First Look of "What About the Boy?" by Stephen Gallup

At Librarywala, we make an effort to connect with readers and writers the world over in search of stories that are heartwarming and beautiful. It was an absolute pleasure to stumble upon the story Stephen Gallup has to share with the world in his poignant parental memoir "What About the Boy?" due to release in September this year. A story of undying devotion to his developmentally challenged son, it promises to take readers on an emotional roller-coaster like none other. It is a story of courage, love and belief that a silver lining does exist. 

Here's a little bio on this wonderful father Stephen Gallup.

Stephen Gallup grew up in North Carolina and Virginia. He studied at NC State University, earning a bachelor's degree in the life sciences, and then at the University of Virginia, where he received a master’s in English.

Beginning in 1977, he worked in various roles in technical communication in the aerospace and wireless telecommunications industries, with projects ranging from proposals for satellite launches and feasibility studies of space missions, to user guides for trendy new cell phones. In the early years, he wrote occasional short fiction on the side, and features for newspapers.

Gallup’s life changed dramatically with the birth of his son Joseph in 1985. Upon learning that there was a problem, he applied his energies to a pursuit of answers that he felt certain must exist. After a year of consulting with physicians to no effect, he located other resources. For the next four years, he and his wife Judy implemented an intensive two-pronged treatment campaign that resulted in dramatic improvements in Joseph’s condition.

His memoir What About the Boy? shows what the family did, and what happened next.

Here is an unpublished piece about his upcoming memoir, 'What About the Boy?' due to hit stores in September this year.

What would you do if you had a new baby who cried, not just sometimes but all the time? And what would you do if several months passed and your baby was not making any developmental progress?

Of course, you would take your baby to the doctor. But what would you do if, instead of offering treatment, the doctor simply told you to be less anxious? Time passes, and your baby is already one year old. The way he cries, and thrashes about, and vomits, you know he’s in distress. And he still cannot crawl or even sit up by himself.

Finally, without ever diagnosing your baby’s problem, the doctors tell you that you need counseling. They see a problem in you. You need to change your focus. The baby? Well, there’s not much to be done about the baby.

There is a choice to be made at such times. Yes, we must rely on specialists who surely know more than we do about such things, but if the specialists do not even try to help—what then?

What About the Boy? A Father’s Pledge to His Disabled Son is a memoir written by the father of such a child. Stephen Gallup and his wife Judy were a young couple who had recently moved to California, thousands of miles from their families and friends. When the doctors let them down, they had no support other than their own sense of what was right.

They knew their son Joseph depended on them to overcome whatever it was that bothered him, and they knew that, ultimately,  trying to find real help for him was their responsibility.

The memoir follows their reluctant first steps into the realm of alternative medicine. Some of the providers they find do not inspire confidence, but others personify common sense. What is more important is that, under a new regimen, Joseph finally attains peace within himself and begins the slow process of developing new skills. Such as crawling. And walking.

In the interests of disclosure, the victories this family achieves do not come without a heavy price, nor are they as complete and final as one might wish. Joseph’s path to wellness goes only so far.

Given that, let’s return to the question with which we began. Should the family have accepted the advice of authorities, or should they have dedicated their lives to an uphill battle that had no guarantee of success?

The book promises to be a compelling and honest read, offering a remarkable view of families who have to deal with similar situations in their lives. We champion the author's cause and hope this book is a grand success.

Do share your opinions with us. You may also connect with the author on his blog http://fatherspledge.com/.

Pink Slips before Publishing

We read books authored by celebrated writers and think they all perfected the art of writing at the very beginning. What we read is incredible, its brilliance hits us the moment we pick up the book.  But do these writers really elevate to this platform without struggling ?  

Let's break the myth. 

You will be surprised to note the number of times, your favorite author was let down before their oh-so-awesome best seller was first published!

