to that character trope.

There are certain of these that are considered best left alone unless the effort is made to round out the character. Examples are the action hero, the hostile boss, damsel in distress, the woman looking for love. You get the idea. With these character tropes, it is so easy to fall into the expected format, which can leave a story flat.

Tropes are often mistakenly called Archetypes. The difference between an archetype and a trope is the difference between a role and a personality. Roles can utilize many personalities, whereas a trope is a personality. A good trope is a personality which has been rounded out to give it uniqueness.

An archetype is the “original pattern from which copies are made.” There are many archetypes from which character tropes are formed: the ally, the sidekick, the hero, the mentor, the nemesis, to name a few. Looking at these examples, it is easy to see how creating unique personalities to align with these roles, these archetypes, definitely enhances a story.

As a reader, the characters you encounter in books may seem familiar to you sometimes, but it is not always the fault of poorly-used tropes. The one thing which provides a commonality across most characters and readers is emotion. No matter who we are, we each possess similar emotions. We don’t necessarily all express them in the same way, which is a result of our unique personalities. However, I know I have encountered a number of characters with whom I totally resonated. The writers were not lax in rounding out their characters. I resonated because I could relate to their attitudes, their emotional responses to situations. Some characters I enjoy, but their personalities are worlds apart from mine. This also can play a role in why a certain book appeals to some and not to others.

Are you open to allowing a story to develop the characters or do you assume it’s the same old same old?

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Avid Readers: Do We Have to Read the Classics?

6/9/2022

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I consider myself an avid reader. I am addicted to the written word. Like others afflicted with the same disease, my obsession manifested itself at a young age. When I was a teenager, I greatly annoyed my mother whenever we had company. No, I didn’t hide in my bedroom and read, even though that’s what I wanted to do. Instead, I sat on the couch with my nose buried in a book, paying more attention to it than to our guests.

And to this day, the urge to hide behind the pages of a book and ignore monotonous chatter is still there. However, I have it under control – most of the time.

What kind of sickness is this? The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) quantifies an avid reader as someone who reads 50 or more books a year. Wow, that’s almost a book a week! Sorry, I read a lot but not that much. In a 2017 survey, the NEA discovered that not many people do; only five percent of readers met that requirement.

A more straightforward definition describes avid readers more realistically. It states that people suffering from this addiction read as much as they can, whenever they can. That’s more my speed.

A few months ago, I saw a comment in a Facebook reader’s group that insisted an avid reader should also be well-read. She questioned the validity of one reading only sci-fi or Harlequin romances as being equal to another person reading “real” literature such as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Les Miserables, or Frankenstein. She went on to say that readers need to have a selection of classics included in their “have read” collection alongside a mix of modern novels and nonfiction to be considered an avid reader.

Pardon me, but is there some kind of competition no one told me about? Does a person have to read Jane Austen or Louisa May Alcott to join the ranks of booklovers? How do you prove it? I could claim to have read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and no one would know if that were true or not.

Actually, a 2013 study uncovered that more than 60 percent of people lie about reading classic novels. Fortunately, in this case, I’m not one of them. I really did read Frankenstein. Other than that, though, I’ve been fickle in the traditional literature department. In high school and college, I waded through Moby Dick, Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The Brothers Karamazov, The Great Gatsby, and other required reading. However, I don’t remember one thing about them.
For pleasure, I’ve read an assortment of books by Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, and many other famous authors. Yet again, I couldn’t tell you anything about the books.
While researching this article, the idea occurred to me that maybe I should reconsider the types of books I devour. Instead of the cozy mysteries, fantasies, or historical fiction I generally turn to, perhaps I should try a classic or two.

According to expert opinions expressed on the worldwide web, the older literary works open a window to different worlds, cultures, and historical perspectives from the past. They’re more challenging than modern-day fiction and will make me feel better about myself once I have completed something more thought-provoking.

So, on a whim, I uploaded some old classics to my Kindle.

Little Women and Jane Eyre were pretty good. In Little Women, the dialog was unrealistic, and the plot moved along at a snail’s pace, but that was the writing style during the late 1800s. Jane Eyre was faster-paced and more interesting. At any rate, I did enjoy the stories.

One thing annoyed me, though. The attitude towards women bothered me immensely. So, when the same demeaning behavior repeated itself in the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice, I gave up on these classics and went back to solving crimes with Detective Chief Inspector so-and-so in my five-volume whodunit series.

