By: Kristin DeSutter
The things that have inspired me the most in my life have never really been things at all, but rather certain people God has placed throughout my journey.  Luckily, my parents have played a significant role in motivating me to always do my best in being kind to everyone, a loyal friend, hard worker, and faithful to Christ.  A number of friends have played a pivotal role as well, often inspiring and challenging me to better myself without ever even realizing it.  And I can't forget!  I am so grateful for the amazing saints God has given us too - St. Gianna, St. Thomas More, St. Joan of Arc, and countless others - saints whose independence, persistence, and tremendous love for God I admire very much.  

Yet!  A fourth group remains, and you most likely guessed it... This group is completely composed of kids!  Whether I'm playing with my 4, 8, and 11-year-old cousins, spending an evening at the St. Louis Children's Hospital, or examining exactly what it is that makes a character such as Cindy Lou Who from The Grinch or the little boy soldier from Les Mis so absolutely awesome... I think it is their seemingly natural - seemingly innate - spirit of hope, peace, joy, and love that is most impressive of all.  So when a friend mentioned the following letters to me (thanks Pinterest :-), I thought they were so adorable that I had to share them with you!   Yet as I clicked through the letters, it hit me that I've been missing out on an additional (and fairly fundamental) characteristic of faith almost every kid is practically bursting with... Curiosity.  

As horrible as I feel about this, sometimes it can be difficult for me to attend mass without thinking, "I've already heard this reading 7 times before..."  But then I'm quite confident that if Catholics such as myself truly needed more first, second, and Gospel readings, Jesus would have ensured we had more.  So then I'm also confident each time a Church reading revolves around once again, Christ is angling at my heart from a new perspective, encouraging me to be a stronger witness for Him in a different light.  Therefore, I hope the following letters not only make you laugh, but that they make you stop as well.  That they awaken your curiosity for a certain aspect of our immensely vast and historically rich Catholic faith, perhaps leading us to delve deeper in spiritual reading, prayer, or the background of a select saint as the Lenten season approaches.  So happy reading, and as crazy as it seems... Happy almost Ash Wednesday too!  :-)

http://mitchalbom.com
From the author who's inspired millions worldwide with books like Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven comes his most imaginative novel yet, The Time Keeper, a compelling fable about the first man on earth to count the hours. The man who became Father Time.

In Mitch Albom's newest work of fiction, the inventor of the world's first clock is punished for trying to measure God's greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time. He returns to our world-now dominated by the hour-counting he so innocently began-and commences a journey with two unlikely partners: one a teenage girl who is about to give up on life, the other a wealthy old businessman who wants to live forever. To save himself, he must save them both. And stop the world to do so. 

Told in Albom's signature spare, evocative prose, this remarkably original tale will inspire readers everywhere to reconsider their own notions of time, how they spend it and how precious it truly is. 


Praise for Mitch Albom and The Time Keeper

"Think of Mitch Albom as the Babe Ruth of popular literature, hitting the ball out of the park every time he's at bat."  -TIME magazine

"Mitch Albom sees the magical in the ordinary."  
-Cecelia Ahern, bestselling author of PS, I Love You

"A fearless explorer of the wishful and magical."  
-James McBride, author of The Color of Water

"There's comfort in Albom's unwavering conviction that our lives have meaning."  
-People magazine

"A writer with soul."  
-Los Angeles Times

"Cleverly constructed" and "heartrending play reminiscent of both A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life" 
-Booklist

"A wonderful fantasy with characters both human and mythical" 
-Rabbi Jason Miller, Huffington Post

"A compelling and uplifting moral tale...will inspire and satisdy readers in search of a more meditative approach to life in a fast-paced yet wonderful world." 
-Irish Independent

"A story that weaves together religion, philosophy and common sense like classic fables that readers may remember from childhood and reminds people how to try to live each day." 
-Bookreporter.com

"Once again, Albom gets to the heart of a topic that touches us all. Take time to read this book."
-Lincoln Journal Star

"This is an unforgettable story, poignant, inspirational and beautifully written. Splendid." 
-Image magazine

Source: http://mitchalbom.com/d/books/7700/time-keeper

By: Deirdre Donahue and Craig Wilson - USA TODAY
Once upon a time, J.K. Rowling set children's imaginations on fire. Can the creator of Harry Potter ignite a similar conflagration for a grown-up audience?

