10 Best Selling Books of All Time

For all of you aspiring authors, here's a list of the competition - the top 10 best selling books of all time. I stumbled on it while playing around on the Writer's Movement blog. I can't freaking believe that there are two Harry Potter books on there. Madness!

Enjoy:-)

Title/Author Copies Sold (millions)
1. The Bible by Various Authors - 5,000 - 6,000 Million
2. Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong by Mao Zedong 900 Million
3. The Qur'an by Muhammed 800 Million
4. Xinhua Zidian Author Unknown 400 Million
5. The Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith, Jr. 120 Million
6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling 107 Million

7. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie 100 Million
8. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien 100 Million
9. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling 65 Million
10. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - 65 Million

Hollywood Stands Up For Insurance Companies!!

For those in need of some afternoon funny - here's a new PSA in support of the insurance companies.

"If my kid falls off his bike and breaks his leg, he should have to pay for that out of pocket...out of his allowance! How else is he going to learn not to fall off his bike?"

"Obama NOOOO!!!"

loves it!

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Quote of the WEEK

"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth."

Mahatma Gandhi

Stuff I Write: Rules of Engagement (All 3 Parts)

Rules of Engagement
BY Susan Baba
1.
listen to my heart
does it sounds broken to you?
you see, a heart can only take so much pain
can only crumble into so many pieces
before it is gone

2.
lover
when you take your leave
let it be complete
leave no trace of the broken fragments for me to slip upon
take away every remembrance of us
until
there is no more

3.
to me
love is an unfamiliar term
I squint hard to remember when I knew it well
knew you
loved you like flesh of my own
saw the word "eternal" sketched across our love
but now
no more
no more knowing your life in beautiful detail
holding each syllable
every word
in my mind to draw upon and smile
no more sitting forehead to forehead
willing you to kiss me first
no more talking to you first thing
and last thing
finishing your sentences before you do
no more us, really
no more us.

I know that "friendship" was what we had agreed to
but this cannot be
you see, even my body remembers you
feels your palm on the small of my back
when no one is there
even my eyes remember you
see flashes of your smile on the face of another
so
no
more
I will no longer be your lover,
but I cannot be your friend

Andrea Gibson

So, what do you get when you mix my two loves ==> love poems + andrea gibson??? Awesomeness, of course:-) This poem is from her newest cd Yellowbird and has the most unforgettable lines!! I actually just ordered it on cd baby. Can't wait to get it. Please expect a full review when I do.

Enjoy!


Pole Dancer
BY Andrea Gibson
"lover, this is not just another love poem
this is my god damn revolution!!"

Foreign-born soldiers earn US citizenship by dying in combat

So much of our activist poetry is straight up theoretical. It usually bites off more than it can chew and leaves you angry...but with no concrete enemy at which to direct your frustration. This poem is a whole other story. A solid mirror staring back at us and letting us see ourselves for who we are. As the debate on whether to loosen or tighten the US/ Mexican immigration laws rages on, foreign men and women are being encouraged to fight in the military, in exchange for the promise of US citizenship. Many of them lose their lives before they ever get to see that day. Somehow this whole practice seems archaic and unjust to me, but it still happens everyday.

Paul Flores hits the nail on the freaking head with this one! I also found a piece from the Irish Examiner describes this practice of blood for citizenship in more detail.

Brown Dreams
BY Paul Flores

"Why should Chicanos have to die to earn the approval of this society?"


Foreign-born soldiers earn US citizenship by dying in combat
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

A YOUNG, ambitious immigrant from Guatemala who dreamed of becoming an architect. A Nigerian medic. A soldier from China who boasted he would one day become an American general. An Indian native whose headstone displays the first Khanda, emblem of the Sikh faith, to appear in Arlington National Cemetery.

These were among more than 100 foreign-born members of the US military who earned American citizenship by dying in Iraq.

Jose Gutierrez was one of the first to fall, killed by "friendly fire" in the dust of Umm Qasr in the opening hours of the invasion.

In death, the young marine was showered with honours his family could only have dreamed of in life. His sister was flown in from Guatemala for his memorial service, where a Roman Catholic cardinal presided and top military officials saluted his flag-draped coffin.

And yet, his foster mother agonised as she accompanied his body back for burial in Guatemala City: Why did Jose have to die for America in order to truly belong?

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who oversaw Gutierrez’s service, put it differently.

"There is something terribly wrong with our immigration policies, if it takes death on the battlefield in order to earn citizenship," Mahony wrote to President George Bush in April 2003. He urged Bush to grant immediate citizenship to all immigrants who sign up for military service in wartime.

"They should not have to wait until they are brought home in a casket."

But as the war continues, more and more immigrants are becoming citizens in death — and more and more families are grappling with deeply conflicting feelings about exactly what the honour means.

Read more

Stuff I Write: Rules of Engagement (Part 2)

Rules of Engagement: Part 2
BY Susan Baba

lover
when you take your leave
let it be complete
leave no trace of the broken fragments for me to slip upon
take away every remembrance of us
until
there is no more

Read Part 1

Quote of the WEEK

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.”

Frederick Douglass

Stuff I Write: Rules of Engagement (Part 1)

Ok friends. I know I may sometimes sound like some googly-eyed, love idealist, but I'm not. I'm also not a depressed, heart broken chica. Yes. I have had more than my share of love, heartbreaks, and self-inflicted wounds, but I really just love writing poems about the emotion of love. Every facet of it. So, hope you enjoy my latest.

This is the first part of a three part piece I just finished. Enjoy!

Rules of Engagement: Part 1
BY Susan Baba
listen to my heart
does it sounds broken to you?
you see, a heart can only take so much pain
can only crumble into so many pieces
before it is gone.

