Tuesday, 4 August 2015

Farewell to Goodreads

Goodreads is supposed to be the personification of marketing. You are supposed to join in discussions, blog, uploads your books, recommend books. However, to be honest I find my way onto a page and next time, I can't. It has vanished, never to see light of day again. Indeed my ebooks that were loaded this morning: 'Broken' and 'Time Breaking' have vanished into the ether and will never be seen again ... nor read.

I feel like the man in the cartoon who is found on the ledge of a skyscraper, intending to jump because he can't find the end of the selotape. Goodreads leaves me suicidal. Each time I enter the site, I promise myself ... this time it will be different. It's like tomorrow ... it never comes.

Visit my website Barbara Spencer.

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Sunday, 12 July 2015

The vaguaries of British weather

Summer has arrived and with it boiling hot days followed by chill nights and grey rain-soaked mornings. Surely, with all the research carried out in this country, it would be possible to let us know once and for all if we possess the most diverse climate in the world ... although I believe Melbourne, Australia, might run us pretty close. But not overtake ...

Where I live in the west country, within a mile or two we possess at least three different climates.
Streets and Glastonbury can be dry and sunny, the opposite of the city of Wells, a couple of miles distant, where it is often dull and overcast if not actually raining. The Mendip Hills play a big part in our weather but I am positive that aliens are to blame, when they established runes through Glastonbury with another through the village of Coxley. Here as if there is a No Entry sign in the middle of the road, the rain often stops dead. There's another line right through my property, small as it is. It can be raining in the back garden but not the front.
How weird you say?
Totally!

And only two miles from Wells on the Bath road, the gentle slope has slush changing to snow, which lingers longer, with flowers blooming ten days later.

And Shepton Mallet! Less than nine miles away - I take a sweater even on a hot day.

Visit my website Barbara Spencer.

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Saturday, 2 August 2014

The never-ending repetition of history







Wanting to understand more about the current situation in Gaza, I borrowed A Very Short Introduction The Palestinian-Israeli conflict by Martin Bunton.

Having now reached the age when I can admit to having lived through many of the incidents in this very readable account; indeed I was caught up in the civil war in Beirut in 75, I found this book absolutely fascinating and come away with a far greater understanding. This humanitarian disaster in Gaza is not the first nor the second or even the third and I quote : from a passage about 1949
"Based on the belief that a constant show of Israel's military superiority would eventually force the Arab world to accept Israel's present, this attitude ensured that no attack on Israel would go unpunished. Indeed, it was made clear that Israel would retaliate with disproportionate force. While the policy of severe retaliation may have served at some level as a deterrent, the policy also contributed to heightened enmity and a repeating cycle of violence in which both Arabs and Jews saw themselves as innocent victims acting against injustice." 

Visit my website Barbara Spencer.

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Saturday, 26 July 2014

Where has all the fun gone?



I've got music playing - a welcome change from TV. Am I getting old or is telly becoming more and more dismal every day? Programmes used to be fun, especially comedy. Once written with skill, now audiences are expected to find swearing, over-emphasis, and crude jokes funny. I don't. Even crudity needs skill, a good director, excellent comedy actor and a good delivery to make you laugh - not simply words stated with emphasis. Sadly I have also seen most of the re-runs of detective series at least once. The criteria for that is - once you remember 'who done it' they are no longer of interest. Fortunately I have a shelf full of books! They never let you down.

Visit my website Barbara Spencer.

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Thursday, 17 July 2014

Authors Grand Launch Festival Blog Train


 


You are cordially invited to attend the 

 Grand Launch Festival Day! 

Join us for what is sure to be a blast with the Most Enticing Book Trailer Contest winner announcement, scavenger hunts, giveaways, Google social hangouts, and our kick off for the 1st Annual Authors' Cave Book Awards where you can win $500 cash, a Kindle Fire or Nook, and free promotion of your book for a year at Authors' Cave!


July 22, 2014
(8am to 11pm EST)



Back to the train...Get to know the blogger - that's me!



Who am I : A grandmother who writes great books for children and young adults. I live in Somerset in the south-west of England which is a terrible drag for visiting schools or booksignings because I have to be up by 5 a.m. to get to the station. I have also lived in the Caribbean, the United States, Europe and the Middle East. As a result all my books have a little bit of my life in them, including the one above: Time Breaking.


The first three words I would use to describe myself are: Workaholic, chocoholic but not alcoholic

I am currently working on this project: The Amazing Brain of O C Longbotham 
Publication date 27.11.14


 



Running and Turning Point: A Boy : A Missing Computer Scientist: a Secret so dangerous it must stay hidden from the world

Scott Anderson has a secret so big he daren’t share it even with best friends; he and his dad are American. If you’re American, you don’t talk about it. If you don’t talk about that, you don’t talk about any of the other secrets that haunt your life – that your dad’s really a computer scientist and people are searching for him.

Stay on the train and follow these authors next! See how they responded to the same questions!

Get to know: Laura De Bruce : http://theriddleofprague.com/blog/

Get to know: K T Bowes :http://ktbowes.blogspot.co.nz/



 Product DetailsProduct DetailsProduct Details



Visit my website Barbara Spencer.

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Tuesday, 15 July 2014

Our changing society

As a children's authors, I am frequently invited into primary and secondary schools to talk about creative writing and, particularly with young kids, increase their enthusiasm for the written word. Returning from a visit to Kings of Wessex I daydreamed the journal home, thinking about how hard librarians and teachers work to keep their pupils reading. Why do we do it? I guess because the sum total of our world's learning has appeared in books. Everything we are today is because some person had an idea and wrote about it in a book.

No longer perhaps ... now it's UTube, Twitter and Facebook. But it is very difficult to break a habit that's lasted for almost 600 years and replace it with something so modern that it hasn't yet reached 25.

And yet tragically fewer and fewer of our teenagers are reading.

I would like to think they go back to books in the future when social media loses its appeal ... I hope it happens and happens quickly; the world will be a much poorer place without books.

Visit my website Barbara Spencer.

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Thursday, 29 May 2014

Views from the US

If I had to confess what gave me the inspiration to write my thriller, Running, it is my love of the US and the generosity of its people. And I am delighted that the book is being read by an American audience.

Really Great Story and Writing, May 27, 2014
By 
Nolen (Houston, TX) - 
 
 
 
 
 
This review is from: Running (Kindle Edition)
I was intrigued from the first few paragraphs. The earthquake scene had me believing for that instant that this was an end-of-the-world sort of story. It isn't. But it's that good. After the earthquake that shook California off of the United States to bury it beneath the Pacific Ocean, the story begins again in England. I loved the discussion from the teens about Americanisms used by other students. The big secret in this "broom cupboard" discussion is that two of these students are Americans hiding the fact. Because after the earthquake the rest of the world has "disowned" the U.S., cut them off from import, export, and everything else. So being an American is not something to be proud of, even in Britain, or so thinks young Scott Anderson. For this reason he keeps it quiet. He doesn't realize that there is a far more important reason to keep himself to himself. From a fast-paced chase from Cornwall to Scotland and then to Holland, Scott doesn't know who to believe much less trust, and neither does the reader. Recommended reading!!!
 
Running by Barbara Spencer
Sequel: Turning Point 
YA Thriller

Visit my website Barbara Spencer.

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