By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan 15th century Spain is an era I am not very familiar with, having only read novels mentioning Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. The Spanish Inquisition and the fate of both the Muslims and the Jewish communities during this time period is a subject I’ve planned to read more about (Jean Plaidy wrote 3 non-fiction volumes on the Spanish Inquisition, as well as several novels), but I’ve found that Mitchell James Kaplan’s By Fire, By Water is a very good introduction to the three major religions of the region: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Meticulously researched and with a superb vocabulary it is a story of a people, conversos , searching for their history and the answers to many questions about their birthright, no matter the consequences
Archive for June, 2010
review: By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan
Posted in Historical Fiction Books 
Tags: 15th century, Author, Book, cities, History, inquisition, inquisitor, judaism, mitchell james kaplan, mitchell-james, spain, Time 
Comments OffAnd the Winning Title is…
Hemingway’s Girl 36 people voted. 27 picked Hemingway’s Girl . 5 picked After the Storm
Posted in Historical Fiction Books Tags: after-the-storm, Book, good-point, hemingway, loving-frank, might-make, Query, section-heading, storm, story-title, three-parts Comments OffAromatherapy ? Fact or Fiction
Aromatherapy science and the use of essential oils is a recently created field, with some startling information to share. For many years, practitioners of holistic aromatherapy have claimed that scents and aromas can be used to reduce stress and promote relaxation. However, it is only recently that scientific professionals have started to take a critical, logical approach to proving or disproving the claims of aromatherapy practitioners. Aromatherapy science takes ‘common knowledge/wisdom’ about smell and mood regulation into the laboratory, where it can be rigorously tested, and the results have surprised many members of the scientific community. Aromatherapy science has shown that aromatherapy can strongly and quickly affect mood and behaviour. Researchers recently discovered that the introduction of natural scents of essential oils like lavender and vanilla can significantly reduce anxiety and distress in at least some cases. These positive outcomes may spell great news for people who are looking for an affordable, easy way to relax both in crisis situations and in everyday life. The Facts The strongest evidence aromatherapy science has produced in favour of the stress reducing effects of smell was in a recent study on anxiety in hospital patients. In a study conducted at Manhattan’s Sloan-Kettering Hospital, the scent of vanilla was shown to help reduce stress related disorder, claustrophobia 63% during MRI scans. This is a dramatic statistic, and has helped raise interest in aromatherapy science in academic community.Aromatherapy is a term coined in the 1920′s, by a French chemist named Rene Maurice Gattefosse, to describe the practice of using essential oils taken from plants, flowers, roots, seeds, etc., in healing. The use of plant oils, including essential oils, is meant for psychological and physical well being. Gattefosse conducted experiments with essential oils on wounded soldiers during World War 1. He found that essential oils were antiseptics that detoxified better than the chemical compounds that were currently being used. This is especially good news for those that have skin conditions that include bacterial activity. This affects acne skin and congested skin including oily skin, due to excessive sebum production. There can often be issues with spots, pimples and boils, which can be reoccurring.Contrary to what many sceptics think, there is actually quite a lot of published research on aromatherapy and essential oils. But, like any body of research, some aromatherapy studies are not well designed, some are inconclusive, and some are not necessarily accessible to those who have no science or clinical background. And as with any research, it is important to read aromatherapy research with a critical eye. It is also important to establish who commissioned the research. Aromatherapy trials, pilot studies and controlled research. Aromatherapy and High Blood PressureAromatherapy is widely used for the purpose of relaxation and researchers are now investigating the alleged benefits. One small, pilot study was conducted by Jolanta Basnyet, an aromatherapist at the Natural Health Centre in Preston, Lancashire, UK.Twenty patients were divided into two groups; the first group to receive five 45 minute aromatherapy treatments, using 15ml of unrefined grapeseed carrier oil containing one drop of each of Ylang-ylang, Clary sage and Marjoram over a period of six weeks. The second group received the same massage but without the essential oils. The massage techniques used were effleurage, petrissage, gentle friction, vibration and feathering using 15ml of unrefined grapeseed oil, which in the aromatherapy group contained one drop of each of the essential oils.At the end of the treatment period, the results revealed that 7/10 in the treatment group and 6/10 in the control experienced a reduction in their raised blood pressure. The improvement in pulse rate of patients in the treatment group was consistently higher than improvement observed in the control group.The report concludes that ‘overall blood pressure readings in