News from D. J. McAdam

Let's Get Resolute

But how, you ask. Fear not - our timely advice on How to Make Resolutions is just a mouse click away.

Some Advice Regarding the Economy

"The saddest hour in any man's career is that wherein he, for the first time, fancies there is an easier was of gaining a dollar than by squarely earning it." --Horace Greeley

If you agree with the above sentiment, and think that it might have some pertinence to the world's current economic woes, than you will surely wish to read "Elements of Success in Business," first published in 1889.

old movie poster Some New Lists

It takes a brave man to make a list - or, at least, to make a list and publish it on the worldwide web, where everyone can disagree with it. Nevertheless, since lists can be handy, and since most of our readers tend to be a good-natured lot, we've added two new lists that we hope will be helpful when choosing items for your CD and DVD collections. See what you think about our list of 100 Greatest Country Songs (yes, Ghost Riders in the Sky made the list), and our even more daring list of 100 Greatest Movies. (It was hard leaving out those Mummy movies with Brendan Fraser, because we really do like them, but such are the responsibilities of a website editor.)

FJ Cruiser or Jeep Wrangler? You Decide

Or, better yet, let us help you decide, with our aptly named article, FJ Cruiser versus Jeep Wrangler. Whatever you drive, be sure to have essential items in your vehicle when going on a trip, including The Emergency Item That Should Be In Your Car.

Literature

If you like reading about what other people like reading, then you'll love reading William Dean Howell's My Literary Passions. Can men be allowed to be so passionate about literature now as he was then? It's an interesting question.

Leather Bindings, and All That

Is leather dressing good for your leather bindings? You can find an answer to that question on our webpage about Leather Dressing for Books, and you can find lots of other helpful information on our webpage about Caring for Your Book Collection.

Sell a Book?! And You Call Yourself a Man?!

According to Kenneth Grahame, "No man—no human, masculine, natural man—ever sells a book. Men have been known in moments of thoughtlessness, or compelled by temporary necessity, to rob, to equivocate, to do murder, to commit what they should not, to 'wince and relent and refrain' from what they should: these things, howbeit regrettable, are common to humanity, and may happen to any of us. But amateur bookselling is foul and unnatural; and it is noteworthy that our language, so capable of particularity, contains no distinctive name for the crime." All this, and more, can be found in Grahame's essay.

Forty Centuries of Ink

Recently added: Forty Centuries of Ink (a lot of information here), plus On Books and the Housing of Them, by William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone, of course, was a politician who loved books, and the wisdom contained therein. Politeness causes us to refrain from drawing any comparisons to today's crop of political leaders . . .

Literary Taste, Famous Books, and Self-Culture

And what have we been working on recently? We've added Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste: How to Form It, and Andrew Lang's The Library. Having already published excerpts from Samuel Smiles' Self Help, we've now gone ahead and made the full text of this wonderful work available to our readers. We've also added Recreations of a Country Parson. Wouldn't it be pleasant to have a comfortable cottage that somehow had space for a good-sized library? And maybe a nice fireplace, a mug of tea always at hand, some cookies.... But we digress.

Website Round-Up

Fans of our demonology page (we hesitate to say they are legion) will no doubt be interested to learn that we have now added Thomas Alfred Spalding's 1880 work on Elizabethan Demonology to our website, which will hold special appeal for both demonologists and fans of Shakespeare.