The British author will find out on Sept. 27, when more than 2 million hardcover copies of her first novel for adults hit U.S. bookstores, along with the digital edition. It will be simultaneously released in the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Germany.

Set in the little English town of Pagford, The Casual Vacancy (Little, Brown, $35) revolves around an election held after a member of the parish council unexpectedly dies. Despite the Miss Marple terrain, press materials describe the novel as "blackly comic … Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty facade is a town at war."

"I expect the world to be ecstatic at the range of her imaginative reach," predicts Rowling's American publisher, Michael Pietsch. One of the few to have read the embargoed book, he calls Rowling "a genius, one of the great writers of all time." Reading the 512-page novel, he says, "reminded me of Dickens because of the humanity, the humor, the social concerns, the intensely real characters."

No wands, apparently: "This book isn't Harry Potter," says Pietsch. "It is a completely different concern."

But the secrecy surrounding The Casual Vacancy isn't. As with Harry Potter, there are no advance copies for the media, no early reviews. In the case of Harry Potter, this public-relations blackout only fed the frenzy. To date, the seven-book series about a boy wizard has sold more than 450 million copies worldwide, and it became one of the most successful movie franchises in history.

Rowling's own story added to the magic. She went from being a struggling single mom scribbling in an Edinburgh coffee shop to one of the richest women in the world.

And one of the most admired. Parents, teachers and librarians around the world revere her for hooking children on reading. She published the first Harry Potter book in 1997, just around the time when computers joined TVs as must-have family electronics.

The big question today: Will those little Potter addicts who waited so breathlessly in line at bookstores to buy the new Potter at 12:01 a.m. now rush out to purchase (or download) The Casual Vacancy?

"Fans who read Harry Potter as children will be one of the core audiences for this book, without a doubt," says Diane Roback, children's book editor at Publishers Weekly. "I cannot think of an author who is more beloved by her readers."

For Melissa Anelli, there is no "maybe" about The Casual Vacancy. "J.K. Rowling is a master of storytelling, and I'm going to read any story she writes," says Anelli, 32.

Anelli qualifies as an über-fan. She's calling from the annual Harry Potter Fan Club get-together in Chicago where more than 4,000 Potter faithful gathered earlier this month. Anelli, webmistress of the Harry Potter website The-Leaky-Cauldron.org, wrote the 2008 book Harry, A History, for which Rowling penned the foreword.

Bookseller Cathy Langer, lead buyer for Denver's The Tattered Cover bookstores, anticipates "very robust sales." She points out that in addition to her young fans, "J.K Rowling had hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of adult fans for her Harry Potter series. … We already have pre-orders and will have lots of books on hand for the release date."

The book world has changed dramatically since the seventh Harry Potter was released on July 21, 2007, with a first printing of 12 million copies.

Back then, fans could buy books at midnight parties hosted by Borders, as well as other stores. The Borders chain shut down last year, shuttering hundreds of brick-and-mortar stores.

People are still buying books, indeed more books than in 2007, according to figures released by the Association of American Publishers. But they are reading them in a new format — the e-book.

The Harry Potter books just became available digitally for the first time in April, after Rowling and Sony collaborated on the website Pottermore. It will be different from the outset for The Casual Vacancy, with Little, Brown simultaneously releasing a $19.99 e-book.

For Rowling fans who once queued up for Harry Potter, this means that instant gratification is now a click away. "Considering that those who waited online at midnight can get this book by tapping a device … (The Casual Vacancy) will be arriving in a different environment," says Carol Fitzgerald, founder of The Book Report Network, a group of websites about books.

These changes in bookselling will help Rowling, says Sara Nelson, Amazon.com's editorial director for books and Kindle. "The more platforms, the more opportunities there are" for readers to buy books, Nelson says.

Nelson, who has not read the new book because of the embargo, believes Casual Vacancy is the fall's most anticipated novel for adults.

But asked if she thinks it will go to No. 1 on Amazon and dislodge E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey, Nelson says, "Let me look in my crystal ball. … Oops, it's on the fritz."

Rowling is not the first author to write for different age groups. Pietsch points to James Patterson as well as Rowling's fellow Brits Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming (who created both James Bond and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang).

Edward Nawotka, editor in chief of the online journal Publishing Perspectives, notes that Rowling isn't quite moving from children's books to adult, more young-adult to adult.