both groups improved successfully, which would indicate that this type of tactile treatment can have a beneficial effect on the raised arterial blood pressure. Aromatherapy and elderly patientsResearchers at Oldham Cottage hospital recently investigated the potential of lavender essential oil to aid rest and relaxation and thereby encourage the healing process in elderly patients. The patients were monitored for seven days during which time their sleep patterns, dozing and alertness during the day were recorded. The following seven days one drop of Lavender augustfolia was put on each patient’s pillow at night. No other changes were made to the patients’ daily routine or medications that they were receiving. At the end of the seven days, all of the patients’ records were collated and analysed. Interestingly, all of the patients reacted favourably to the treatment; the researchers observed increased daytime alertness, improved sleep patterns and those patients who had previously experienced confusion were observed to display as much as a 50 per cent decrease in their symptoms. Fifty-two subjects were divided into an essential oil group, placebo group, and control group by random assignment. The application of aromatherapy was the inhalation method of blending oils lavender, ylang-ylang, and bergamot once daily for 4 weeks. To evaluate the effects of aromatherapy, blood pressure and pulse were measured twice a week Serum cortisol levels, catecholamine levels, subjective stress, and state anxiety were measured before and after treatment in the three groups. The blood pressure, pulse, subjective stress, state anxiety, and serum cortisol levels among the three groups were significantly different. The differences of catecholamine among the three groups were not significant statistically. The results suggest that the inhalation method using essential oils can be considered an effective nursing intervention that reduces psychological stress responses and serum cortisol levels, as well as the blood pressure of clients with hypertension. Effects of aromatherapy (odourless condition, lavender, and hiba oil) on mood and anxiety were investigated in patients who were being treated with chronic haemodialysis. A control period consisting of natural hospital smells was established before each test session, then aromatic test conditions were systematically evaluated for odourless conditions as well as aromatic conditions containing lavender and hiba oil aromas. The effects of aromatherapy were measured using the Hamilton rating scale for depression (HAMD) [...]
Make Your E-book Marketing Made Easy?
Have you ever purchased a hard cover book only to discover that it is outdated in a couple of years? Enter the e-book. The format of an e-book is such that you can purchase it one day and when you are reading it again sometime in the future, all you need to do is click a button and you get the updated version in a matter of seconds. This is one of the main reasons that e-books have become the digital item of choice for marketers. Advantages There are several advantages to publishing e-books. Rather than go through the process of having a hardcopy book produced through a printer, you can do it yourself on your computer. Speed is one greatest advantages of digital media. You can have your book written, compiled into its final file format and uploaded to the internet or to eBay in days instead of the weeks or months that a “normal” book requires for a paper edition. Cost Cost is another of the advantages of the electronic format. The cost of printing ten thousand copies of a hardcover book can be extremely expensive. This is true whether your book is being done through a publishing house or a small printer. This doesn’t even include the costs of shipping the product to retailers and marketing in any manner. For more details you can visit at www.profiting-with-free-reports.com The only cost involved in creating an e-book is the value that you place on your time. Of course there is the cost of the electricity your computer uses, but that is negligible. Format Your e-book will be created in a readable format, typically a .PDF file. The advantage of using this format is that you will potentially have an unlimited number of copies of your e-book. When you sell an e-book online, you create a virtually endless supply of the product, so you don’t have to worry about running out of copies. Whether your book is copied a dozen times or a million, your cost to produce them is the same. E-books can be stored on your computer for use and access at any time that you please. With catalogs, you can update the products and prices as often as you wish and you do not have the loss of thousands of outdated back issues filling your warehouse space or having to recycle them. Your information is always available for your customers in the most up to date version. Profiting Typically when you produce an e-book your end product is not in the hundreds of pages. This is another cost advantage compared to using a publisher and having to pay for the cost of the paper to print it on. If your book does end up being large; 50-100 pages or larger; you can then break it up into volumes and you have two or three e-books to offer for sale effectively doubling or tripling your profits. You can also visit at www.allfreereports.com Finally realize that you do not need to fear you are not good enough to write your own book. Write it as thought you were telling a friend about something. Feel comfortable. Once you are done you can run the copy through a spelling and grammar checking program to hone off any rough spots there. Everyone has a book in them somewhere. It is time to let yours out on the world. <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www.ebook-author-interview.com”> www.ebook-author-interview.com </a> <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www.create-free-pdf.com”> www.create-free-pdf.com </a>
