Writing THE CAT WHO CONVERTED THE POPE was great fun (and those who've seen the cover love it), but fussing with the details of online publication is not for sissies. I was amazed that, after reading the final text six or seven times, my wife and editor, Lynn, found three typos; after I made those changes, but after the printing began, I found another error (word missing). @#!! Howl, howl.....
Now I am asking friends to spread the word via social media and look forward to local book signings in Oct. and Nov. before I order a second (corrected yet again) edition.
Taking a break from producing this book, I turned to some internet reading and at once encountered the kind of recurring error that boggles my mind: educated people who think the plural of life is LIFE'S....Why is it that even writers with college degrees can 't master the apostrophe? They can deal with algorithms and ibuprofen and countless other scientific names, but the humble mark of punctuation that shows possession (Jack's book) is beyond reckoning.
Today on the internet I saw the word "shes": the writer meant she's or she is. Here the apostrophe is used for a contraction, to signal a missing word. But it is NEVER used to form the plural--except (there is always an exception) in those rare cases when we have the option of pluralizing initials: "know your ABC's" or "three M.D.'s"
My plea to the world: do not add -s to words to indicate plural; just add an -s (or -es, if needed) to most words: Book, books; box, boxes.
But having learned in completing my new book that having three sets of eyes is often not enough to detect errors, I vow to be more tolerant of bad editing (and the speedy writing that leads to it) and smile and carry on.
My other request is that anyone who wants a laugh, even if they don't like cats, or anyone who wants a reminder abut the need for mindfulness and calming silence should rush to Amazon.com and look for THE CAT WHO CONVERTED THE POPE. You don't have to be Cat-lick to love it. To dog lovers, I say: cat books make great gifts.
Now I will give you an idea of the back of the book:
“The
great thing about cats is that they combine dignity with comicality”—T. S.
Eliot
The great thing about Gerald Schiffhorst’s
new book--
THE CAT WHO CONVERTED THE POPE
--is that it is both amusing
and spiritual, with lessons about mindfulness for today’s busy readers, whether
they’re “Cat-licks” or not.
In this book by the author of Writing with Cats, Professor Gerald
Schiffhorst shows why cats are models of mindfulness. The story of a fictional Pope and his
unlikely feline adviser, Simon Goodfellow, reveals what “Cat-licks” can teach
us, and the Guide to Feline Spirituality explains why silence and meditation
are important in an overly busy, noisy, stressful world.
“I loved Simon Goodfellow’s wanderings, but his ponderings about being quiet and calm are the best part of this enjoyable book.” --Kurt Navratil, Roanoke, VA
“The author of this delightful book certainly knows how a cat’s
mind works.”—Cynthia Gerken, Winter Park, FL
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