Archive for August, 2011

Your Sentences

I asked DailyLit readers to come up with their own sentences — that is, a sentence that encapsulates each of their lives. The idea came from Daniel Pink who said it was a way to orient your life. I thought you’d enjoy reading what readers have come up with; you’ll see some are poignant, others uplifting, and still others that are quite sad):

-She did it HER way (by moengey)

-She spent her life trying to be invisible; now she wants to be heard.
 (by lmarsh1)

-He survived another snow day without strangling the kids. (by NearChaos)

-Work in progress. (by saturntv)

-She didn’t get the fairy tale. (by robind)

-She bit off more than she could chew, and chewed it. (by smorge01)

-He died without ever finding a reason to live. (by Fips)

-For 60-odd years so many mistakes; so many different worlds; so many repercussions; and now at last she begins preparations for life in her own real world, excited at finally living on her own terms doing what she was made for but fearful of there being insufficient time. (elizarussell)

-He crash landed on my heart like warm pancakes. (by birdhugger)

-The best lie goes to: “I love you more!” (by ladybeth22)

-She came and went and I was glad. (by Golem100)

-She never quite felt like she fit in and then happily hit 40 and suddenly didn’t care! (by fnevlntine)

-I’m still circling the drain. (by BashoKatzenjammer)

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You can read other sentences written by DailyLit readers here or add your own here as well.

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DailyLit is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. Selected to be the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, DailyLit has sent over 40 million book installments. DailyLit’s books and series are all free and feature bestselling and award-winning titles. Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes and can be read wherever you receive email, including on any computer, Blackberry, or iPhone.

Happy Birthday, Mary Shelley!

Today is Mary Shelley’s birthday. To celebrate, DailyLit is highlighting her masterpiece, Frankenstein. With 84 installments, if you start today (and read multiple installments a day), you may finish by Hallowe’en.

Happy birthday, Mary Shelley!

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DailyLit is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. Selected to be the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, DailyLit has sent over 40 million book installments. DailyLit’s books and series are all free and feature bestselling and award-winning titles. Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes and can be read wherever you receive email, including on any computer, Blackberry, or iPhone.

Celebrating Goethe

Given that today is Goethe’s birthday, I thought I’d highlight his Sorrows of Young Werther on DailyLit (which comes in fewer than 50 installments). You can read it in English here or, if you’re feeling ambitious, in its original German here.

For you math wizards, given that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in 1749, how many candles would he have on his cake today?

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DailyLit is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. Selected to be the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, DailyLit has sent over 40 million book installments. DailyLit’s books and series are all free and feature bestselling and award-winning titles. Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes and can be read wherever you receive email, including on any computer, Blackberry, or iPhone.

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Tribute to “dreamdust” and other DailyLit Readers

Every so often I encounter people who demonstrate generosity in ways I never could have imagined. The on-line world is no exception. Certain readers have been wonderfully generous with their time, sharing thoughts, insights and a commitment that keeps me engaged and inspired. In particular, I’d like to recognize dreamdust who’s contributed a whopping 439 posts to DailyLit’s forums over the years. And then there’s cresswga with 195 posts, Golem100 with 114 posts and moengey with 86 posts.

So to these readers and others, I thank you. All you do to keep DailyLit a vibrant and engaged community is much appreciated.

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DailyLit is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. Selected to be the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, DailyLit has sent over 40 million book installments. DailyLit’s books and series are all free and feature bestselling and award-winning titles. Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes and can be read wherever you receive email, including on any computer, Blackberry, or iPhone.

Off to Scotland

Our family is off to Scotland today for the festival in Edinburgh and then we’ll explore other parts (looking for Nessy, of course). I thought I’d take this opportunity to feature classic Scottish authors on DailyLit.

Sir James Barrie (author of Peter Pan)
James Boswell (biographer of Samuel Johnson)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock Holmes)
Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)

Did you know that all these authors were from Scotland? Can’t say I did.

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DailyLit is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. Selected to be the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, DailyLit has sent over 40 million book installments. DailyLit’s books and series are all free and feature bestselling and award-winning titles. Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes and can be read wherever you receive email, including on any computer, Blackberry, or iPhone.

