Shopping at Barnes & Noble between December 4 and 10th? Use the HP Education Fanon Bookfair voucher (cite #352096) and a portion of the proceeds will be donated back to HPEF for their literacy endeavours.

Here’s the full scope from the HPEF newsletter:
Quote:
MAKE THIS A VERY HARRY HOLIDAY BY SUPPORTING THE HPEF BEEDLE BOOKFAIR AT BARNES & NOBLE!

Are you planning to buy a copy or twelve of The Tales of Beedle the Bard this holiday season? Wait! Be sure you get your Beedle from a Barnes & Noble store between Thursday, December 4th (the release day for the new book by JK Rowling!) and Wednesday, December 10th using the HPEF Bookfair voucher. In fact, make all your holiday book, CD, and DVD purchases during the Bookfair dates! Every B&N purchase made then and using the voucher or the HPEF number of 352096 will have a portion of the proceeds donated back to HPEF to continue our literacy endeavors.

So how can you help? Go to any Barnes & Noble from December 4-10, 2008. Shop in the store for anything, that’s right, ANYTHING.* Take all your items to the cashier, and give them the voucher or Bookfair number before you pay. After you’ve made your purchase, take your items home, and know that you just helped HPEF. And if your B&N has a Cafe, use the voucher for those lattes and scones you get. Every penny helps.

You can double your giving. Every B&N has a Holiday Book Drive. When you come into your store, select a book to purchase and donate to their Book Drive recipient and use the Bookfair voucher. One purchase helps HPEF and a child in your community. See a bookseller in your local store for details.

It’s really that easy. Every single purchase you make during our Bookfair helps. It’s your gift to us without having to worry about what’s on our wish list. Make the gift even better by forwarding this email and information on to everyone you know,family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, other HP fans, and anyone else you can think of. You don’t have to be a part of HPEF to make a beneficial Bookfair purchase, and you don’t have to buy just HP titles. Anyone can buy anything to help. It’s such an easy way to help in these tough economic times.

Want to know more? Need a voucher? Visit our page here for further details and a full FAQ. In advance, thank you for your support, and a very safe and happy holiday season to you and yours.

Heather French
HPEF Bookfair Liaison

*Ok, there’s a few exceptions,no gift cards, textbooks, magazine subscriptions, or membership fees will apply to the Bookfair. But, really, anything else helps!

Publishers Weekly read like an obituary today:

S&S Cuts 35 Jobs

Thomas Nelson Cuts 54 Positions

Rubin, Irwyn Applebaum Step Down in RH Reorg

Markus Dohle’s Letter to Staff continues to say, “As a result of this reorganization, Irwyn Applebaum and Steve Rubin, two colleagues who have dedicated many years of service as the publishers of Bantam Dell and Doubleday respectively, will step down from their positions as announced in the accompanying memos.”

The most promising line was, “Coordinating our online marketing and growing our digital publishing business will be further priorities.”

Give me a call.

Willard Wigan makes scultures that fit in the head of a pin, like Charlie Chaplin on the end of an eyelash.

(Thanks to AdHack for the link.)

My birthday usually lasts the full month. This behaviour wasn’t instituted by me. It came about because as a teen I lived in one place with lots of lovely friends and had lots of other lovely friends in another city. It meant that I got used to stretching out a birthday in order to make myself and others feel good about not being able to celebrate together on my actual birthday. The practice that started due to geography soon became habit so even now I love stretching out the celebrations.

This year was a truncated celebration. I was away in Jordan during the lead-up to my birthday, in a perfume workshop the weekend of my birthday, and have been bustling away with work since my birthday. The birthday celebration was Sunday night (Nov. 16) and there’s only been a quiet smattering of birthday wishes since. Not my usual full-blown agenda so I was very excited to get a bunch of cool mail this week.

Not in the mail, but stumbled up via Flickr, here’s the photo of my birthday party filling a full theatre row. (Thanks Travis.)