"Rowling made something of this transition already within the full cycle of Harry Potter novels," he says. "By the final book … she'd built in complex psychological and emotional themes and handled them adroitly, which should serve her well when catering to an adult audience."

One publisher is confident of her success. "If you read or re-read the Harry Potter books, you can see that J.K. Rowling has all the strengths she needs for great success as a fiction writer — you have great characters, an involving plot, a sense of humor and great empathy," says Scholastic's Arthur Levine, the American co-editor of the Harry Potter books.

With all her money and philanthropy work, why would Rowling — a 47-year-old married mother of three who lives in Edinburgh — even bother publishing The Casual Vacancy?

"She's a writer," says Little, Brown's Pietsch. "She lives to write. Her way of engaging with the world is by writing."

Rowling's way of engaging with the world, however, has never included extensive publicity. To promote The Casual Vacancy in the USA, Rowling is scheduled to appear on ABC's Nightline, World News and Good Morning America, as well as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central. She will sit for two print interviews, one of which is with USA TODAY.

The buildup to the publication date has been low-key. "I think there is a curiosity about (the book), but I am not hearing from everyone that they are waiting for it," says Fitzgerald.

Some booksellers are puzzled by the approach being taken by Rowling's publisher.

"I've been in the dark," says bookseller Kathryn Fabiani, head buyer at R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Conn. "We had no posters … It hasn't been easy. People are curious, but they don't know what to expect." The upcoming release "seems almost invisible."

"We've been taking some pre-orders and we've got some activity, but nothing like Harry Potter," she says. "Nothing." Although she has ordered 300 copies for the independent bookstore, she suspects they won't sell out.

Little, Brown marketing director Heather Fain says, "We wanted to be very careful in our marketing. This is a very different book and it is aimed at a truly different audience." With Harry Potter, she says, booksellers became accustomed to promotional campaigns that included stickers and lightning-bolt tattoos. That approach "just doesn't fit the book."

Barnes & Noble vice president for marketing Patricia Bostelman says that Little, Brown's approach is what the author wants. "Apparently much of their behavior is at J.K. Rowling's wishes," says Bostelman. Rowling "has very strong opinions on how she wants publishing of the book handled. … She's trying not to live on the laurels of Harry Potter and very much wants to have this book stand alone, on its own merit, just as if she were just any other author who was landing on the scene."

Rowling's name on the book is the only requirement, some insist. "She could write a manual for a lawn mower and it would sell 2 million copies," says Charles Finch, author of the Charles Lenox mystery series. Finch, 32, has been a Harry Potter fan since he began reading the series as a college student.

"I think she's criminally underrated as a plotter. She sort of sets little fuses along the way and you're desperate for them to go off," says Finch, whose newest book, A Death in the Small Hours, will be out in November from Minotaur. Rowling "will never write something I will not read, unless she starts doing Fifty Shades of Grey stuff."

A passionate fan since childhood, Sara Eckert, 23, now a marine biologist at California's Monterey Bay Aquarium, displays a remarkably adult grasp of the challenges facing Rowling.

"I just think that, just as actors have to overcome type-casting, J.K. is going to have to overcome the style and story that made her famous," Eckert says.

On the other hand, says Eckert, people who didn't get the whole Hogwarts gig might enjoy Rowling, the fantasy-free adult edition.

Of course, Eckert says, she will buy and read The Casual Vacancy. "But I don't expect it to be the day it comes out, like I did with each of the Harry Potter books."

Perhaps it's not Rowling who has the problem, says Publishers Weekly's Roback. "I don't think the transition was necessarily a difficult one for her. She's a writer, and a good one. I do think it may be difficult for the market and the media to adjust their expectations. Because given her phenomenal success, anything other than a book everyone loves that sells in the millions and millions may be deemed a disappointment, which is unfair to the book and to the author."

Back in 2007 in an interview with USA TODAY, at the time of the final Potter book, Rowling said she was working on two writing projects, one for children and one not for children. She knew expectations for any new book would be enormous.

"I think that there will be some disappointment if I don't write another fantasy," she told USA TODAY. "But I must admit, I think I've done my fantasy."

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2012-08-22/jk-rowling-casual-vacancy/57220020/1

By: Deirdre Donahue - USA TODAY
POTOMAC, Md. – Debut novelist Vaddey Ratner is a study in contrasts.