I haven’t completely given up on the classics, though. I still have a few old tomes stored in my Kindle waiting for whenever I get the notion to expand my mind and dive backward into a forgotten dimension of time.

Until then, I’ll stick to my modern novels for my evening’s relaxation and entertainment.

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Don't Shoot the Messengers!

6/7/2022

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I read several posts today attacking authors’ fictional works that make me wonder what the world will be like in the future. The tunnel of acceptability is becoming so narrow that soon most fairy tales will be banned from the shelves. Authors will not be allowed to write directly about or allude to societal issues/beliefs. There will be no such thing as a metaphor for internal chaos. Instead, the literal, superficial words will be all that matter. No symbolism depicting the human condition.

How will we tell stories? Stories are not just entertainment. Stories are messengers. Stories are often meant to lead us to a more human and empathetic conversation about issues that are often difficult to address directly. They wend their way through the cracks in the rigid walls we have constructed within ourselves. These walls can be extreme in either direction. There are zealots on both sides, and both are impotent in terms of understanding.

Humans have this tendency toward “all or nothing,” and it is this attitude that deflects all attempts at compromise. It causes us to fail to resolve the very issues for which we believe ourselves champions. Freedom is not about stifling those who would try to stir up questions in our minds by slipping through the cracks in our walls.

The human condition will never be pristine. Can it be improved? Absolutely! But, not through the zealots or the book banners or the uninformed or the manipulators. Ethan Smith stated these types of people are “characterized by how they respond to information.” He contends there are four archetypes: idiots, zealots, elitists, and patriots.

Before we quickly label ourselves as Patriots, let’s look at the way in which these are defined by Smith:

Idiots avoid all new pertinent information in an attempt to maintain a limited, comfortable perspective.
Zealots believe they have “the answer.” They ask certain questions of certain information but ignore and dissociate from information that is unaligned to their pre-determined perspective.
Elitists question information in order to manipulate those who do not have that information, to their own benefit.
Patriots – true patriots – question information to educate themselves and share it with others in order that all may progress.

Few of us are true patriots these days. However, going back to the current attitude toward authors’ works — our assessment of writings is usually driven by one of the four states of mind listed above. Being in one of the first three categories makes it difficult to step outside it to view the world in a different way. Still, we must try. We may not always succeed, but one never-changing aspect of the human condition is that it will always be shifting and testing our resolve to be better than we are.

The bottom line is we need to try and understand that too many of us have long since moved beyond fighting for our collective freedoms. We have narrowed our boundaries to include only what is acceptable to us and fight to make others comply. In terms of books, why do you think the banning of books continues to cycle through our lives?

Freedom doesn’t simply rest on basic principles of not harming others or the planet. We have tightened the reins on every aspect of life – social, family, health, work, spirituality, personal growth, financial, communities. This is unacceptable because we are not all identical. We don’t have the same challenges or the same imaginations or the same dreams, to name just a few differences.

So, How Do We Deal with Our States of Mind?

The symbolism of the four wise monkeys is familiar to most of us: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, do no evil. In recent times I have seen the fourth monkey’s symbolism shift from simply ‘do no evil’ to fear no evil. This is how we can rise above the archetypes of idiot, zealot, and elitist. Rather than simply not hearing, seeing, speaking, and doing no evil, we must ultimately FEAR no evil. It is our fear that stands in the way of our freedoms. It is our fear that makes us react with rage or violence or simply internal chaos.

My husband used symbolism to write about fear. One of my favorite talks was titled: Dracula is Alive and Well in Your Life. He spoke about how we have attitudes and emotions that seem difficult to grab hold of because they are never the same from one time to the next and yet they seem to have power over us. They feed off of us, dragging us deeper and deeper into the darkness of negativity. The circumstances, the issues, are not always the same, but the underlying force is fear.

Only when we get up close and personal to our fear and symbolically drive a stake through its heart, as the story of Dracula reveals, can we rid ourselves of it. Our hearts are the seat of our emotions, our feelings, and this is where fear lives.

Returning to symbolism, the professor in the story of Dracula represents the part of us pursuing the vampire, the fear, and knows its weaknesses. What does this mean? It means that we must recognize the feeling of fear as a borrowed attitude. It is not you! It is not me! Then we have taken a step toward consciously choosing to take actions not motivated by fear. Those who rise up and call for books to be banned are acting out of fear, a fear that believes power over the situation is their only solution. Wrong.