Whatever genre the author may choose to weave his book around, there is a need for persistence and resilience to succeed – both essential to an author longing for his work to get its due recognition.
Here are 10 best known authors who treaded this difficult path to success & today, they veritably epitomize the same:

James Joyce

James Joyce's Ulysses was rejected by several publishers given on obscenity basis. It is now proclaimed to be one of the most beautifully written, widely read books.  
       
Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen

The series that has portions with a flavor to suit each section of its audience, Chicken Soup for the Soul received no less than 134 rejections before publication.

Meg Cabot

 

The series most sought after by preteen & teenage girls The Princess Diaries received a mail bag of rejection letters too. Life isn’t a always a fairy tale after all!! ;)

Richard Bach

                                                 

18 publishers thought a book about a seagull was ridiculous before Jonathan Livingston Seagull started conquering the skies with his passion for self - perfection.

James Patterson

The celebrated author, James Patterson humbled the 26 publishers who had rejected him earlier, when his book won the Edgar Award in 1977 .

Rudyard Kipling

In one rejection letter, Mr. Kipling was told he doesn't know how to use the English language. Kipling received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907

J.K.Rowling 

The enchanting series of Harry Potter & his wizarding adventures was submitted to 12 publishing houses, all of who rejected it. From being unbelievable to raking in sales of 400 million dollars is what we would probably call J.K.Rowling’s witchcraft.

Joseph Heller

                                                    

Story after story that he wrote as a teenager were rejected by the New York Daily News. But his work in humor-filled novel Catch-22 Joseph Heller must have given the New York Daily News a run for their money.

Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell’s popular novel Gone with the Wind was showed the door 38 times before being published. Today, even after 75 years of its first edition, it is one of the most sought after classics.

James Baldwin

Baldwin admitted that his publisher first told him to "burn" the book because of the homosexual theme. However, upon publication Giovanni's Room was ranked number 2 on a list of the best 100 novels compiled by The Publishing Triangle in 1999.

As Flavia Weedn rightly put it “If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again.”  ~, Flavia and the Dream Maker, and that’s the learning curve for the writers & writers to-be fraternity.

Don't give up! If your aspirations are to become an eminent writer one day, the journey is not going to be an easy sail through. Their shall be intense struggle involved. But keep up your chin and you might soon be in the list of best selling authors.
- Librarywala



World Book Day 2011

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." - Charles W. Eliot (1834 – 1926)

 

 And it is to celebrate the love of books that we celebrate the World Book Day today.

This quote illustrates the importance that books have always held in our lives for a very very long time. They have eternally been a source of knowledge & the most credible medium to pass down information to the future generations. And to peruse this ocean of information, to read, is a wonderful, very intellectual habit in itself.

The connection between 23rd April and books finds its way back in 1995, when UNESCO declared it as the “World Book and Copyright Day” to commemorate the anniversary of the birth and death of  one of the most renowned personalites of English Literaure - William Shakespeare. 

The cultural eye can also trace it back to 1923 when booksellers in Spain marked it so as an ode to the death of Miguel de Cervantes (the  famous Spanish author of Don Quixote’s Adventures).

This became a part of the celebrations of the Saint George's Day  in Catalonia, where men of the medieval era gave roses to their lovers and the women to give a book in exchange. 

Although, the UNESCO declared World Book Day is on the 23rd of April, various countries celebrate this occasion on different days in assorted ways.

Check out the pictures & links to get a glimpse of how colourfully it is rejoiced.

Spain:

To celebrate this day Cervantes' Don Quixote is read during a two-day "readathon" and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize is presented by the King in Alcalá de Henares.

Gozo

The Gozo Public Library celebrated World Book Day for the fourteenth consecutive year, this time.  

To see more events in in Gozo, visit http://gozonews.com/17319/world-book-day-2011-events-celebrated-in-gozo-last-week/     

United Kingdom & Ireland            

Every year various events are organised in schools, bookshops, libraries of UK & Ireland to celebrate World Book Day.  The variety and number are impressive, demonstrating how big the celebrations are all over the country.

   
www.worldbookday.com

India:

The Library Media Centre at Kendriya Vidyalaya Pattom celebrates each  World Book and Copyright Day with colossal events.  There are competitions, author meets & exhibition of books authored by Shakespeare. 

