Wing Tang Wong

author: Emily Thornton Calvo Laurence Minsky Emily Thornton Calvo asin: 0809228785 binding: Paperback list price: $12.95 USD amazon price: $12.95

Personal ads, for the most part, are boring and surprisingly impersonal. You know the type: "SWM into foreign films and Chinese takeout seeks SWF for romantic walks on the beach." Any ad with a modicum of originality stands out. Advertising copywriters Emily Thornton Calvo and Laurence Minsky approach personal-ad writing the way they'd approach writing a product advertisement. Not only do they encourage you to be more clever and creative, but they help you figure out exactly what kind of person and relationship you're seeking, and then they show you how to express that information in an ad.  read more »

author: Tom Stone asin: 0743205413 binding: Hardcover list price: $24.00 USD amazon price: $24.00

Tom Stone went to Greece one summer to write a novel -- and stayed twenty-two years. On Patmos, the tiny island where St. John received the apocalyptic visions recorded in the Book of Revelations, he fell in love with Danielle, a beautiful French painter. His novel completed and sold, he decided to stay a little longer. Seven idyllic years later, after the birth of their second child, they left Patmos for Crete, where Stone taught English to civil servants and Danielle painted icons for tourists.  read more »

author: Michael D. Yates asin: 1583671439 binding: Paperback list price: $15.95 USD amazon price: $12.44 USD

The road trip is a staple of modern American literature. But nowhere in American literature, until now, has a left-wing economist hit the road, observing and interpreting the extraordinary range and spectacle of U.S. life, bringing out its conflicts and contradictions with humor and insight.  read more »

On The Matter of "Cruft"

For those who know me, I have a habit of building out a sizable online footprint, then after a year or so, just retract them back, save for a handful, which I migrate or rebuild. Part of this exercise is due to hosting migrations, but part of it is to clear out "cruft" that builds up on my sites.

By cruft, I mean... posts which really don't add much value to the site, for me, or for people visiting and reading the site.

However, what survives has a tendency to be improved upon, even if it seems worse off at first.

This site is a new site. :) So thankfully, it has no bar by which it is being judged.

However, my other blogging sites do have a history.. and a good deal of "cruft".  read more »