Foundling (Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 1)

(This Monster Blood Tattoo series is also available in a CD)

Watch out, Harry Potter; there's a new kid in town. He's got a girl's name, a heart of gold, and a mighty streak of bravery considering he's just a poor foundling. Yes, a foundling is an orphan, but, unlike Potter, Rossamund Bookchild grew up in a school for foundlings, surrounded by others seemingly like him. Yet Rossamund is different from the others: he's largely introspective and he harbors a soft spot for many of the monsters that stalk the Half-Continent.

Okay, so there isn't really a new kid in town because Foundling's Rossamund doesn't live in the UK or Hogsmeade, but the Half-Continent has its own thrills. A semi-medieval world full of pirates trading child slaves on the vinegar seas and electrified warriors, or fulgars, fighting monsters in the name of the Emperor, Rossamund's land is intriguing indeed.

During his eventful journey from Madam Opera's Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls to his first job as a lamplighter in High Vesting, Rossamund falls in with a particularly adept fulgar, Europe, and a jolly, quick-thinking postman, Fouracres. Undoubtedly, it will be the adventures of this trio that D.M. Cornish explores in the following books, as Foundling is the first in the Monster Blood Tattoo series. But Rossamund has left behind dear friends at school-all adults, the only ones mature enough to appreciate the boy's heart-who are bound to show up again with their own troubles.


Aside from the exciting plot and lovable characters, what really makes this book is the fact that Cornish is an illustrator. Sketches of characters in fantastic costumes and intricately detailed maps of the empire show up occasionally. Plus, the book contains a glossary of words peculiar to the Half-Continent, charts explaining the imperial calendar, and drawings of the many types of boats.

As you say cheerio to Harry Potter and his friends this summer, hop into a landaulet and get ready to explore the threwdish woods because Rossamund Bookchild is waiting.

Armchair Interviews says: If you want to know what those words mean? Get a copy of Foundling and start reading.

Einstein's Refrigerator: And Other Stories from the Flip Side of History

I have enjoyed reading this sort of stuff ever since I was a kid and that's 60 years ago.This book is a bunch of short articles about people and things that have happened in somewhat recent history ,which will never appear in history textbooks,but very interesting nonetheless. If you read some of the other reviews,you'll see what some of these things are.There are about 30 weird items covered in the book.So,no need for me to repeat.
The interesting thing to someone like me who has enjoyed this sort of thing is what has changed so much by the people who dig up and publish this stuff.
I first got interested in this trivia by reading Ripley's Believe It or Not!.His cartoons were a daily and weekly sort of thing in newspapers and read by just about everyone.He was the real inventor of this popular interest;that is he more than anyone else ,made it so popular.He travelled the world searching out the unbelievable,and because of that he was known as "The Modern Day Marco Polo".I have several dozen of his books and there are many Ripley museums and now even TV shows.Ripley was one of the most well known people and most interesting characters in the western world.There were many others who published similar stuff ;but none even came close to the 'master'.

A couple of things are interesting about this book.First ,the author is a relatively unknown and in no sense the 'bigger than life character' that Ripley was.Ripley had to travel the globe or depend on people to send him material.No need to do that anymore.A person needs only access to the net ,and away he goes.If you read something in Ripley,s,that would be about the end of it.Further information would be very diffult to come by,especially if one lived in a small town.With the sories in this book the author gives a lot of references which would lead one on to many ,many more, all from your desk and the net.
The author has a terrific web site 'Steve Silverman's Useless Information'jam-packed with similar stories.Oh,by the way,even though your local newspaper probably no longer carries the Ripley's Believe It or Not cartoons ,there is an excellent Ripley's Website that does.
I am glad someone still publishes this stuff as I've had a ton of enjoyment over the years reading ;Stranger than Fiction,Greatest Inventions,World's Biggest Blunders,Weird but True,Did you Know?,World's Dumbest Inventions,World's dumbest Criminals,World's strangest Places,and on and on. However,Silverman has shown how the Net has made the amount of this information that is available,virtually limitless.
As with everything,when something new comes along, something old disappears.
With me,it's the characters like Ripley who are becoming the thing of the past,and I believe we are all a little poorer for it.

Einstein's Refrigerator: And Other Stories from the Flip Side of History

self-reliance Best of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-Reliance is an essay written by American Transcendentalist philosopher and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's repeating themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotes, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."


The first hint of the philosophy that would become Self-Reliance was presented by Emerson as part of a sermon in September 1830 a month after his first marriage.[1] His wife was sick with tuberculosis[2] and, as Emerson's biographer Robert D. Richardson wrote, "Immortality had never been stronger or more desperately needed!"[1]

From 1836 into 1837, Emerson presented a series of lectures on the philosophy of history at Boston's Masonic Temple. These lectures were never published separately but many of his thoughts in these lectures were later used in "Self-Reliance" and several other essays.[3] Later lectures by Emerson, especially the "Divinity School Address", led to public censure for Emerson's radical views; the staunch defense of individualism in "Self-Reliance" may be a reaction to that censure.[4]

Self-Reliance was first published in his 1841 collection, Essays: First Series.
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Self Reliance