Posts Tagged ‘Books’
Lots of Star Trek Comics for Not Much Money
Wants lots of Star Trek comics for not much money? We gotcha covered.
English: Fireworks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Well, Humble Bundle does.
What’s Humble Bundle? Read on.
Pay what you want for Star Trek comics and support charity!
Humble Bundle is… well, here’s a quote from their web site:
At Humble Bundle, we put the power directly in the hands of consumers. You pay what you want for downloadable content and choose where your money goes. Through this model and the help of the Humble Bundle community, we’ve raised over $75M for charity.
So how does it work? We put together bundles of games and books that can be purchased at whatever price you think is fair. Once you’ve chosen a price, you can choose whether you want your money to go to the game developer or book publisher, charity, or Humble Bundle. We also offer the Humble Store, a digital storefront that features individual games at set prices with frequent discounts and a portion of sales going to select charities.
No idea what I’m talking about, orjust want me to cut to the chase? Basically, Humble Bundle gets a bunch of stuff (video games, comics, books) bundles them together and allows people (you) to pay whatever they want for it. The money goes to charity, and you get to decide what percentage of your money goes where. It’s very easy and you get to feel good about consuming mass quantities of digital stuffs because it’s for charity. Also you get a lot for your money.
In this case, we’re talking about $351 worth of digital comics for… well, the most anyone has paid as of this writing is $51.06. The average is $14.26. All Star Trek comics. I’ve read some of them and “Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Directive” is worth $14.26 all by itself. (Seriously. It’s really fun. Much better than it has any right to be.) The same could be said for “Star Trek: Year Four“, which is a comic book version of the fourth year of the Enterprise’s five-year mission. (Remember? it was a five-year mission that was canceled by the Gods of Television.) A lot of the others are good too, and those are just the comics I’ve read. You get a LOT MORE.
Check it out. Share with your kids. It’s easy because the comics are provided with no DRM, meaning you can copy them to whatever device you choose. If you go above a certain amount you even get a print book.
It’s a good deal, folks. Check it out. Limited time offer; your mileage may vary. DaddyTips takes no responsibility for anything.
Source: Humble Comics Bundle: Star Trek presented by IDW (pay what you want and help charity)
Related articles (Note: These are offsite links; DaddyTips takes no responsibility for outside content.)
Books – The Original iPad
I recently received an email from a PR person touting the success of electronic devices giving parents some time to themselves. This is true. But it doesn’t only apply to electronics. It also applies to books.
When I was a kid, there were electronics, but they required dinosaur toenail clippings to run. (Little joke there.) I spent plenty of time in front of a screen, usually a television, because that’s what we had. I also owned a lot of handheld games, like this miniature Pac-Man machine. Eventually I had a TRS-80 Color Computer which I used to play games and also write programs in BASIC.
English: Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But before any of that, I read books. So many books. The Hobbit. Lord of the Rings. Bored of the Rings. A Wrinkle in Time. The Fletch and Flynn series by Gregory MacDonald. (I was too young for those but I read them anyway.) Agatha Christie. Sherlock Holmes. Comic books.
Reading gives parents a break as much, if not more than, electronics do. I’m not anti-screen time. I try to manage it, and I recommend that parents with very young children manage screen time closely, mostly because I don’t see any reason for a 6 month old to be playing with an iPad. But as a kid who grew up watching a lot of TV, it would be hypocritical of me to say that I’m anti-screen.
But a good book will always trump electronics. A good book — I’m talking about a really good book — is hard to put down. Sometimes it is impossible to put down. “Just one more chapter. Just one more page.” Sound familiar? Sure, the same can apply to a video game. “Just let me beat this boss.” But it’s not the same thing. A book requires imagination, and therefore uses more of the brain than anything involving a screen does. (Kindles count as books, although there is an argument to be made that plain ol’ paper books are more involving because it’s just the book, no buttons, no screen. It’s not necessarily an argument you will win, but you can make it, and I’d back you up.) (Note: the statement “uses more of the brain” sounds like I’m making a scientifically proven statement. I’m not. I think it’s likely that my statement is correct, but I don’t have the science to back it up.)
Not all kids are readers. I was, and luckily so are my kids. I like to believe that because they grew up in a house where reading was a regular activity, they naturally became readers themselves. I have no idea if this is the case, and I never will. Maybe I just got lucky. But I can confidently say that once your kids learn to read, it has the potential to be life changing… for you.
Kids who love to read get involved in their books. And when they’re reading, they don’t ask you to look up a walk-through so they can beat a section of the game they are playing. Also, reading is a quiet activity. Books don’t make noise. And readers rarely make noise when they read. (Occasional exclamations of surprise and/or joy don’t count, although they are wonderful to hear.)
Again — I am not knocking screens, literally or figuratively. Heck, unless you printed out this blog post, you’re reading it on a screen. And video games are fun. My point is simply that back in my day, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, books provided a service to parents that electronics do now. And they still can.
Related articles (Note: These are offsite links; DaddyTips takes no responsibility for outside content.)
Amazon Lightning Deal on a Star Wars Book
Here’s an Amazon Lightning Deal on a Star Wars book.
Amazon.com: World of Reading Star Wars Use The Force!: Level 2 (9781484704646): Michael Siglain, Pilot Studio: Books
Buy Whit Honea’s Book Now
Whit Honea has a new book out called The Parents’ Phrase Book. You should go buy it now.
Why should you go buy Whit Honea’s new book? I don’t recall giving you permission to ask for a reason. But I will give you one anyway. In fact, I will give you three. Read more »
Tiger Mom And The Triple Package
I need to read deeper into “Tiger Mom” Amy Chua‘s new book “The Triple Package” because I don’t want to rant about something based solely on a blog post.
