When being beautiful means you are constantly criticised, how would you react? Ellie Paxton has endured more than her fair share of criticism – simply because she’s beautiful – even from her Christian friends. Frustrated by a long string of empty relationships, Ellie determines to stop dating for six months. But will she?
http://rhizapress.com.au/too-pretty
The Doctor's Return (Snowgum Creek series, Book 3) by Narelle Atkins (Love Inspired Heartsong Presents, August 2014)
After years spent traveling the globe, she never expected to be back in her hometown sharing an office with her former sweetheart, Dr. Luke Morton. Megan is focused on building her business, and doesn't have time to dwell on past mistakes. But she can't ignore her feelings for the handsome doctor who works down the hall.
Luke is afraid to trust his heart to Megan, knowing she may not stay for long. But as they work together, their romance quickly rekindles. When a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity comes her way, Luke must free Megan to choose between a big-city career or love and family…right there in Snowgum Creek.
http://www.narelleatkins.com
Congratulations to Sonja! Sonja has won a print copy of The Doctor's Return from Narelle's post on August 6.
A Summary of the Bible by Dr Nick Hawkes (Rhiza Press, August 2014)
This comprehensive summary is about one sixth the size of the full Bible. Each book of the Bible has an introductory page providing background details, and key scriptures are included in full. A great resource for helping you understand the greatest book in history.
http://rhizapress.com.au/a-summary-of-the-bible
Gawain and the Four Daughters of God by Anne Hamilton (July 2014 independent release)
Background to the book: Warning: this is a true story and contains occasional colourful language.
My all-girls maths class in Year 10 was a serious handful. Five of them had formed a gang and had B1, B2, B3, B4 and B5 inked on their knuckles. These were the days of Bananas in Pyjamas, so I didn’t think too much of it. Until I made the mistake one day of commenting on the additional ‘bananas’. I received a withering look and was loftily informed that B1 was Bitch 1, B2 Bitch 2 and so on.
Trying to teach these kids the finer points of ratio and proportion was more of an interesting social experiment than the impartation of knowledge.
One day I could hear their chant from three blocks away. I knew it was going to be one of those days. Arms linked, they finally reached the top step outside my classroom and I could make out the final words of the chant (which, even now, I still remember): ‘…so I made a pass at his gorgeous arse.’
I gave them my best killer teacher look. They grinned back maniacally. I don’t like the look of this, I thought. They’re up to something.
It turned out they were practising for a test: a group oral poetry presentation. And they were smug beyond belief because they knew they had me between a rock and a hard place. I had a class rule: whenever you had a test in another class the following period, then so long as you got all your maths done quietly, you could work on test preparation.
The entire class did more work on ratio in a single period than they’d done in 3 weeks, just so they could bounce up at regular intervals and practise this odious ditty out loud. I was not surprised to learn, about a week later, they’d scored the highest mark in Year 10 for their group performance. They really put zest and glee into it.
I finally returned to my staffroom, bemoaning the fact that, with ten centuries of glorious English poetry to choose from, I’d had to suffer indignity of hearing about some male’s promising derrière all lesson. I got no sympathy from my colleagues. In fact, there was a warning of more to come: a well-known bureaucratic cycle had turned full circle and ‘the integrated curriculum’ was on the agenda again and moving swiftly upwards. This struck fear into our collective hearts as maths always got short shrift in any ‘integrated curriculum’.
That night, as I was pondering how to use poetry and mathematics in the same lesson (without losing either my integrity or my lunch), I received an email. It didn’t look like the sort of thing that was going to change my life. It was simply of a report in the London Times about a researcher at the University of Queensland who’d found the golden ratio in a medieval poem about Sir Lancelot. I was momentarily put off by the fact it was medieval French—but Lancelot was definitely good! I was sure he’d have a derrière promising enough to appeal to my enfants terrible.
Could I find something similar in English? Ransacking my bookshelves, I found some older poetry collections.
Hey, cool. I can use this with my year 8s. It’s a multiple of 22. And so’s this one… and this… and this… and... hey, what’s this obsession with 22?
So began my adventure with the numerical architecture of medieval poetry. With pi and the golden ratio and square root of 3.
Yet one thing niggled me: medieval artists considered creativity to be a work of copying the Master’s blueprint. They wouldn’t have made up this idea of fusing arithmetic with poetry. They would have copied it.
From the Bible??
Could I find their source of inspiration?
Gawain and the Four Daughters of God: the testimony of mathematics in Cotton Nero A.x is the result of a quest into a world which thought differently. Into a time when words and numbers were indivisible. Into an age when the Greek word logos meant more than Word.
If you love medieval stories like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and also have a strong feel for mathematics, you’re welcome to ask for a review copy of this academic book.