20 Economical Book Marketing Techniques
*The succeeding article is about Marketing Self Published Books, Profitable Book Marketing, Book Marketing Strategies, and many other useful tips about online book marketing. Whether you are an upstart author or a self published author, an efficient book marketing plan in these times of economic recession need not be expensive if you just know your target market, find the most economical means to inform this market of your works, and establish a lasting, trustworthy relationship with your new-found markets. Study carefully your expected demographic market’s spending behavior and changing lifestyle habits, given these trying times, and then find effective ways and methods that they may be convinced and persuaded in buying your book. Also, compare the effectiveness of your book marketing plan with the competition of the same genre, and consider relevant marketing factors such as the pricing of the book, the common qualities of the bestselling authors, the present market demand for the genre, and the strengths and weaknesses of the competition. Try choosing or combining any of these effective book marketing techniques so that you will not only save on your book marketing investment but will become an efficient “author-preneur” as well: 1. Conduct book signing campaigns at local/statewide bookstores, book fairs, and literary conventions, which lets you market for free or for a very minimal registration fee. 2. Strategically schedule the announcement of your new book or continuing publicity with a relevant national news event, a new blockbuster movie, or a trade fair. 3. Write articles on topics of current interest and correlate it with the beneficial features and advice found in your book, then submit at free PR websites. 4. Participate in various online authors’ or genre-specific blog sites. This is one tried-and-tested avenue for the so-called “viral marketing” to flourish because in manifesting your thoughts and perspectives to thousands of online bloggers, you make them appreciate your knowledge and expertise on a particular subject matter of interest, which is related to the book you are writing. In this manner, you are actually and indirectly promoting your book with your interesting ideas shared online. 5. Publish actual portions or excerpts of your book together with a concise feature article that can be distributed in high visitor web portals and article data bases on the Internet. 6. Deal with a reliable print-on-demand publisher that offers complete and extensive distribution services. 7. Consider more promising, diversified literary text formatting options for your works like having a full text version of your book stored in .pdf format, having an e-book version of your writing, and having downloadable versions of your book to Internet-capable handheld computer owners. 8. Participate often in writers’ conventions, writing guild conferences and symposia and the like. You could gain crucial, practical inputs from seasoned authors who will give you effective marketing advice that may not be found elsewhere. 9. Have yourself available as a public forum/special events speaker in the field or area of your expertise. You may not actually sell books, but may issue author cards for the program participants who may be your future book buyers. 10. Consider listing your book on online classified ads websites. 11. Send e-mails to your friends and reader fans of scanned excerpts of your book with a matching explanatory note. 12. Place an ad in social networking sites that allow the marketing of your books/latest work for free or for a discounted fee. 13. Be a proactive author like giving complimentary copies of your book to celebrities and well-known resource persons, sending opinion articles for newspapers, and getting actively involved in community projects and charitable events. 14. Contact genre experts, independent book critics, and well known book review companies for favorable endorsement comments, 15. Send PR’s to newspapers in your city or state for the purpose of being featured and getting book reviews. 16. Find local or state area radio stations and television stations that actually feature programs about writers, literature, or books then try to find out if you can send a PR of your book or better still, get a radio or television interview. 17. Make your own creative video presentation of your book and upload it to video-sharing websites. 18. Be your own book broadcaster. Make a podcast-able audio presentation of your book. This marketing option is ideal for authors of language and speech books, business and economics books, and even of the fiction genre. 19. Find author marketing websites that offer free ad listings of your book. This is the Internet version of the conventional bulletin board display. 20. Find book marketing services providers that offer bundled marketing programs at a discounted rate. Compare prices according to your book marketing needs, the kind of services that you prefer, the quality of the services offered, and the limits of your marketing budget.