Christopher Morley once said when you give a man a book you don't give just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you give him a whole new life. There's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book.

Librarywala takes this opportunity to celebrate the World Book Day 2010 in a unique way of sorts.  At Librarywala, we plan to spread the joy of reading among the underprivileged by distributing books among them. 

How you can get involved?

http://www.librarywala.com/WEB/BookDonation.aspx

DONATE your old books to the less lucky & put them to good use. We are open to comics, novels, classics - any suitable reading material.                             

Books bring delight which grows manifold when its shared especially with someone who may not have a chance to read if not for you.

Dont forget to tell us how you plan to celebrate this World Book Day. 

- Librarywala

 

And the Pulitzer Prize goes to....

The Washington Post was recently quoted "It's time to welcome a new star in the constellation of great writer-doctors," Days later, this star “new star in the constellation” bagged the Pulitzer Prize, 2011 in the "general non-fiction" category.

It was talking about none other than Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, the Indian–American, who received one of the most coveted awards in the United States for his work - The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
 





For information on Pulitzer 2011 winners,  see  http://www.pulitzer.org/

A Columbia University cancer researcher and a physician, Dr. Mukherjee, embodies his work in a nearly  600-page book that is part history, part memoir, and part the story of cancer research over the last few decades.

The Pulitzer citation called the book, 'An elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science.'

 

One reason the book hit the bestseller list is that it talks about such an unusual topic in such an intriguing manner. Also, that many readers know someone who is fighting cancer or has someone in the family who is undergoing treatment for it.



As Mukherjee writes in the first chapter, while describing his initial encounters as a physician with cancer patients  - "Cancer was an all-consuming presence in our lives. It invaded our imaginations; it occupied our memories; it infiltrated every conversation, every thought. And if we, as physicians, found ourselves immersed in cancer, then our patients found their lives virtually obliterated by the disease."

Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee

He also makes a reference to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel Cancer Ward : "The diagnosis of cancer-not the disease, but the mere stigma of its presence- becomes a death sentence for Rusanov (the protagonist of cancer-ward).

He looked at cancer from the very early recordings of the disease, some 4000 years ago & thus began to trace the history of cancer from its first recorded description.

All this as he struggled to answer questions from his patients, "Where are we in the war on cancer? How did we get here? What happens next?" A grueling year in a cancer training program left him 'in stunned incoherence.'

The book may not provide any breakthrough in medicine to cure cancer, nor is it any sort of counseling for the cancer patients. But we still hold it in high regard for the mere audacity of the author to write about so tabooed a topic. It definitely provides a deeper understanding of cancer as a disease & thus stems the compassion for the cancer patients.

We give a hats off to the concept & the spirit that it is written in. What about you?

 

"Leading characters in fiction" by Nitisha Pande

"Often times when we read, we experience something not short of incredible.

We laugh out loud at a Suppandi joke we’re reading at the train station. We spend sleepless nights over a novel by Stephen King. We are filled with impassioned idealism after reading Rand. We hold back tears while flipping the pages of a Nicholas Sparks novel.

That is the power of words.  It allows us, rather provokes us, to imagine. To let our imagination run wild.What turns a novel from good to great, from forgettable to memorable, is the strength with which the characters are portrayed. Some characters inspire, some make us question, but their most common consequence is, they become a part of our mental imagery. Indelible images are imprinted in our mind of the Howard Roarks’ and Jason Bournes’ of the literary world, which is why avid readers often shirk from watching the film adaptions of their favourite books.  Here’s a bunch of characters that have made their place in fiction, for eternity.