Your Favorite Words

I recently asked DailyLit readers to identify their favorite words. Here are a few I thought you’d enjoy:

-Epiphany. Whoever thought to put a “piff!” in a divine manifestation was a genius. (by nordtomme)

-Flabbergasted or juxtaposition. I love them both (by Oskar3)

-Serendipity (by BlueVelvet)

-Gigglepuss (by PamelaBart)

-Bookkeeping (2 o’s, 2 k’s, and 2 e’s…all in a row).
Gobsmacked (Completely dumbfounded, shocked. From the Irish word “gob” meaning “mouth”) (by moengey)

-Sesquipedalian – Having many syllables (literally means “a foot and a half long”) (by sonata58)

-Serenity: Lifetime goal, haven’t achieved it yet. (by nomad)

-Whimsy. it’s a delight to say! (by hfeldman)

-Persnickety (by artofambivalence)

-Frolic (by dreamdust)

-Egotistical. Or disingenuous. They’re both words with a good kick-in-the-pants vibe. (by Untzboy)

-Frack (by Golem100)

-Sprezzatura. (sprezzatura is the art of doing a difficult thing with grace, thereby making it look easy). (by moengey

-Shenanigans! (by lynnie600)

-Awkward – what my 7 year old son called the Orchid when he gave it to me for Mother’s Day. We now always refer to it as Mum’s awkward! (by nmetz)

-Stone (by Jonn)

-Stone… ditto that! and smooth; soothe– the smooth stone is soothing to feel (by DayLily)

-Tattoo: the word is onomatopoeic for the way they were originally administered.
Expelliarmus and Jiggery-Pokery from Harry Potter, and from an old Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hocus-Kadabera, and Abraca-Pocus. (by Xena1)

Other favorite words can be found here. You can also add your own favorites here as well.

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DailyLit is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. Selected to be the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, DailyLit has sent over 40 million book installments. DailyLit’s books and series are all free and feature bestselling and award-winning titles. Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes and can be read wherever you receive email, including on any computer, Blackberry, or iPhone.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Assuming all goes well, I’ll have arrived in Germany early this morning (I’m writing this post in advance given my for-certain-bleary-eyed-state after any night flight).

So, I thought I’d take this time to highlight books by German authors on DailyLit (from the brothers Grimm to Thomas Mann to Friedrich Nietzsche). You can even read books in their original German here. I’m afraid my German isn’t quite up for it (maybe one day I’ll get to the Oberstufe); how about you?

Viel Spass!

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DailyLit is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. Selected to be the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, DailyLit has sent over 40 million book installments. DailyLit’s books and series are all free and feature bestselling and award-winning titles. Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes and can be read wherever you receive email, including on any computer, Blackberry, or iPhone.

Which Book Title Best Describes You?

DailyLit’s question this week is: which book title best describes you? And as a corollary, describe yourself using only book titles. Enter your titles here.

Thanks to DailyLit reader “vanhaz” for the idea.
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DailyLit is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. Selected to be the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, DailyLit has sent over 40 million book installments. DailyLit’s books and series are all free and feature bestselling and award-winning titles. Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes and can be read wherever you receive email, including on any computer, Blackberry, or iPhone.

DailyLit’s Question of the Week: Which Word Would You Import?

This week’s question is inspired by a blog post written by The Economist that asks the question: “which word would you import?” It refers to words in other languages that can’t be translated properly into English and cites as examples words like “sang-froid” or “schadenfreude” that, as The Economist puts it, “exactly fulfil a linguistic need, but unaccountably never got invented in English and so were accepted in their native form as soon as they were introduced.”

So are there words you wished existed in English that exist in other languages? Which word would you import? You can enter it here.

(…and thanks to The Economist for the idea).

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DailyLit is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. Selected to be the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, DailyLit has sent over 40 million book installments. DailyLit’s books and series are all free and feature bestselling and award-winning titles. Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes and can be read wherever you receive email, including on any computer, Blackberry, or iPhone.

DailyLit’s Weekly Question: Your Perfect Day

In case you missed the question this week, it’s “What’s Your Perfect Day?”

Mine would begin in a cafe in Paris sipping cafe au lait, reading The International Herald Tribute and biting into a warm croissant. I’d then visit the Shakespeare & Company bookstore followed by a jaunt through the gardens of the Picasso Museum. I’m writing this while sitting in the DMV. Nice to think about this perfect day — quite the contrast.

And yours, what’s your perfect day? You can enter it here.

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DailyLit is the leading publisher of serialized books in digital form. Selected to be the #1 Book Website by the Sunday Times, DailyLit has sent over 40 million book installments. DailyLit’s books and series are all free and feature bestselling and award-winning titles. Installments can be read in fewer than 5 minutes and can be read wherever you receive email, including on any computer, Blackberry, or iPhone.

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