If she’s the Tiger Mom, does that mean she has the Eye of the Tiger?
However, my time is limited, and the shelf-life for news gets shorter every day. Seriously, there’s stuff in my blog queue from… I’m not even going to look. Therefore, I’ll write what I can now and get back to it with more info if/when I can.
Here is what Gawker writer Jordan Sargent says about Chua’s new book:
The New York Post has a review of her new book The Triple Package —co-authored by her husband, Jed Rubenfeld — which says that there are eight groups of people superior to all others: Chinese, Cuban exiles, Indians, Iranians, Jews, Lebanese-Americans, Mormons, and Nigerians. Remember, her daughter got into Yale and Harvard so it has to be true.
“Groups of people superior to all others”? Seriously? This is something that we’re allowed to say now? Because I thought that was, you know, like saying men can’t be primary caregivers (cough, SAHD WAHD, cough cough), or something far more obviously offensive. (I tried to come up with an example that felt not completely racist/sexist/jerky but I couldn’t.)
Gawker’s Sargent goes on:
According to Chua and Rubenfeld, there are three reasons — the so-called “triple package,” please bear with me — why those eight groups reign over everyone else in the world: superiority complexes, insecurity, and impulse control. They believe (“believe”) that true success is reached because you think you’re better than everyone else, but also not really, and that you can resist temptation as you strive for a larger goal. Oh, and also that you haven’t “yet bought into mainstream, post-1960s, liberal American principles.”
Sargent is critical of Chua’s ideas, as is the NY Post’s book reviewer Maureen Callahan. Sargent then calls Chua’s… output… “pop psych trolling”. I don’t know what that means. I do know that declaring a race/ethnic group/nationality/person who holds certain religious beliefs to be superior based solely on that criteria is the slipperiest of slopes. “Asians are smarter.” There we go. That one is positive. “Jews are good with money.” Also positive. But do either of those statements sound OK to you? Because they don’t sound OK to me. More importantly, would you want your children to say “Nigerians are more successful because they are Nigerian”? I wouldn’t. If that is indeed the premise of “The Triple Package”, that’s bad for a variety of reasons.
NOTE: As of this moment I haven’t read the Post’s review of Chua’s book, nor have I read the book. (To be fair, the book doesn’t “drop” until February 4, 2014. That’s what the kids say, right? Drop?) This is due to the fact that I have kids to feed and stuff. Like I said, I may do an updated post later.
UPDATE: Here’s a quote from the Amazon description of “The Triple Package”:
It may be taboo to say, but some groups in America do better than others. Mormons have recently risen to astonishing business success. Cubans in Miami climbed from poverty to prosperity in a generation. Nigerians earn doctorates at stunningly high rates. Indian and Chinese Americans have much higher incomes than other Americans; Jews may have the highest of all.
So yeah. There’s that.
UPDATE 2: Amy Chua has written other books besides “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother“. They sound more academic and less “pop psych” oriented. I haven’t read any of them. If you have, let me know. Anyway, here are other books by Ms. Chua
Infamous “Tiger Mom” Returns To Troll the Entire World (Gawker)
(Amazon)The Hunger Games Trilogy eBook Only $14.99
This is a hot steaming DaddyDeal right here. The Hunger Games Trilogy
I’ve enjoyed both of The Hunger Games movies so far but the books are way better. It’s not a fair comparison; the books are told from Katniss’ point of view, something that would be impossible on screen. That said, there’s a propulsive nature to the narrative as written on the page, or in this case on your own personal screen… Hmm. I’ll have to re-think that phrase, “on screen”, as it relates to book-to-movie adaptations. An eBook is, of course, on a screen. It’s just not a big movie screen. But you can watch a movie on Kindle Fire, or even a really small screen, like an iPod Classic. (I do this often when riding public transportation; usually I watch The Avengers again. And again. Have I mentioned that I really like The Avengers movie?)
Anyway, whatever. This is becoming a stream of consciousness thing and all I wanted to do was inform you that it is possible to purchase all three of Suzanne Collins’ excellent books for your Kindle at the low price of only $14.99. That’s a damn good deal right there.
Amazon.com: The Hunger Games Trilogy eBook: Suzanne Collins: Kindle Store.
Meet YA Author Kristi Cook (Get Out)
As part of DaddyTips ongoing efforts to get you to leave the house, here’s an event you can take your tween/teen kids to — a chance to meet YA Author Kristi Cook on Friday, September 13th, 6 p.m. at The Voracious Reader (1997 Palmer Avenue, Larchmont, NY 10538, Phone: 914-630-4581; map link).
More details are below.
Join us for an exciting Friday the 13th evening with acclaimed YA author Kristi Cook and the finale of her Winterhaven Trilogy. Whether you’re new to the series, set in a boarding school for the paranormally gifted, or eagerly awaiting the mind-bending conclusion (no spoilers, we promise!), you’ll love meeting Kristi and her many fans as we talk about writing,romance, and spooky superstitions! There will be autographs, swag bags, photo ops and fun! And wait til you see our gorgeous butterfly adorned cupcakes! FREE event but please call ahead to reserve your spot. TEENS THROUGH ADULTS
Here are links to all of the books in the Winterhaven Trilogy.
Haven |
Mirage (Haven) |
Eternal (Haven) |
Find out more about Ms. Cook at her website, at her Amazon page, and also at this special event where you can meet her live and in person!
Meet YA Author Kristi Cook at The Voracious Reader ~ for young people with an appetite for books (Event Link)
Kristi Cook, Author
Also: Friday the 13th. Can’t help ourselves. Did you know the original movie came out in 1980 and Kevin Bacon is in it? Here’s the trailer. Note: is has nothing to do with the event mentioned above.