Tiny and exquisite like the Cambodian princess she is, Ratner also possesses the friendliness of a Midwesterner who spent her high school years in St. Paul. A summa cum laude Ivy League graduate married to her college sweetheart, she lives with her husband and daughter, 12, in this leafy suburb of Washington, D.C., complete with her daughter's fairy-tale treehouse out back.

Ratner's own childhood, however, was very different — a nightmare spent in the killing fields of Cambodia.

What a life.

And now, what a book.

"This is the one story I had to write," says Ratner, 41. In stores since August 7, Ratner's first novel, In the Shadow of the Banyan (Simon & Schuster, $25), has emerged as one of this year's most anticipated books, thanks to early rave reviews.

Although In the Shadow of the Banyan is inspired by her childhood, Ratner chose to write a novel rather than a memoir. Her goal wasn't to provide journalistic evidence of Pol Pot's genocide in Cambodia, where it is estimated that the Khmer Rouge killed 1 million to 2 million people between 1975 and 1979.

Rather, it was personal. "This book allows me to save my family, to immortalize them, to bring them back to life, for me to eternalize them," Ratner says.

Most of all, it brings back her adored father. At age 5, Ratner saw him led away by soldiers. When, where and how he was killed, no one knows.

Narrated by 7-year-old Raami, Banyan opens in magical luxury. Servants bustle about the Phnom Penh estate — the old gardener putting lotus flowers in iced water to stay fresh; Raami's nanny, her "milk mother," nagging her to get ready to dine with her grandmother, a high princess. (Like the author, Raami is connected to Cambodia's complicated royal bloodlines but not in line to inherit the throne.)

Meanwhile, explosions can be heard outside as the Khmer Rouge circle the doomed city.

Ratner opened her novel with a scene of peace "so you can see the beauty that is struggling to exist amid this war." Soon Raami and her family — mother, father, grandmother, aunts, uncles and baby sister — are forced at gunpoint to leave for the countryside. Because her father is a prince, he is targeted by the Communists trying to create a classless, self-sufficient, agrarian society. Raami witnesses the result: death, terror and starvation.

Writing "an imaginative narrative" allowed Ratner to change details such as the narrator's age. Asked how a 5-year-old could remember so much, Ratner explains that her memories of her father were particularly strong because of the polio she suffered as an infant.

Today, Ratner walks with a limp, but as a baby, the handicap was "devastating" in a culture that prized "physical perfection."

Instead of shunning her and her metal leg brace, her father — a royal who had married a commoner — spent an enormous amount of time with Ratner. "He was always talking to me," she says.

Ratner's ability to speak vanished for a period. She was mute when she and her mother escaped from Cambodia. (Ratner's baby sister died of malaria.) After two years in refugee camps, they came to the USA in 1981.

Speaking no English when she arrived at age 11, Ratner went on to become her high school's valedictorian. She met and married her American husband — today an environmental expert — at Carleton College and later graduated from Cornell.

Cambodia today is very different from the country Ratner fled. There is a king again — one of Ratner's relatives. Ratner lived in Cambodia from 2005 to 2009 when her husband was working for an environmental think tank.

Although she didn't complete the manuscript and find an agent until she was an adult, Ratner says that "even as a little girl, I always knew I had to tell about living through this ordeal.

"I need the world to remember."

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2012-08-09/vaddey-ratner-shadow-of-the-banyan/56886866/1

The blog called vicarousthinking: faithINformation is written by rising author, Kelsey Gillespy.  Kelsey is an amazing woman of Christ who is a newlywed and recently joined the Catholic Church.  She has wonderful insight into her real, authentic marriage and a fire for her faith that is beautifully expressed in her writing. Check it out at http://vicarousthinking.wordpress.com/
Also, stay tuned for her blog posts which will make guest appearances on Young Catholic Women.

This 1997 Glamour article has become a popular web chain letter, usually titled “Maya Angelou’s Best Poem Ever.” Glamour contributor Pamela Redmond Satran is flattered, but she wrote the list, updating it in 2005.