Thursday Andrew Zuckerman’s Creature arrived in the mail. Lovely, beautiful photographs from an amazing photographer. Andrew Zuckerman’s Wisdom is another worthwhile book (watch the video on his site). But Creature is eye-candy for the animal lover. It is about souls beyond human souls.

Friday afternoon my perfume oils from Eden Botanicals arrived. I’m looking forward to playing with the Black Currant.

Saturday morning the doorbell brought this tasty selection of treats from the Sherrett household. Thank you Linda!

Sunday morning the doorbell brought Alice Feiring’s The Battle for Wine and Love.

A perfect end to November. Thank you all.

Today was the book launch for Wenda the Wacky Wiggler by Christopher Aslan, illustrated by Emily Mullock.

Wenda is a girl after my own heart. She is a wacky wiggler. Even at night asleep in her bed, a tune is going through her head. She wiggles and waltzes, dances and prances, much to the chagrin of the townsfolk who want this dancing to stop. How horrid. Thankfully Wenda wins them over in the end.

Wenda the Wacky Wiggler is published by my friend Meghan Spong, who is a great designer and production woman, and now publisher-owner of Benjamin Brown Books.

There are a couple of books on the list and if you want beautiful picture books with great stories and excellent production quality, support Benjamin Brown Books. Go to a bookstore and ask for Wenda the Wacky Wiggler.

Hooray, Julie Wilson’s SeenReading.com is a Canadian Blog Awards Finalist!

Help move Seen Reading to the winner’s spot. Simply press the vote button. So easy. Just do it.

Vote for Seen Reading as Best Podcaster, it’s all books baby, how can you not?
http://cdnba.wordpress.com/vote-2008/best-podcastervlogger/

Nabokov on the first lines of Lolita. Read in English and Russian.

Quote: Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Nabokov detests italicized passages in a novel … canned music … concise dictionaries … journalistic cliches … and the moment of truth

On Thursday I celebrated American Thanksgiving with Sarah and Anthony Nicalo and their family and friends. It was a great day of eating, drinking and laughing.

The day started with a shopping trip to Granville Island to meet up with Boris and Evan. Coffee. Bagels. Goodies.

We arrived at Sarah and Anthony’s just in time for sausage making.

Boris got down to work on his dinner contribution.

I got down to lunch.

In the meantime, Anthony carried on with the sausage making.

Aside from being skilled at eating, I’m also pretty good at taking the juicy bits out of pomegranates. James was reassigned.

Jeff was our mash potato guy.

The afternoon prep kept us all hard at work.

Evan took over making the sausages. Little did he know, this was a 5 hour task. Hello Zen moment.

One of the first signs of dinner was the squash soup, served in a pumpkin. Amazing! And that’s where those beautiful pomegranate bits made an appearance.

The other hands-down, tastiest dish was this turkey rillette. Turkey, pistachio, cranberry yumminess.

Boris’ dish was also very good, especially with the salty yam chips on top.

Rachel added the finishing touches to the potatoes. Cream baby!

Now for the climax of dinner shots.

Grilled salmon.

Turkey sausage.

Veggies.

Dinner 1. (Yes, there was dinner 2.)

Christine & James.

Rachel, Sarah, Anthony, Boris.

Overflow eating.

Between dinner 1 and dinner 2 was the intermezzo. Candied salmon and olive oil gelato.

Post dinner there was more drinking and storytelling.

Rachael & Boris.

And, of course, dessert. Here are 2 of the 5 desserts on offer.

The evening ended with the taking of pictures …

and the drinking of oil olive.

One of the best Thanksgivings I’ve ever celebrated. Thank you Sarah, Anthony and the artisan farmers who produced the amazing naturally farmed, handcrafted wines that we drank.

High Tea at T Bakery
4445 West 10th Ave.
Vancouver

Susie and I went for high tea at T Bakery today. Cream Earl Grey. Totally delicious bites.

Love Shani Mootoo’s poetry. Love the cover of this book. So hot!

Valmiki’s Daughter by Shani Mootoo (House of Anansi)