AUTHORBUZZ: Click here to discover new books,
"meet" the authors and enter to win.
Dear Reader,
We're so lucky, she's back. M.J. Rose, NYT bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, is today's guest author, and she's giving away a copy of her latest novel, The Secret Language of Stones. M.J. Rose has been a regular visitor to the book club throughout the years, so please do email and say hello. Your gracious email also enters you in the drawing for a copy of her newest title, The Secret Language of Stones. Email: mjrosewriter@gmail.com
Welcome back to the book club author M.J. Rose...
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead--his eyes are closed."--Albert Einstein.
One day I was playing with my eight year old niece in the garden. We'd collected rocks from the beach and were bordering a flower bed with them. I got up to answer the phone and when I came back I saw she'd begun a new project.
Audrey was sitting on the grass carefully arranging a semi-circle of all black stones around a torn iridescent blue butterfly wing.
She was engaged in some secret rite that only she understood. But I didn't have to understand to see the transformative look on her face. Audrey was living magic in that moment--the magic of creativity, of invention, of fantasy. The magic of imagination.
I believe in ghosts. The kind that visit us in shadows or haze as well as the kind that live in our minds, haunting us, soothing us, keeping us company. I believe magic too. And mystery. And that it's all around us but we miss so much of it.
By writing about it in a slightly exaggerated way I hope that I draw attention to it.
If you look, you can find magic in almost anything. Like the stones my niece found. I too was fascinated with stones and rocks as a child. I still remember a present from my parents--a white box with a dozen compartments and inside each was a different stone.
I came to understand that stones have a more important--even integral--role in our world that goes beyond the glitter and polish.
Stone are magic. They can be ground down to make medicine or paint. They can be used to build shelter. Or used as tools to help us cook and prepare our food. They can be amulets and talisman's. Things of beauty. Of value. We walk on them. They are our very foundation. I think we are connected to them in a very complicated and profound way.
The world can be a cruel place. Every hour it seems there is more dire and upsetting news about a new tragedy somewhere in the world. There are days when it seems that we can't absorb any more. That it's just too overwhelming.
But if we heed Einstein's warning and focus on magic just a few minutes little every day--even if its just to pick up a black stone at the beach and think about its composition and the miracle of how it was formed--we will start to notice all the magic and mystery around us and it might just be get us through the day.
--M.J. Rose
Please email M.J. and welcome her back to the book club. Email mjrosewriter@gmail.com to say hello and to enter the book giveaway.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
* This month's Penguin Classics book is THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS by Eugene Sue. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin tote bag: http://www.supportlibrary.com/bc/v.cfm?L=drclassqqxqZ1AFE3FA7F25&c=CLASSICS
AUTHORBUZZ: WHITE BONE (Thriller) by Ridley Pearson
Faced with the extinction of the African Elephant and White Rhino in the wild, I decided to travel to Kenya to investigate. The result is my new suspense novel, White Bone. During my stay in Kenya I was in Nairobi when a terrorist bomb blew up an open air market, killing 18, and was staying at a safari lodge when a rhino was poached less than a mile away. Hopefully this book not only keeps you turning pages, but makes you look at the world a little differently.
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on WHITE BONE to find out more about the book and the author, Ridley Pearson. Send him an email, he'd love to hear from you.
Comments