Grace Sparks Comments

Blogger Mark Thwaite should be impressed by the number of comments he received in three days to his post for help on ReadySteadyBlog.

His post on 24 April 2007 reads:

A favour: do any readers know of a good theological/philosophical book on the (Christian) concept of grace? Any tip-offs? Thanks so much!

Thwaite received 12 comments in three days.
Grace seems to be a hot topic.

I posted my response yesterday:

I recommend Stepping Out of Denial into God's Grace Participant's Guide #1 by John Baker and Rick Warren. Warren, as you might know, wrote the mega blockbuster, The Purpose Driven Life.

The Barnes and Nobles’ site includes this quote about The Purpose Driven Life:

With over 10 million copies sold since its release in October, 2002, the book received the ECPA 2003 Book of the Year Award.

Dana Press Blog: Vonneguit, Creativity and Depression

Edgar Allan Poe’s melancholic colors are seen in many other writers. An example is Kurt Vonnegut Jr., writer of Slaughterhouse-Five, who died on April 11, 2007.

On the Dana Press Blog, Nicky Penttila posts an interview with Nancy C. Andreasen, a long-time friend of Vonnegut. “He matched the pattern of having significant mood disorder,” said Andreasen, a neuroscientist.

Vonnegut suffered with depression throughout his life and attempted suicide in 1984. “I would say the general pattern, for him and for most creative people, is they are not very productive when they’re depressed,” said Andreasen. “They do most of their creating after they’ve emerged from feeling depressed.”

Poe described his wrestling with depression in his letters. Similarly, Vonnegut expressed his melancholy in his writing. “But, in a sense, he overcame the sadness, to write,” Andreasen said.

By writing about the ebbs and flows of depression and mania, writers increase knowledge to recognize these forces in us or others. Awareness is part of the cure.

Evaluation of ReadySteadyBlog

ReadySteadyBlog is a literary site that seeks to foster independent book reviews of British and American literary fiction, poetry, history and philosophy. Its Technorati rank is 42,988, and with daily posts, it has 161 links from 97 blogs.

Fifty-two writers, across disciplines, are contributors to ReadySteadyBook, and its link, ReadySteadyBlog. Both sites are managed by founder Mark Thwaite, a librarian by profession. He has been working on the Internet for about ten years.

The weblog is one of the Guardian Unlimited Books’ top 10 literary blogs. Publisher and writer Dennis Loy Johnson said it is: “one of Great Britain’s truly great blogs.” Writer Anthony Rudolf called RSB: “a significant contribution to serious writing about serious writing.”

The site complements Poe’s Unconscious blog’s purpose--to bring a convergence of writers with similar chords to dialogue about literature.

This site has a rich variety of commentary on various themes of literary texts from classics to contemporary. It also solicits any literary-related news or press releases.

Examples of the wealth of literary information are: latest book reviews, articles, and commentaries; interviews; books of the week and month; extensive blogroll; substantial savings on literary subscriptions; and rss feeds.

For a knowledgeable update on what’s selling in the publishing world and for commentary on a wide-spectrum of literature, ReadySteadyBlog offers that and more.