Virginia Woolf's Only Recorded Interview with BBC

Found this great clip of Virginia Woolf on Mike's Writing workshop blog. Apparently, this is her only recorded interview. Wow! It's quite awesome to hear these literary greats speak in their own voices. The sound quality is not the greatest, but you get the point.

Enjoy:-)

Can you Really Adopt a Poet? You Betchya!!

If you're like me, your love affair with the written word has probably made you do some nutty things...from going back to your on again off again poet boyfriend to driving for hours in a thunderstorm to catch your favorite spoken word artist spit for just one night. So, what better way to support your addiction than by "adopting a poet!??!?! Technically, the money doesn't go to the poets (most of these cats have been chilling with their maker for years and years), but it does help with the upkeep of the Poets.org website. And, while the techies that are in charge of the upkeep are probably not "struggling artists," in the purest form of the word, they are helping to keep the written word alive in this digital word and personify everything that the Evolution of Paper means to me.

I've included a bit more info below. Check out the site here

Why?
Based on the popular "Adopt-a-Highway" programs that provide for the care and maintenance of our nation's roads, the Academy of American Poets has created an "Adopt-a-Poet" program to support the care and maintenance of this website.

By giving a special gift to adopt one of the poets on Poets.org, you can help us make critically needed upgrades and improvements to the site—and help us make sure that, in the coming year and beyond, we can continue to offer students, teachers, poetry enthusiasts and all Americans the most educational, entertaining, and comprehensive poetry resource available anywhere.

To adopt one of the poets on Poets.org, simply give a contribution of $30 or more and let us know which poet you want to adopt. Or, if it's possible for you to send a larger gift, you can adopt two poets for a contribution of $50, three for a gift of $70, or five poets if your contribution is in the amount of $100 or more.

Screw Fashion!! This is a Matter of Principle!

WTF Friends!! Just found a BBC.com article about a woman in Sudan that has been jailed for wearing trousers. She refuses to plead guilty to their trumped up charges and refuses to pay a fine for what the government is calling "dressing indecently." Although the fine amounts to about $200, she says she's not going to give legitimacy to their ruling by giving them a single penny. This woman is fierce and the defintition of a real feminist!! But why oh why do we live in a world where women are still being jailed and fined for wearing trousers!??! Madness!

In the words of my home girl Suheir Hammad - "I will dance and resist and dance persist and dance!!" Not for the sake of fashion, but because there is no progress without struggle!

Read more below -

Sudanese 'trousers woman' jailed
A Sudanese woman has been jailed for a month after refusing to pay a fine for "dressing indecently" by wearing trousers, her lawyers say.

Lubna Ahmed Hussein did not want to "give the verdict any legitimacy" by paying the fine of about $200 (£122), her lawyer, Nabil Adib, told the BBC.

Ms Hussein, a journalist in her 30s, could have been given up to 40 lashes.

Before the verdict, she had said she wanted her trial to become a test case for women's rights, correspondents say.

Ms Hussein had resigned from her job at the UN, which would have given her immunity.

"She thinks she was unfairly tried and convicted and was not given a proper chance to put her defence case," Mr Adib said.

He said Ms Hussein would appeal to both the Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court.

Kamal Omar, another of Ms Hussein's lawyers, told the AFP news agency his client had been taken to the women's prison in Omdurman.

The BBC's James Copnall, at the court in Khartoum, says that Ms Hussein had previously said she was determined not to pay the fine but her lawyers had been trying to convince her to do so.

More

Every Poem is a Love Poem

Nikki Giovanni, aka the freakin originator or all this poetry ish, tells us why all poems are love poems and explains her inspiration for her most recent work - Bicycles.

Enjoy!

Stuff I Write: The Work of Loving an Ocean

Every once in a while, my 9-5 extends me the good fortune of seeing another city besides the Nasty Nati (As we locals oh so affectionately refer to it). This time around, it was LA. And, while the man was trying to keep me down by having me spend all day Monday flying in, all day Tuesday working, and all day Wednesday flying back, I was able to sneak a few moments away for myself. Two moments to be exact.

In the first "moment," I reunited with my OSU bestie. Fellow accounting class flunkie turned law student. ::Heart:: We had an awesome dinner and, after the obligatory, “what have you been doing since undergrad Q&A session,” we had a really great conversation about life, law school, and the scariness of getting older.

In the second “moment,” I snuck away and went to the beach. I’ve always had this weird love affair with the beach and knew that I would forever regret being so close to the coast and not visiting my love:-) So, I grabbed a cup of Starbucks, hopped a cab and bounced off to Venice beach. It was early and still and, apparently, too early for the crazies and homeless folks to be out. I felt like I had the whole beach to myself (minus the studly surfer boys) and felt more than inspired to write. This is what came out of it.

Enjoy!

The Work of Loving an Ocean
BY Susan Baba

You come
And lick my toes coyly
If I didn’t know you, sly boy,
I would think you shy as you softly caress my feet
Ankles
Calf
Then my whole leg
White hand wrapping around me

Strong
Surrounding me
Threatening to take me with you
And, for a moment, completely mine
Before you pull away from me,
I surrender
Before you retreat,
I whisper a promise of forever
Come back, water lover
I promise to be everything you cannot be
Promise you legs to engulf
Flesh to hold on to
Promise to give you freedom
If only, you will belong to me
You come thundering back towards me
A white crescent of a man
Arms extended
Wooing me with your cool, inviting kiss
This is what love is like
Sometimes unrequited, yet filled to the brim with promise
Always stretching farther than the eye can see
I follow you
Wait for you
Puff up with joy when you return to me
Stand quietly
Preparing myself for your slow flirting
First toes
Then ankles
Claves
Knees
Your soft tongue licks them all
You’ve swept away countless lovers like this, I know
And though you’ll be gone again without notice
I’m prepared to dance like this forever.