1. Sherlock Holmes

(Adventures of Sherlock Holmes –

Sir  Arthur Conan Doyle)

Detective par excellence, chemist, violin player, boxer, swordsman- these are just a few of the talents Doyle embodied Holmes with.  Even for the non-reader, Sherlock Holmes is the archetypical spy and crime solver. He has cemented his position as the most loved detective in the fiction scene.

Unforgettable Quote: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no concealment possible. When, then, did he come?"

2.  Howard Roark and Dagny Taggart



The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

If you check on Facebook, Objectivism is a religion. It is a philosophy by Ayn Rand,  that proclaims the virtue of selfishness. The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have long been cornerstones of the fictional world, and copies of these books can be found on the shelves of every young idealist.



Unforgettable quote: “Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. But the mind is an attribute of the individual, there is no such thing as a collective brain. The man who thinks must think and act on his own. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot not be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others. It is not an object of sacrifice.”

3.  Hannibal Lecter

(Silence of the Lambs – Thomas Harris)

Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter has exquisite taste, is well read, surrounds himself with utter beauty and is the meanest killing machine on the face of the literary earth. Criminally observant, he often sends tickles down the strongest spines.

Unforgettable Quote: “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”

4. Lisbeth Salander

She’s the central character in the outrageously popular Millennium trilogy by the Swedish author, Stieg Larsson. A social outcast, a homosexual, covered in piercings, often mistaken for a teenager this pint-sized death-pixie on wheels embodies the “female asskicker,”!
    

(the Millenium series by Stieg Larsson)

5. Atticus Finch:



To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee



With such moral upstanding values, Harper Lee’s Finch has secured his place as our all-time favourite father figure. 

Unforgettable Quote: “The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience,” he says. Amen.



- Nitisha Pande

A librarywala fan 

Paperbacks and Hardbacks V/S E-books

Reading books has always been a habit I’ve followed, rather a treasured hobby. I have always regarded a book as an art object, as an investment. However, the growing presence of Amazon's Kindle & the Nook force me to think about how a person who just can't part with books would feel about one of these gadgets.

I believe, a book lover would always prefer a paperback edition of a given book to the electronic version. And there are numerous to support it.

One, the Kindle or Nook doesn't create a feeling of reading like a book does. Admit it- that anticipative feeling while turning the pages of Jeffrey Archer’s Prisoner of Birth won't be felt as you tap your e-reader to scroll down and read more.

I remember collecting old copies of the Enid Blyton series from my grand mom’s house & devouring on them throughout the holidays. Books remain readable for many years, given that paper has a much longer life span than most digital forms whereas E-book formats continue to change through time.

Plus, you can’t rule out the possibility of documents getting lost in cyberspace. Worse off if the system of a Kindle crashes, you lose your precious books unless you have backup. 

For someone who reads pretty often, a book comes in much more handier than the e-book reader. Books are best companions on travels as they don't have a battery life - whereas, a moment of anxiety on the climax of a gruesome thriller read can abruptly come to a dissappointing halt , in case, the e-books batteries are not charged. 

As for the economy of the e-book reader, not all books are available free on the net, especially the best-sellers. In case they are, you cannot rule out copyright issues. The print versions of books often cost the same as the ones available online & there isn’t even a high cost involved in getting hold of the paperback edition. 

You can always walk into the nearest bookstore, read a few excerpts & buy it if it suits your taste. Or even better, you can rent-a-book from http://www.librarywala.com/

The smell of a book be it an old, musty book of Shakespeares’s Hamlet or a freshly printed copy of the Harry Potter series is always fulfilling. There is a sense of comfort on the touch of its pages touch of its pages both - yellow & white.

From an author’s point of view too, paperbacks/hardbacks are a more concrete evidence of their efforts as against e-books. Additionally, the potential for piracy of e-books may make publishers and authors reluctant to distribute digitally. Copyright infringement may be involved because copying is involved-sometimes without the author’s/publisher's knowledge.

E-books suit one section of the society really well - students. They are pretty much more convenient  to use, unburdening students from carrying a load of books. They are also beneficial in cutting back textbook price, offering a greener choice as opposed to a thick 1,000-page encyclopedia.