How to Blog to Market a Novel
If you have written a non-fiction book, coming up with blog posts connected to your book should be relatively easy. For example, if you wrote a book on cooking low-fat diets, you could post one low-fat recipe a day along with insider tips to ensure the recipe turns out well. Or if you wrote a book on new social media platforms, you could write each post about one new social media platform and probably never run out of new posts. The challenge of writing ongoing book blog posts is relevant to fiction writers. If you’ve written a romance novel or a mystery novel, what are you going to write about in your blog posts? With a little imagination (and you are a fiction writer, aren’t you?) you can come up with interesting posts for your book’s blog. Let’s look at some examples: You write a novel that takes place during the Vietnam War era. Because the Vietnam War plays an important role in the novel, you could write posts about historical events that took place during that era or historical events that led to that era. And you could write about the military today fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan and about military families back home. There’s no need to mention your book in every post; the overall context of the blog is about your book. Now let’s stretch our imagination farther. You write a mystery novel about a series of medical-related murders. You could write posts about actual medical mysteries. You could also write posts about new hospital procedures that are being implemented to reduce medical-related deaths. And you could write posts telling the family of hospital patients what to look for in suspected medical malpractice. What if you’ve written a children’s picture book about family members learning to get along? Children are not going to read your blog and their parents aren’t going to read your blog aloud to their children. You could write posts about parent-child issues; if you’re not an expert, you can quote other experts. You could review other children’s picture books on similar topics. You could write posts about children’s literacy issues. The truth is that you can cast your imagination net far and wide for subjects on which to blog. Just remember that every few posts you should mention your book in connection with that post. For example, if you were writing a post about children’s literacy issues, you could mention that a specific second-grader in your book could read long words but not short words and that her teacher suspected dyslexia. Or you could quote an entire (short) scene from your novel to illustrate a point you’re making. And, yes, it’s okay that people reading your blog may not know who the characters and situation are. If you choose an appropriate scene, most readers will be able to understand the context of the excerpt. Fiction authors should use blogs to market books just as actively as non-fiction authors. Give your blog readers interesting and well-written posts, and they will read your blog and hopefully buy your book.
Science Fiction Magazine Rising Star
A science fiction magazine is one of the best possible forms of therapy for anyone with an imagination. In This article I\’m going to review a new science fiction magazine that is a rising star on the cutting edge of film and magazine publications. From Eyelumination Studios in hollywood California comes Moot Mag and Moot Mag Movie with its star, Cindera Che who werer recently seen at Wondercon in San Francisco and will be at the Wizards, Anaheim Comic Con signing magazines and previewing parts of the movie. If you like paranormal as well as humor this is definately one to check out. This magazine is a paranormal piece with a glossy full color explosion of incredible photo illustration. It’s an homage to classic sci-fi, fantasy, and adventure pulp magazines – updated with incredible photography and illustration. when you read the blog at http://MootMagMovie.com/blog we find some interesting stories in the making for the first issue of Moot Magazine, such as the true story about a beautiful woman named Maya who is being visited by a spirit or alien or ghost depending on your own interpretation. The pictures Moot Mag printed were from Maya’s video camera. The interesting part was the cool pictures made of light and energy, lifting her off the couch. It was hard to tell whether she is totally getting off on it or was in pain. This science fiction magazine also tells the story of a photo journalist who captures all these alien women and gets involved too deep to get out. The mystery unravels and its quite captivating. We even see this lady bodybuilder that is actually a robot from a science fiction magazine and she opens up and a midget comes out who is controlling her with a machinegun. Its actually quite imaginative for a science fiction magazine. Highly recommended checking it out.
How to buy the most appropriate used car for you?
There are so many people in the world that are buying the products without any of the planning and ultimately get frustrated with the problems and difficulties that gets started after having the wrong buyings. It is always recommended that one should have all the thoughts and mind set before buying any of the products. If it is a car buying, there are some of the steps that should be taken into consideration. Especially if you are planning to buy the used cars for you, you ought to take some of the thoughts into mind that can have the best of the decision. # Analyse your preference The first thing one should always keep in mind is to have a perfect frame of mind that can take the right decisions at the right time of the right product. For that thing, one must sit alone with the note and pen, should remember all the cars that one has liked and to search the exact theme that make the person thrill and then to make the notes of them. Next step is to see the list of cars for sale online. If you are interested in the buying of used cars for sale, you should have the used car search online to see the models available that are rocking your minds. # Derive the maximum budget Every buying should be budget oriented. Especially, these days when the Recessional effect is heavier one should always have the habit of restricted and budget oriented buying to avoid all the bad consequences. For deciding the budget, one should have the study of Credit Report or the bank and savings statement and then the allotment for the car buying should be done. # Compare the preferred car price with your budget When the budget and choice both are decided, the only thing that is left is to match the price and if it matches, you are through!! But, if not the only thing to get done is to hold the type of choice and to select the lower budget car of the similar type. This is the vital step of buying as people buy the cars even if they are higher than the budget!! So, one should always learn to buy only the products that suits the pockets, not the eyes and hearts!! # Check the condition of the car thoroughly The only thing that can create problems in buying the used cars for sale is the condition of the cars. There are so many people who have bought the used cars and have suffered lot due to the repairing and worse conditions of the bought cars. So, to avoid the expenses that strike the people even more than the buying of a newer car!! So, to make the senses of buying, it is always recommended to check all the parts and conditions with the help of trustworthy mechanic. The cars should be bought only after the green signal of that mechanic!! # Confirm the status of the documents and title Used cars for sale should be confirmed for their title and documents as there could be some problem in the matters of documents and title of the cars. There are chances to get the cars involved in any of the accident or even the theft problem but everything can be revealed by checking the history book and other documents. Even if there is an accident, the Repairs book shows it all.