The real solution is to choose, instead, to educate oneself through reading and not resort to seeking out things to disparage. Sharing one's opinion about books is fine, but striving to figuratively shoot the messenger serves no one. Authors are as unique as readers and no book will find a place with every reader, which is obvious when you read social media comments.

So, whether reading nonfiction or fiction, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, and fear no evil. Absorb the information, analyze how it impacts your personal knowledge base. If it positively affects you, share it with friends. If it clashes with what you believe, don't attack the author. Simply do not share it. With these actions, you have become a true patriot by defaulting to a positive stance for yourself and your friends, and perhaps influencing others outside your current sphere of influence in a positive fashion.

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Just a Quick Pet Peeve

6/3/2022

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As a writer I understand that writers are not perfect, and neither are editors. However, it doesn’t mean that as a reader, there aren’t things I see repeatedly across books that I feel create unnecessary confusion.

This one is the misuse of “shaking one’s head” versus “nodding.” Lately, I have seen them used interchangeably so often.

Shaking one’s head means to move from side to side as in signaling a negative response to another person.

Nodding means to move one’s head up and down, signally an affirmative response.

This is one of those things which creates a disruption in the flow for a reader when the character nods, and you know she would be giving a negative response. This holds true for a character shaking her head when the reader knows it supposed to be a positive response.

In real life, I doubt any author nods when asked if they’re guilty of something they didn’t do. Nor do I believe they would shake their head if their agent asked if they want to accept a million- dollar contract with a publisher.

Just an observation.

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Was There Really Someone Called Mother Goose?

6/2/2022

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I’ve mentioned my fond childhood memories of Mother Goose in other posts, so you’re all fully aware of my affection for the lady and her silly poems. The funny thing is, in all these years, I’ve never questioned whether or not the sweet storyteller was based on a real live person – until a few days ago. That’s when the dreadful thought hit me, have I been believing in a lie all this time?

If you’re from Boston, Massachusetts, the answer will be a resounding no. A well-known tombstone located in the Old Granary Burying Ground and dating back to 1690 proves the existence of the one and only real Mother Goose.

Mary Goose, the wife of Isaac Goose, supposedly authored the beloved nursery rhymes. Legend claims that Isaac’s second wife, Elizabeth, entertained her countless grandchildren and other children with her predecessor’s songs and rhymes and that her son-in-law, Thomas Fleet, later published the complete works of Mary in 1719. Yet no copies of this collection have ever been found.

It’s a lovely story, but unfortunately, it’s rather hard to believe. The Goose family could’ve very well been entertained by beloved nursery rhymes brought over from Europe, but the famous poems were not original compositions by Mrs. Goose.

Ironically, around the same time the Goose family lived in Boston, Martha Gooch worked as a nurse caring for newborns in Sussex, England. Through her many years of excellent service, she became known as Mother Gooch. Her nursing skills were in great demand, but Martha had one idiosyncrasy her employers had to endure. She would sing strange, senseless rhymes and songs to her sleeping charges. This habit led the parents to refer to Martha as Mother Goose.

One of her employers became interested in the nonsense poems and songs and put them together into a book he titled Ye Melodious Rhymes of Mother Goofe (Goose).

The reference to “Mother Goose” jokingly used as Miss Gooch’s nickname reached back in time to the eighth century. Bertrada II of Laon, the mother of Charlemagne, served the emperor’s realm as the patroness of children. Due to a malformation of her foot, she was better known as “Goose-foot Bertha” or “Queen Goosefoot.”

Later on, in seventeenth-century France, a woman who delighted children with enchanting tales was called “mere l’oye” or “mere oye” (Mother Goose). Charles Perrault published a collection of folktales in 1697 titled Contes de ma mère l’oye or Tales from my Mother Goose. It was translated into English in 1729, thirty-six years before John Newbery topped the best-seller’s list with his Mother Goose’s Melody or Sonnets for the Cradle. Newbery’s collection forever changed the branding of Mother Goose from folktales to nursery rhymes and children’s poetry.

In the late 1800s, before he created his wonderful world of Oz, L. Frank Baum penned Mother Goose in Prose, a collection of twenty-two fairy tales attributed to everyone’s favorite storyteller. In the book, Baum traces the history and origins of Mother Goose. He concluded his essay with this statement:

While I have taken some pains to record the various claims to the origin of Mother Goose, it does not matter in the least whether she was in reality a myth, or a living Eliza Goose, Martha Gooch or the “Mere Oye” of Perrault. The songs that cluster around her name are what we love, and each individual verse appeals more to the childish mind than does Mother Goose herself.