By: Pamela Redmond Satran - February 1, 2007
In May of 1997, I wrote this list. I had passed my thirtieth birthday and wanted to tell younger women about the things I really wished I’d had and known by that important milestone. I guess people agreed with what I had to say, because a few years later the list showed up in my e-mail inbox; a friend had forwarded it to me for my reading pleasure, completely unaware that I was the author. After that, every month or two someone would send it to me and I’d immediately hit “reply all” and type, “Hey, that was me! I wrote that for Glamour.” (After a while, I don’t think anyone believed me.) The list became a phenomenon; posted on hundreds of websites, it was attributed to everyone from Jesse Jackson to Maya Angelou to Hillary Clinton. Someone even published it as an anonymously written book. As I read over these lines now, so many of them still seem worth having and knowing—whether you’re 30 or 22 or 75. Being a little older and a little wiser, I’ve plugged in a few new “shoulds.” By all means, add some of your own.


By 30, you should have:

1. One old boyfriend you can imagine going back to and one who reminds you of how far you’ve come.
2. A decent piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in your family.
3. Something perfect to wear if the employer or man of your dreams wants to see you in an hour.
4. A purse, a suitcase and an umbrella you’re not ashamed to be seen carrying.
5. A youth you’re content to move beyond.
6. A past juicy enough that you’re looking forward to retelling it in your old age.
7. The realization that you are actually going to have an old age—and some money set aside to help fund it.
8. An e-mail address, a voice mailbox and a bank account—all of which nobody has access to but you.
9. A résumé that is not even the slightest bit padded.
10. One friend who always makes you laugh and one who lets you cry.
11. A set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill and a black lace bra.
12. Something ridiculously expensive that you bought for yourself, just because you deserve it.
13. The belief that you deserve it.
14. A skin-care regimen, an exercise routine and a plan for dealing with those few other facets of life that don’t get better after 30.
15. A solid start on a satisfying career, a satisfying relationship and all those other facets of life that do get better.

By 30, you should know:

1. How to fall in love without losing yourself.
2. How you feel about having kids.
3. How to quit a job, break up with a man and confront a friend without ruining the friendship.
4. When to try harder and when to walk away.
5. How to kiss in a way that communicates perfectly what you would and wouldn’t like to happen next.
6. The names of: the secretary of state, your great-grandmother and the best tailor in town.
7. How to live alone, even if you don’t like to.
8. How to take control of your own birthday.
9. That you can’t change the length of your calves, the width of your hips or the nature of your parents.
10. That your childhood may not have been perfect, but it’s over.
11. What you would and wouldn’t do for money or love.
12. That nobody gets away with smoking, drinking, doing drugs or not flossing for very long.
13. Who you can trust, who you can’t and why you shouldn’t take it personally.
14. Not to apologize for something that isn’t your fault.
15. Why they say life begins at 30.

Our famous list is now a brand new book! Pick up your copy of 30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time She’s 30 on Amazon.com, BN.com, or for your Nook.

To read more, visit: http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2007/02/things-women-should-have-and-know-by-30#ixzz1z8jAtSAF

by Rae Leonor Ferrer Gumayan
As I was reading  Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I was enveloped in the world of apocalyptic future, the society reminiscent of 1984 by George Orwell with a mix of Battle Royale's plot by Koushun Takami. I lay in silence when I finished the trilogy as I absorb what transpired in the realities of my mind. Beneath the book's story, themes of oppression, revolution, racism, and the mention of historical themes such as the Roman's Panem et Circenses and even modern allusions to the inequalities between the Global North and the Global South, it was difficult to comprehend whether such "adult" concepts would be injected into a YA series. However, after a bit of Google research, there were amazing analyses about the various themes that are present in the books. I was not alone in searching for something deeper in the story because feelings of frustrations, sadness, and anger arose in me, not because I empathized with Katniss Everdeen, a poor and starving girl from District 12 rising against the oppression of her people, but because there are components in her story that reverberates in our own present realities. What themes do you see? What evidences in the book are in support of your interpretation and analysis? What is the Capitol and the districts representative of? What emotions lingered after you read the book, not merely the intense brutality in having children fight to the death, but exactly what values are conflicting? Which character(s) can you relate to? Are there any discrepancies that you observed between the movie and the book that are essential in maintaining those themes? 

The link below is someone's analysis of the representation of Katniss Everdeen in the movie being "whitewashed," diverging from her description in the book. 
http://xalexiel.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-katniss-everdeen-is-woman-of-color.html