Where did Walt Disney get his ideas? Books of course! He was a creative genius who brought hundreds of stories to life through his animated art. The majority of his movies were based or loosely based on books and historical stories. Great books make great movies. Animation made the stories and characters come alive. He enchanted us all. Disney magic revived stories and fairy tales that might have been forgotten. Disney was drawn by each story’s magic and created his version of it to strike a chord with the inner child in everyone.
Disney’s whole career was about creating magic for his “guests”. Whether it was a movie, t.v show, or theme park, he focused on the magic within the story. He wasn’t just about sitting in front of a screen. He wanted families to spend quality time together. Therefore, every movie produced created a Disney book. His published books were the mechanism to bring about great family read along. Do you remember your first Disney book?
We carry a huge selection of Disney Books at discoverbooks.com where you can Let the Stories Live On.
Disney’s first book, which was The Adventures of Mickey Mouse, was published in 1931. (We carry the 50th Birthday Edition.) Disney continues to publish books to inspire the kid in all of us. Find your childhood favorite and Let the Stories Live On at discoverbooks.com
How many of these books have you read? Did the movie motivate you to read the book or vice versa? How many more books became Disney movies? Can you name them? Find these and many more at discoverbooks.com. The list below is just a sampling of the 100’s of Disney books we have available on our site. Doing a site search will bring up more options. Happy Searching! Let the Stories Live On.
Noah Webster. Photo is in the Public Domain in the United States
“Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas they cannot retain an identity of language.” ~ Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an academic by nature. His mother taught him at home spelling, mathematics, and music. He then attended a one-room schoolhouse which he didn’t enjoy and later wrote about the terrible conditions. He went onto Yale and later studied law.
Webster became an educator himself set on teaching American children in an American way. He threw off the shackles of the British education system and books. He began writing his own textbooks. One being the Blue-Backed Speller. It was part of a 3 part series known collectively as A Grammatical Institute of the English Language.
Original copies of his handwritten dictionary notes. This photo is in the Public Domain in the United States.
In 1793, Webster was asked by Alexander Hamilton to write for the Federalist Party newspaper. He also served in the Connecticut House of Representatives.
Upon Webster’s death in 1843, George and Charles Merriam acquired the rights to his dictionary. This is why it is called the Merriam-Webster Dictionary to this date. To learn more about this man, who desired nothing more than to preserve the American Spirit through written words, see our website for a selection of books for all ages.
September brings cooler nights and shorter days. Have you noticed the change? This September, the big screen brings several books to the movies. Whether you enjoy the change from book to film is a personal battle.
Most of the time, the book delves deeper into the characters, details, plot because they aren’t limited by time, only pages. Images come alive in your mind and intertwine with your experiences. You and the author share a sacred moment as you journey mind to mind through the pages.
“But the moon was so large and clear through the uncurtained window that it made me think instead of a story my mother had told me, about driving to horse shows with her mother and father in the back seat of their old Buick when she was little. “It was a lot of traveling—ten hours sometimes through hard country. Ferris wheels, rodeo rings with sawdust, everything smelled like popcorn and horse manure. One night we were in San Antonio, and I was having a bit of a melt-down—wanting my own room, you know, my dog, my own bed—and Daddy lifted me up on the fairgrounds and told me to look at the moon. ‘When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.’ So after he died, and I had to go to Aunt Bess—I mean, even now, in the city, when I see a full moon, it’s like he’s telling me not to look back or feel sad about things, that home is wherever I am.” She kissed me on the nose. “Or where you are, puppy. The center of my earth is you.” Donna Tartt’sThe Goldfinch
The words paint a clear vision in one’s mind, and you can relate to the character. The words take you to your father, mother, room, etc. In film form this interaction might take a minute or less. Perhaps, it won’t make the final cut. Either way, the film isn’t the same. It isn’t your father entering your mind; it’s the actor. The book takes you to your safe place, while the movie creates a new image of a safe place.
Cinematography is powerful, no doubt. It leaves one breathless at times and a picture is worth a thousand words. The problem is – it isn’t your picture. It is the director’s picture and/or interpretation. That’s the biggest difference between reading and watching. Reading allows you to be involved in the creation of the picture. The author lays the details out for you, but your mind fashions the image.
Downton Abbey fans have been waiting anxiously for the arrival of the new film which hits theaters September 20, 2019. However, what most fans don’t know is Downton Abbey was inspired by a book by Gail MacColl and Carol Wallace written in 1989. The book is called To Marry an English Lord. According to Wallace, the film begins where the book ends. It is, if you will, the back story of Cora and Lord Crawley’s introduction, courtship, and marriage. As you wait patiently (okay not so patiently) for September 20, enjoy the rest of the story of Cora and Robert Crawley by reading the book.
Stephen King is a master at creating suspenseful and supernatural scenes to scare the toughest of reader. King brings our worst what-if scenarios into a realistic plot. That’s what is so terrifying. You have a fear, he makes it realistic. King’s IT was first published in 1986 and the first film came out in a mini-series form in 1990. It became a film in 2017 with the final part of the story hitting the big screen September 9th, 2019. If you haven’t read IT, or you need a refresher, grab a copy while the movie is still in theaters.
“Calling it a simple schoolgirl crush was like saying a Rolls-Royce was a vehicle with four wheels, something like a hay-wagon. She did not giggle wildly and blush when she saw him, nor did she chalk his name on trees or write it on the walls of the Kissing Bridge. She simply lived with his face in her heart all the time, a kind of sweet, hurtful ache. She would have died for him..” ― Stephen King, It
Every year for the past 30-something years, my mother’s side of the family has come together for a week at the beach. We’ve ranged in numbers from 15 to 45, with ages from one to 75. And while we’ve added family members and lost others, while bathing suit sizes have crept up, and while more folks have reading glasses perched on top of sunglasses, on every beach day, you’ll see a line of us on the shore with books in hand.