About the author: Anne Hamilton once taught mathematics by day while scribbling fantasy stories by night. During her three-decade career, she was listed in Lexington Who’s Who as an innovative maths educator. Now a multi-award winning author and editor of the Australian editions of The Word for Today and word4U2day, she is the current president of Omega Writers.
http://fire-of-roses.com/wp/
This comprehensive summary is about one sixth the size of the full Bible. Each book of the Bible has an introductory page providing background details, and key scriptures are included in full. A great resource for helping you understand the greatest book in history.
http://rhizapress.com.au/a-summary-of-the-bible
Gawain and the Four Daughters of God by Anne Hamilton (July 2014 independent release)
Background to the book: Warning: this is a true story and contains occasional colourful language.
My all-girls maths class in Year 10 was a serious handful. Five of them had formed a gang and had B1, B2, B3, B4 and B5 inked on their knuckles. These were the days of Bananas in Pyjamas, so I didn’t think too much of it. Until I made the mistake one day of commenting on the additional ‘bananas’. I received a withering look and was loftily informed that B1 was Bitch 1, B2 Bitch 2 and so on.
Trying to teach these kids the finer points of ratio and proportion was more of an interesting social experiment than the impartation of knowledge.
One day I could hear their chant from three blocks away. I knew it was going to be one of those days. Arms linked, they finally reached the top step outside my classroom and I could make out the final words of the chant (which, even now, I still remember): ‘…so I made a pass at his gorgeous arse.’
I gave them my best killer teacher look. They grinned back maniacally. I don’t like the look of this, I thought. They’re up to something.
It turned out they were practising for a test: a group oral poetry presentation. And they were smug beyond belief because they knew they had me between a rock and a hard place. I had a class rule: whenever you had a test in another class the following period, then so long as you got all your maths done quietly, you could work on test preparation.
The entire class did more work on ratio in a single period than they’d done in 3 weeks, just so they could bounce up at regular intervals and practise this odious ditty out loud. I was not surprised to learn, about a week later, they’d scored the highest mark in Year 10 for their group performance. They really put zest and glee into it.
I finally returned to my staffroom, bemoaning the fact that, with ten centuries of glorious English poetry to choose from, I’d had to suffer indignity of hearing about some male’s promising derrière all lesson. I got no sympathy from my colleagues. In fact, there was a warning of more to come: a well-known bureaucratic cycle had turned full circle and ‘the integrated curriculum’ was on the agenda again and moving swiftly upwards. This struck fear into our collective hearts as maths always got short shrift in any ‘integrated curriculum’.
That night, as I was pondering how to use poetry and mathematics in the same lesson (without losing either my integrity or my lunch), I received an email. It didn’t look like the sort of thing that was going to change my life. It was simply of a report in the London Times about a researcher at the University of Queensland who’d found the golden ratio in a medieval poem about Sir Lancelot. I was momentarily put off by the fact it was medieval French—but Lancelot was definitely good! I was sure he’d have a derrière promising enough to appeal to my enfants terrible.
Could I find something similar in English? Ransacking my bookshelves, I found some older poetry collections.
Hey, cool. I can use this with my year 8s. It’s a multiple of 22. And so’s this one… and this… and this… and... hey, what’s this obsession with 22?
So began my adventure with the numerical architecture of medieval poetry. With pi and the golden ratio and square root of 3.
Yet one thing niggled me: medieval artists considered creativity to be a work of copying the Master’s blueprint. They wouldn’t have made up this idea of fusing arithmetic with poetry. They would have copied it.
From the Bible??
Could I find their source of inspiration?
Gawain and the Four Daughters of God: the testimony of mathematics in Cotton Nero A.x is the result of a quest into a world which thought differently. Into a time when words and numbers were indivisible. Into an age when the Greek word logos meant more than Word.
If you love medieval stories like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and also have a strong feel for mathematics, you’re welcome to ask for a review copy of this academic book.
About the author: Anne Hamilton once taught mathematics by day while scribbling fantasy stories by night. During her three-decade career, she was listed in Lexington Who’s Who as an innovative maths educator. Now a multi-award winning author and editor of the Australian editions of The Word for Today and word4U2day, she is the current president of Omega Writers.
http://fire-of-roses.com/wp/
Celebrating with this month's new release authors. Well done!!
ReplyDeleteI second Dotti's comment. Congratulations to you all. A wonderful achievement. Do enjoy something special to mark the occasion.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations everyone. Great to see some new releases by Aussie Christians.
ReplyDeleteCertainly a bit of variety among those books. Congratulations all.
ReplyDeleteJust what I was thinking, Dale! Something for everyone, methinks ;)
ReplyDelete