Given that these gadgets are convenient and appealing, they save space & carry the “environment friendly” tag. But as someone who has resorted to the experience of picking up a book to read, would you let these reasons take over your paperbacks & hardbacks.

Make your choice. 

Why should you date a woman who reads?

Date a woman who reads. Date a woman who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a woman who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the woman reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most women who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a woman who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a woman who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because women who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Women who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a woman who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a woman who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a woman who reads.

Or better yet, date a woman who writes."

Author - Rosemarie Urquico
Check out her blog!

Women's Day Special- Enid Blyton

Today on Women’s day, Librarywala writes about a female writer  who is accredited for animating millions of childhoods with her skillfully spun stories. 

To the epitome of success in the land of books- Enid Blyton

The famous writer Enid Blyton a.k.a Mary Pollock.whose books many a million have spent their childhoods reading was born on 11th August 1897 to Thomas Carey Blyton and Theresa Mary Harrison Blyton

Blyton's books are completely works of her unbound imagination. Her series of books roof a variety of sorts.

What makes Blyton so successful is her imaginative, exciting and magical style. Her writing has sent countless young readers on thrilling adventures and generations will continue to enjoy her enchanting stories.

The Early Years:

From an early age, she liked making up stories better than anything else. As a child she would go to bed at night and stories would flood into her mind "all mixed-up, rather like dreams are, but yet each story had its own definite thread—its beginning and middle and ending."

The ENID BLYTON approach to writing:

Enid explains in “The Story of My Life” that she simply relied on her fertile imagination rather than on conscious invention. It was like viewing "a private cinema screen inside my head... and what I see, I write down." she adds: "But it's a 3-dimensional screen, complete with sound, smell and taste—and feeling!"

Enid Blyton's writing displays an appealing freshness and spontaneity. Enid has a knack of painting apt, imaginative word-pictures without resorting to lengthy descriptions or complicated phrasing.  If she sometimes fails to stretch her readers' vocabulary, she definitely does not fail in stretching their imaginations.

Inspirations:

She sought inspiration from her favourite books as a girl.  What appealed to her "wasn't so much the story as the strange 'feel' of the tale, the 'atmosphere' as we call it. It hung over me for a very long time, and gave me pleasant shivers."

Her senior school days inspires many anecdotes in her series of books St Clare’s and Malory Towers.

In her times, she was popular, full of fun and threw herself wholeheartedly into school life.

Other sources of inspiration for her books were her pets. She wrote letters for her Teacher's World column about family life as seen through the eyes of Bobs - her fox-terrier.

Her fascination with animals of different kinds is particularly evident in her various books – where fairy tales and fantasies have been spun around animals & creatures adapted from them.

The Ladder to Success

As a teen, Enid received countless rejection slips from publishers. However, that only made her more determined to persevere with her writing.

Enid Blyton took a great interest in children of all ages.  Therefore she wrote for a wide age-range.

Altogether, Enid Blyton is believed to have written around 700 books She earned a fortune from her writing and in 1950 she set up her own limited company, Darrell Waters Ltd., to manage the financial side of things.

Beyond the Writer:

Enid Blyton married Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters after the sad disintegration of her first marriage to Major Hugh Alexander Pollock. Blyton's second marriage was very happy. Both were immensely proud of one another's achievements and she moved smoothly into her role as a devoted doctor's wife, living with him and her two daughters at Green Hedges – dedicating her life to her family and writing.

Enid Blyton – The Legend:

Several decades after her death in 1968 , Enid Blyton is not forgotten. The best of her lives on in her books, many of which are still in print. Her storytelling is timeless and this result confirms that her books are still a firm favourite today.

In her words,

"Even if you have never met me, you know me very well because you have read so many books of mine... I am sure that you know exactly what I stand for, and the things I believe in, without any doubt at all.”

Librarywala