Summer reading lists for the beach mean different things to different people. For some it’s picking up a classic they didn’t quite finish in high school but always meant to tackle. For others, it means they now have time to wade deeper into a mystery series.
And there are always one or two uncles with a Tom Clancy or John Sandford paperback pulled waterlogged and dog-eared from the bottom of a bag. But for the majority of us, beach reads equal something lighter in nature, or catching up on the latest New York Times Best Seller that everyone is talking about.
Beach reads can be the paper versions of Lifetime holiday movies. You can generally figure out the plots early and know who is going to end up together. But exploring the complexity of family relationships and travelling to different places feeds right into the summer mood.
In my teenage years, my summer reads were written by Rosamunde Pilcher who, in addition to her most famous book, “The Shell Seekers,” wrote more than 30 novels and story collections over her career.
From there I moved on to a couple of mystery series, choosing a couple of Janet Evanovich or Sue Grafton letters and numbers to pass the time. And now it’s whatever the book club has selected (which can admittedly go either way…).
There are endless online lists of recommended summer reads where you can select by genre or choose based on an author you’ve enjoyed previously. Local libraries often have summer reading programs to encourage reading and are a great source of information as well. We’ve assembled a Popular Reads section where you can browse our top-rated and best-selling books. And when you’ve found your titles to pack in your beach bag, remember to check discoverbooks.com to make your beach budget stretch even further. Stock up on all of the best books for summer with our selections below:
Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy’s classic techno military thriller, Rainbow Six, focuses on an elite counter-terrorism unit led by one of Clancy’s lesser used characters, John Clark. This is one Clancy’s more standout novels and a great example of the tech thriller of the late 90s early 2000s. It’s a beast at around 900 pages, but a veritable page-turner.
John Sanford is the king of the serial novel genre, and perhaps his most notable series is the Prey Series which features Lucas Davenport as the main protagonist. Stretching across 28 books, the Prey Series, follows Davenport as he navigates life in the Minneapolis Police Department. Broken Prey is the 16th book in the series and puts Davenport and the reader in a chase with one of the most ruthless killers in the Prey series.
Two for the Dough is a book by Janet Evanovich in the Stephanie Plum series and spent 36 weeks at the Top 150 best-seller list. This novel features corrupt funeral home owners, embalmed body parts in the mail, and not-to-be-underestimated grandmothers, as well as the introduction of “Big Blue,” the only car to remain unscathed throughout the Plum series.
Shell Seekers is a time agnostic novel that follows the main character, Penelope Kneeling, as she examines her life in her 60s. Told through impressionistic flashbacks and multiple points of view, this novel has been a long-running best-seller, especially in author Rosamond Pilcher’s home in the UK. While not a page-turning serial thriller, this is a great summer read if you’re looking for something with a little bit more emotional depth and less action.
Sue Grafton’s Alphabet Series features detective Kinsey Millhone and is set in California. X is the only title in the series to not have been followed by a word in her now famous title styles (A is for Alibi). Written in the classic hard boiled detective genre, X is set in 1980s California and follows Millhone as she tracks down a sociopathic serial killer.
YAYAYAY!!! Summer is finally here (well not officially until June 21st…but it feels like summer outside) and you know what that means! The kids are out of school and at some point you will be spending time at the pool or beach or on vacation most likely. What could be more relaxing in the warm summer air than pulling up a poolside chair, cracking open an good book and getting lost in the story?
We thought you’d agree so when we stumbled upon Popsugar.com‘s list of The Best Beach Reads For a Summer Getaway we had to let you in on the fun!!
We have chosen our Top 5 and have listed them below.
We have even made it easy to purchase each of them with just a simple click. Click on the photo of each book to see them on our website, www.DiscoverBooks.com where you can purchase them at a great price! You might even want to buy more than one at the low prices we offer…heck! You could probably buy all 5 on our site for the price that you would pay for one of them in a large retail store!
So what are you waiting for….get shopping!
1) The Vacationers by Emma Straub – The Posts are going on their first family vacation in years, and it’s going to be a special one: Jim and Franny are taking their daughter Sylvia, son Bobby and his girlfriend, and Franny’s best friend Charles and his husband, all the way to Mallorca for two weeks of the sort of relaxation, culture and cuisine that only Europe can offer. But there are problems… Click below to buy it now and read it to find out more!
2) Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – An all time favorite thriller! When a woman goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary, her diary reveals hidden turmoil in her marriage, while her husband, desperate to clear himself of suspicion, realizes that something more disturbing than murder may have occurred. Click on the picture now to purchase for just $3.58!
3) Little Known Facts by Christine Sneed – Christine Sneed emerges as one of the most insightful chroniclers of our celebrity-obsessed age, telling a story of influence and affluence, of forging identity and happiness and a moral compass. Click below to buy it and get lost in the story now!
4) Skipping a Beat by Sarah Pekkanen – What would you do if your husband suddenly wanted to rewrite all of the rules of your relationship? This is the question at the heart of Skipping a Beat, Pekkanen’s thought-provoking second book. This is a must read, critically acclaimed book for the pool or beach. Get it now! Click the cover below!
5) Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close – Last but not least, this national best seller is a must read! Wickedly hilarious and utterly recognizable, Girls in White Dresses tells the story of three women grappling with heartbreak and career change, family pressure and new love all while suffering through an endless round of weddings and bridal showers. Get it now for a great price by clicking below!
And, as we are sure that you already know, there are plenty more where these FABULOUS books came from. Don’t forget to check back and grab a few more of your favorite reads throughout the summer time! Pull up a pool float and enjoy!!
