Day 40  in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Month Two. "Wherever you are, it is your own friends who make your world." ~William James For My Friend is one of those really tiny, size of inside of your hand quotation styled books. So small that it was almost lost with the others towering over it, spines in different shapes and sizes. It was given to me by someone close, of course. Surprised me with a letter still enclosed inside. Although small, it's quite gorgeous. Hardcover. White cardboard with maroon insides. Titled spine. Fancy end paper, leaves, half title page, title page, and so many words of wisdom. All pages have that glossy paper, and are illustrated with vines, roses, and pieces of nature. There's a maroon bookmark with dangling 24k good played charm that can be removed for a bracelet or necklace. I kept it on. The book was compiled by Nick Beilenson, text border illustrations by Charles Waller. ©1995 Peter Pauper Press...

Day 39 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Month Two. There are a handful of magazines and literary journals I've kept on my bookshelf. All literary, of course. Poets & Writers magazine is one of them. Not only is the publication filled with literary news, articles, features, and letters-it is a go to resource for grants and awards, conferences, and residences for the writer. I have now turned to perusing the resources section more effectively via the web, but the poems and pieces inside are beyond creative. Whenever I stumble across a favorite author or poet of mine in a magazine, I may keep the copy just to pay it forward or for future use.  This is volume 34, Issue 33 from May/June 2006. Great condition, almost perfect except a crease in the back. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka blazes the cover. -brrivera

Day 38 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Month Two. You ever read one or those type of books that impact you from the first paragraph, the first line or sentence? Enter Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. My obviously wrinkled and battered trade paperback copy has stood the test of time in its 1976 copyright. The book is old. Very old. As in first edition, 1960 old. During this title's 66th printing at the time, over five million copies were already sold and counting. The book has already celebrated its 50th anniversary , and has sold many more. There's yellowing in the pages, and dogearred pages. Inscription unbeknownst to me from previous owner. Looks like..."Ginnie Herbert. Ya friend, L. B." in blue ink. I wrote my name at least seven times in it. I was young. I really wanted no one to have this book once I acquired it. Wait...where did I get it from? It's way too old for me to remember, and I would be giving away my age.  Speaki...

Day 33-37 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Month Two. So who doesn't like comics, better yet...a post with five pictures of comics? These titles sit on my shelf as days 33 through 37 as I play catch up with this project. Forgive the lateness with updating. Life gets in the way.  So, as a child I never really read comics-only the Archies and stuff like that. Only recently I read the compendium of the Walking Dead because I am so into the TV show I have to know the actual story line as it relates to the writing. Now I am scouring iBooks and other sites that offer free comics that I can read in my downtime. These five here which I am sharing today were only $1.00 via bargain bin box at Barnes & Noble. They're still in a plastic sleeve, extremely crisp with cardboard backing to support comic. I understand many people collect them for their rarity and monetary value,  but these titles are quite common.  In all, nice reads for my ...

Day 30 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Let me be the first to confirm if you don't already know this: SparkNotes can save your college life. So when I took Philosophy 101 and my head started spinning a bit, this book got me through. As I got more into my course, I actually read this copy for fun--- learning about different themes, ideas, and arguments each philosopher had. Each chapter holds a different philosopher, such as Descartes, Aquinas, or Nietzsche and there are a total of 19 chapters with index. Softcover, titled spine, table of contents, 352 pages, ©2005 Spark Educational Publishing.  -brrivera

Day 29 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Comedienne Mo'nique writes a book Skinny Women Are Evil about the viewpoints coming from her life in the world of F.A.T---fabulous and thick, that is. As a comic, she's pure genuis-always witty and balancing on the tetering edge of tragedy with realness to create comedy. She tells stories. She tells truth. She's passionate. She also wears a size 22 and is quite proud of it. I was taken aback about how personal this book was about her life. It's very intimate, but thinking about it, it shouldn't it be? Telling a story of how overweight women are treated in society today and subjected to ridicule will hit quite close to home to anyone that has even been on a diet to even lose five pounds. In her words, "I really wish I didn't have to write this book, but it appears that I have no choice." Keep on mind that the title is not an attack per se, but her view on how she has been treated her ...

Day 28 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. From the nonprofit American Poetry and Literacy Project comes 101 Great American poems . A small trade paperback, it holds 80 pages of hand selected verse spanning from the 19th and 20th century. There are classics such as Poe and The Raven , Whitman and I Hear America Singing and Frost with The Road Not Taken . Wish they had a bit more Teasdale thrown in, but this is such a small book. Only costs $1.50 too if you can believe it for such great works to thumb through. Cover design by Pete Donahue, with the the cover photo of none other than Robert Frost in 1941. ©1998 Dover introduction, half title page, acknowledgements. Soft glossy cover.  -brrivera

Day 27 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Chapbooks, by design were made to make literature available to all by making it cheap as possible; no cover, about 24 pages, and made with materials available to those surrounding them. In the 16th century (and beyond until newspapers and other mediums became available) chapbooks were crucial to getting news, entertainment and other stories which they held. On the poetry end, chapbooks are still crucial today. Most chapbooks are made up to 40 pages, and can be an important factor with marketing your existing book, seeing if you have an  audience, selling any poems at all, or building an audience. Chapbooks have come a long way since their creation and can be as cheap as or expensive as their materials, but still have the same anatomy of the book: up to 40 pages, and are bound with a saddle stitch, stapled, perfect bound, folded, or wrapped. You can use various publishing programs to create the chapboo...