Need I say anymore?

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Should You Judge a Book by its Cover?

5/31/2022

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I know it’s claimed that the book cover for readers is the deciding factor in choosing what we read. It’s all about fonts and design. I asked myself recently if once Amazon came along and I saw book cover after book cover in choosing my choice of eBooks, was this how I was deciding which books to download.

I thought back to my pre-Amazon Kindle days, that is, before 2007. How did I choose books at the bookstore or the library? That’s when I realized that my process was title first (you can only see the spine initially on a bookshelf). Next I picked it up and looked for a description of the story – on the back of the book, on the book jacket flap, or in the beginning pages of the book. If no blurb was available, I would flip to an arbitrary section of the book and begin to read. If I liked the style after a couple of pages, I would buy the book.

For years now, I have been reading mostly from my Kindle. Spending so much time with my husband waiting in doctors’ offices and in hospitals, it was just easier. However, since he passed and I moved, I was fortunate to move to a place that has a large lending library available. So once again, I was able to enjoy making choices from actual books.

Because I had heard so much about book covers and first impressions as an author, I just took it for granted this approach to choosing books was true for me as well. However, the lending library made me realize that my process may have shifted a bit with the advent of Amazon Kindle and others, but not as much as I thought it might have. The reality is that I still follow the same process I did in my pre-Kindle days.

This got me to thinking about how I choose my eBooks. Truth is the title still claims first place. The book description is second. Sampling content is third. The cover may catch my eye, but it is never the deciding factor for me. So, the cover may make me stop scrolling, but if the title and description don’t hold up, all it did was slow me down for a minute.

A great cover may serve as a good marketing ploy, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the content is comparable in quality. After all, most covers are not created by the authors of the books.

It’s true that extremely poor covers – pixelated or sloppy – may influence me initially as to the quality of the content. However, if I’ve connected with the title, I will still search out the blurb and sample content.

So, the old maxim “You can’t judge a book by its cover” is true. Covers are designed to make you stop and look. They don’t guarantee anything else.

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What Kind of "Phile" Are You?

5/26/2022

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A phile is a person who loves or has a fondness for a specific thing.

I better start by saying I’m a cynophile, or else my dog will take his revenge and chew up another flash drive. I have to be fair and mention the ailurophiles, so all my cat-loving friends will not be offended. Would it be appropriate to call our four-legged companions amychophiles since they love being scratched?

Of course, everyone reading this post is a blogophile (you do love our blog, don’t you?), and it would help if you were a logophile or fond of words and language.

Along the same lines, a bibliophile collects or has a great love of books but is not necessarily a reader. Lectiophile would better describe us since it implies the love of reading. However, if you are a voracious reader, bibliophagist, a devourer of books, may be more descriptive.

Breaking it down even further, a fictionphile is pretty self-explanatory, and a librocubicularist prefers to read in bed. Yet only a true clinophile loves reclining or lying in bed while enjoying the book’s beautiful illustrations and pictures (iconophile) while sipping coffee (javaphile) and finding joy and peace of mind during a rainy day (pluviophile).

Maybe you’re more like me and prefer solitude (autophile). So go ahead, find your favorite nook or cranny (chasmophile) or hide away in amongst the trees in the forest (dendrophile) and enjoy the light (photophile) filtering through the leaves as you read all things new or novel (neophile).

Or would you prefer to read your gothic novel in the cemetery (coimetrophile) in the shade or darkness (lygophile) provided by the night (nyctophile) with only the light of the moon (selenophile) to light up the page?

I could go on, but I’ll quit while I’m ahead of the game. So tell us, what kind of phile are you?
By the way, do you find yourself smelling every book you pick up? There’s a word for that smell – bibliosmia.

P.S. This has absolutely nothing to do with books, but it was impossible to pass it up: Gynotikolobomassophile: - a person who likes to nibble a woman’s earlobe. LOL

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Find Books Recommended by Other Authors

Halloween, As Old as the Ghosts

Writers Step Into Reality Television Genre

Literary & Character Tropes

Avid Readers: Do We Have to Read the Classics?

Don't Shoot the Messengers!

Just a Quick Pet Peeve

Was There Really Someone Called Mother Goose?

Should You Judge a Book by its Cover?

What Kind of "Phile" Are You?

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