Holiday Shopping Made Easy!

Do you know what I like about CSN stores, other than they like my blogs?  They have everything from tv tables to luggage, furniture to dog crates, boots, shoes, handbags, the list goes on and on.One thing that is vitally important when ordering online is to buy from a reputable store since you can't actually touch what you are buying till you get it.
For example this is a line from the listing I'm reviewing for you.
Designed in the USA, bags are crafted in Taiwan at a women-owned facility that supports fair labor practices.
CSN stores are upfront, they also have a quality rating on the right side of the product display page that tells you what quality the item you order is!  AND they give important details, the straps on this bag adjust from the inside so there are no dangling straps.

Now you probably want to know the details about what I'm talking about, it is a backpack (for those books, this is a book blog you know!), a Dabbawalla Vintage Flyer Backpack.  Now isn't that cool?  Add a pair of aviator sunglasses and you are automatically stylish! It is $40 and I wouldn't mind having one.
CSN stores are offering special deals that run this week.  They are so special you can't use any other promotion codes with them.  As always, items that are over $69 and can ship by regular methods ship for FREE!! Check out these deals below.... and get started on your holiday shopping!
CSN Baby
CSN Games
CSN Fitness
CSN Toys and Games

Where Have I Been?

I've not been posting regularly.  I have joined the ranks of the gainfully employed.  I write for the internet now part time.  That leaves very little time (read none) for blogging.  But the folks @ CSN have been very good to me and asked me if I would let my readers in on some special deals they have this holiday season.  CSN has over 200 different stores online. They carry everything from handbags, to dog crates, to children's luggage.

Isn't this backpack cute!  You may ask what this has to do with books?  What better gift to give a child than a backpack with a couple books in it for Christmas?  This one is $19.98 with FREE SHIPPING.  Pretty neat huh?  Tomorrow I'll have a full review of one of their items and let you all in on some special deals CSN stores have going on this week.

Shallow Thoughts Blog

I found a new blog Shallow Thoughts Blog.  She comments on books and TV shows.  We don't watch the same TV shows (The Bachelor and related shows leave me cold as do Little House On The Prairie reruns) always but I do appreciate her comments about The Real Housewives Of Washington DC.  They are hilarious as are her comments about Little Joe (Pa on the Little House show etc.)
Her book reviews are warm and funny, OK the two or three I read were warm and funny.  Anyway check it out.
What REALLY got me is her book review blog is supposedly silly and superfluous?  Mine (I thought) was all solemn and like serious....as solemn and serious as I can be anyway. 

A Long Way Down By Nick Hornby

The basic premise of A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby is  (and yes I do use stilted sentences in order to get the books title and author in here) four people have rather bad luck of their own making but fate has a part to play in it.  So far I've described about 99.99% of the world and stories huh?  Not quite sure how I missed this book before.  It's good.  It's old but it's good.  The people are in Britain which I don't always find particularly stimulating or interesting but this time it just added to the plot, I swear it did, if you've read this blog I don't blather on about things I don't think are true, I just blather on about true things.  So these four disparate souls end up contemplating suicide and through simple (OK, not so simple but not extraordinary) means the guide each other back to normalcy if not happiness.  Naturally they learn quite a bit along the way.  Although this book is entertaining I do recommend it for anyone who has ever been "down" or depressed. 
I'd give it a 7 or a B, actually if I could have 100 books on a desert island for entertainment this might be one.  BTW I got my copy @ a thrift store while I was doing laundry while away from home...Dispatch was in the motel room and I told the lady who ran the laundrymat/thrift store that I had to go back and check on my dog.  She told me if he was well behaved and small he could come back to the laundrymat with me.  I decided to take a chance on the well behaved and he was a charmer.  Loved on people who wanted loved on, looked @ the others like "whatzamatter, never seen a BEECHON before"?

Furniture Review Not A Book Review

This is not the name of a book.  This blog is a furniture review.  Actually a review of stores. 

See this bedroom vanity?  See the Cherry Bedroom Vanity?  They are both available from CSN stores.
CSN has 200+ stores.  I am like one of the cheapest people I know.  I used to not buy paper towels because they were expensive.  We won't go into any more money saving tips other than you can pour fabric softener on a wash cloth and toss it in the dryer instead of a fabric softener sheet?  BUT I do look for the best deal.  I know before I make another purchase I'm going to check out what CSN has to offer.  For example I found dog crates for a lower price than my local discount store and they have FREE shipping on many items.
Check it out if you have time or just remember the name!

This is a book about dogs.  Thus it goes on Missouri Books and Animals That Give Pause too (both my blogs, I have one called Tresa's Blog too if you want to be really bored impressed.  The Art of Racing In the Rain is by Garth Stein.  I'd give it a 9 out of 10 or maybe an 8, not the most intellectually stimulating read I've had but it's a dog talking, gimme a break.  I bought this book for like $10 @ Wally world because I had to wait an hour in KC and had NOTHING to read and NOTHING to do which is a fate worse than death if you know me.  

You can buy it from Amazon by clicking to your right in that handy dandy amazon box.  In fact you can buy anything from amazon, anything, you are getting sleepy...back to the book review.

I love dog books.  I love books on training dogs, about dogs, by dogs, (supposedly, most of them are not trained for proper grammar) I love dog books.  This one is no exception.  I'm not saying it gives particular insight into your fido's secret life but who is to say?  So what happens in the book?  Basically it follows a dog through his years with a family, through good times and bad though this family seems to have the market on bad times cornered for awhile.  If nothing else read this book for the psychologically haunting scene with the zebra........I had a stuffed zebra when I was small, not again, I didn't know they were capable of such things....

The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

Probably the best book I've read since Cell by Stephen King.  Stephen also liked The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle  by the way.  I had to look like three times to get Mr Wroblewski's name right so we will call him Mr. W from now on.

I think the best testament to a book is how much you remember and how it affects your life.  I remember bits and pieces of this book constantly.  I don't want to give anything away but when Edgar goes on his great adventure I found the book especially memorable (I felt like I was actually Edgar, a young boy with my dogs and not a grandma of young boys).  Actually it's been almost a year since I've read this book and I brought it with me in the truck to reread.  I could see some parts of the plot coming from miles away such as the sinister character but others were a complete surprise which is also a testament to a great book.  If you love dogs as I do and appreciate a mystery or thriller this is a book for you or if you like Oprah's Book Club books. It is the 2008 selection of Oprah's Book Club.  Although it's about a boy and dogs readers of Chick Lit or even love stories will like The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle.

Mr. W says that we write the books that we would like to read.  He goes on to say:

I wished I could read a novel about a boy and his dog, one that integrated our contemporary knowledge of canine behavior, cognition, and origins with my experience of living with dogs; if possible, something flavored with the uncynical Midwestern sense of heart and purpose so familiar from my childhood.

Mr. W also says that this is a story of a boy and his dog and ethics and character which pretty well sums the whole thing up.  The review also said this is a modern day Hamlet which could be true.  It's a beautiful beautiful book written so you are in the world which Edgar inhabits and no other.

Stephen King said when he got close to the end he kept finding excuses to put the book down, not because he didn't like it but because he did and wanted to prolong the experience.  I know that it's the book I chose to reread although it's only been a year since my first reading.  It's a book that will transport you away from the mundane, Mr. W is a superb writer and to think this is his first novel is astounding.