Day 25 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. They call her Lady Day. She was the best there was in the jazz vocalist genre. You could hear the pain in her voice and the roughness in her throat yet it was beautiful and so real. Don't Explain A Song of Billie Holiday by Alexis De Veaux is a gorgeous first edition title on my shelf. It's an older copy, via 1980 rich with illustrations and black and white photographs of the singer sprinkled throughout the book. Its contents read almost as poetry, with stanzas created to define the bio of what was Holiday's life. Line by line, jazz influences are inserted or influenced, either through language or lyrics, typophaphy, or images. Sheet music dances along the pages and conversations with characters read like a play from ones own scripted life. This is appropriate of the author's background and unique style, as she is a both a poet and a playwright, specifically writing in prose form....

Day  24 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Coco Chanel and composer Igor Stravinsky. Their love affair inspired their art. Their art defined an era.  First time novelist Chris Greenhalgh introduces the title as hot, steamy, and romantic, but the title develops into something far more richer. The setting is 1915 Paris, a time of musical revolution and the reinvention of self. There, Coco becomes much more in this modernization including the classic Chanel  No.5---fighting through old ways and using her designs all while having a deep affair from an exiled man questioning if the relationship can survive at all. If someone wants a pure bio approach to Coco, this book isn't for you. After all, the title sums it pretty nicely: it's all about the affair, the secrets, the passion, the desires and the yearning for what cannot be.  We only delve a little into what Coco truly was on this title, which is quite disappointing. The wom...

Day 23 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. "How do I feel about people who do not understand my poetry? I understand them." ~ Vera Pavlova So, every April is American poetry month. Poetry magazine goes all out in this 2012 issue and delivers a stunning copy of 100 years of poetry to celebrate. We have well known poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Clive James, and Gerald Stern---but other contemporary poets leading back from a century ago. The cover art "Pegasus" (2011) is by Milton Glaser. Poetry magazine is a monthly periodical, and this is Volume 200, Number 1. Poetry magazine, founded by Harriet Monroe in 1912 is the publication of the Poetry Foundation. The soft bound edition is printed via Cadmus Professional Communications, located in the US. Inside the copy lies a half title page, table of contents, index of contributers, promos of related books/authors, backpage(monthly feature of artifacts from the last 100 years of poetr...

Day 22 in  in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf.  I rarely read sci-fi books, but after reading the first few chapters of Alex Detail's Revolution it had me changing my tune. I pick this title up every now and then, in between daily chores around the house and available down times. It's really awesome. You have this child prodigy that saved the earth from aliens so they won't harvest the sun. Ten years later he's no longer this prodigy but still pretty brilliant-and somehow he ended up drugged and on one of Earth's last ships in space to fight yet another war thats heavily under attack. Let's say he's not pleased at all.  The 310 page paperback book is mass market sized, and still in excellent condition. I received this as a complimentary copy via the author on Amazon.com quite a while ago in 2010. The pages are crisp, and there's little to none of that "book smell" present. The half title page has illustrations and...

Day 21  in in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf.  Poetry is my first love. Always will be. I am a poet to the heart, and the way that some words can carry more weight than others will always astonish me. Fascinate me. The way words can shift and shape you, create memories or extract from them. Move you. Disrupt the silence in you. Everything is just words until a poem is felt and then created. Langston Hughes Poems selected and edited by David Roessel is a perfect hardcover with flap jacket pocket book sized piece of literature to escape with words. T he contents are broken into two parts: poems of five decades and montage of a dream deferred. Hughes first book was published in 1926, and "hailed as the poet laureate of black America" during his time here on earth. Such classics as Mother to Son and I, Too are just a small part of the book, as it holds a couple hundred of poems easily. A jazz poet with some of the realest wo...

Day 18 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. If You Want Me is written by Kayla Perrin. She has many titles besides this one under her belt, but I purchased this one for the classic romance story. Girl was a ugly duckling growing up. Had a crush. Crush breaks her heart. Sees guy years later after she is now a hot shot movie star, with a new name. He still looks great, they rejuvenate their relationship, only with a few sprinklings of drama thrown in throughout the plot. Simply put, this is a overused concept thoughout many books. I own a few, then got quite bored with the entire novelty: memories past are someone's "true" love, so enter the happy ending or I need something more exciting to challenge my brain. It's a fast read at 359 pages, but it had me personally desiring something more. Sure, you can see the author can clearly put a book together-but romance fiction leaves a lot to be desired if it's disappointing. The condition of my...