Falling Out of Fashion
Product Description In the bestselling tradition of The Devil Wears Prada, Karen Yampolsky’s hilarious and disarmingly candid debut goes deep inside the glossy, glamorous, and completely ruthless world of magazine publishing, where bitchiness and betrayal are always in vogue, and this month’s hotshots are just one dud issue away from a pink slip and a one-line career obit on Page Six… As a teenager at a prestigious prep school, Jill White studied her roommate’s… More >> Falling Out of Fashion
Buying Tips for Online Used Truck Buyers
Trucks are the lifeline of the industries and industries are the basic needs of the people. So, trucks are having vital place in the automotive industries. These trucks are quite expensive buying and therefore not all the people can afford them. There are many of the budget oriented truck drivers who are wishing to have truck buying that can make them full of pleasure. The used trucks are the trucks that are specially made for these budget oriented truck buyers. These Used Trucks are therefore becoming quite popular in truck lovers. They are available widely online and it is quite easier to select them, buy them and to have the home deliveries of them. The online buying consist many of the benefits and also is having an upper edge over physical buying. The online truck buying is money saving, time saving and also is having different advantages like having wider selection of trucks, selecting trucks with near and dear ones, having the truck buying at favorable time and also the prompt deals. These are some of the highlighted advantages. Each and every coin is having two sides. Same way, there are some of the cares that need to have with any of the advantages. Even in the used trucks buying online, there are many of the cars that need to be taken care off. Here we have summarized some of the tips that can make the used trucks buying of the truck lovers easier. * To select reliable website It is quite important to select appropriate website offering Used Trucks For Sale. There are millions of websites dealing in used trucks but fewer of them are reliable and cautious about quality of the Used Trucks. There are many of the chances of ignoring qualities of used trucks in gathering big quantities of used trucks. Therefore the websites that are having more of the traffic and also are verifies by any of the popular online servers. The website should be quite reliable as there are many of the cases where the truck lovers buys trucks and afterwards gets disturbed with the terms and conditions of the websites. * to select the nearest dealers After selecting better website it becomes more important to have the reliable and trustworthy trucks. There are thousands of truck dealers in the website but in case of used trucks, it is always suggested to deal with the dealers who are located near by as physical verification of used trucks is quite important. The used trucks should be verified by the reliable mechanic and also the exterior and all the other things should be confirmed before buying the trucks. These things are possible only in case of nearly located dealers. So, it is always better to deal with the nearest dealers. * To check the documents It is always recommended that all the documents and title book of used trucks should be verified. One of the most important steps in deciding the trucks is to know the real owner of the selected used truck and if possible to deal with the owner. The dealing with the owner can enhance trust and confidence in the truck buyer. Document checking is one of the vital requirements as it can save the buyer from any of the later consequences that can make the buyer dismal and helpless. Also the legal consequences can become problem for the truck buyers if the truck is having any of sue or accident issue pending. All of these factors can be identified with the help of history book of truck. Also the repairing book is mirror to get the details of the previous conditions of trucks. * To check reasonable prices The prices of the trucks should be checked and “shopping” and bargaining should be done if required. It must be noted that the used trucks are bought to save money, so the pricing should be tackled with utmost care. These are some of the most important and highlighted buying tips that should be taken while buying any of the used trucks online.