Day 17  in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. So it's ebook Friday on my shelf, and my Kindle has another title which I read, courtesy of the author: The Marriage Pact . Released in summer of 2011, I loaded it up on my device and dived in. The title lured me. A marriage pact you say? Hopefully not a prearranged marriage fairytale that couldn't challenge my thoughts, or something similar. Summarized, the main character of this book-Marci, is a mess-complete and total mess. She's involved in an affair. She's stuck in a dead end job. Her life seems to have no mojo, and her address as Lourde would say, has no "post code envy." But then she remembers a familiar napkin with a pact that can change her life forever.  All the makings of a great book, considering tragedy is the muse to artful storytelling. Then there's always a little hope to grab onto, mix in a few gossipy women, jealousy...you get the point. Personally, I felt the bo...

Day 16 i n  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Some titles are much more smaller on my shelf, and this is one of them. Standing at a mere pocket sized slim piece of written work, it can easily get lost among the others. The reasoning is simple: it's a sampler. Samplers are often given complimentary, from author to reader to give a taste of what is to come for an upcoming book, or existing title. While it's a great marketing tactic to create buzz around the book, it can also let the reader view a few chapters to see the authors style and perhaps create create a fan base so the reader can purchase past or upcoming titles.  Samplers are pertinent to books. While many ebook titles have made this extremely streamlined and easier, it's the equivalent to perusing your favorite bookstore-you can take in a few sentences or a few chapters---just enough to raise your interests. This copy here has two titles in this sampler: No Second Chance and Just On...

Day 15  in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Part wolf. Part dog. All his life, this canine had to fight-becoming an orphan cub, scrambling for food, and enduring the elements. His most seemingly dangerous task of all: man. The abuse and capitalization men have  placed on him is beyond cruel, until one day White Fang meets a man to challenge himself and show him what true loyalty means. Written in 1906 by Jack London and adapted by Malvina G. Vogel, White Fang has become a literary classic and is in the public domain. This copy here I have yet to read. I remember White Fang  being required reading when I was in school, ages ago. Didn't need to be on a book list as homework for me; I always enjoyed a good book. I remember the grittiness, the rawness of the tale, and the sadness of the human condition. Then the climax and ending develops, and you understand that this story must be told.  This copy is hardcover, illustrated, with large...

Day 14 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf.  There  are some books that change you when you read them. I have several on my shelf. This is one of them. Categorized in the genre of self help  You Can Heal Your Life is penned under the author Louise L. Hay that sold over 50 million books worldwide, and is a metaphysical lecturer. Prior to purchasing this title, I wasn't familiar with Hay's work at all and her fan base, but the contents inside were absolutely moving and right on time. Powerful affirmations. Concrete philosophies. Personal exercises for change. All this and more in this book. Not everyone is a fan of this genre. I completely understand. Personally, I can learn and grow from any medium-this includes a book. I found much wisdom within. Take a peek or two. It won't hurt.  The title comes in many different formats, but the one I own is the gift edition. The trade paperback is sturdy, almost rivaling hardcover. Every sheet of...

Day 13 in    #BookSpine365 . This title, The Flip Side of Sin sits on my top shelf behind others. Perhaps it's because it's a one hit wonder for me; one of those books you read, and you don't have the desire to read again. While I read McMillan's titles before, this one seemed promising but came off as as mundane, preachy, and a little bit muddled with everything going on. Summarized, you have the main character that loses everything and finds solace in music-his saxophone. He has a new life after leaving jail, and now meets a woman with whom he shares a painful experience. Its the rather cliché ending of romance and him getting it all together in the end that bothers me the most. Throughout the title, there is great writing; it's solid. You can see the author's passion for words, the desire for it to send a message. It just doesn't have that special ingredient that keeps me interested, though. Perhaps other readers and audiences, for we all aren't ...

Day 12 in  #BookSpine365 . R.L. Stine steeps into my memories like a good tea begging to be sipped or devoured, depending on your thirst. My childhood consisted of reading in general-me, hunched over by the nightlight past my bedtime scrolling text. My mother, walking past my room ushering me back to sleep. The Stine series were responsible for many a kid staying up past their bedtime, I'm sure. Quite frankly, I don't even remember how I still held on to this copy. This title I purchased in the early 90's, the era of Borders book stores, way past the nightlight phase-but I always will love Young Adult (YA) fiction. Still purchase to this day, and always will. I lost many childhood books and YA titles that were donated, lost, or given to others. I look at this book and ask myself-who doesn't like a little nostalgia?  The paperback smells lovely. It's "pocketbook" sized, or mass market paper back. Well, I wafted it a few times before my allergies des...