Linde Lund shared Dreamworld's photo.
Betty MacDonald fan club fans,
Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter February is available.
You'll receive very interesting info on our unique Betty MacDonald fan club honor members Monica Sone, Darsie Beck, Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Mary Holmes, Bernd Kunze, Tracy Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, Thomas Bödigheimer and one and only Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli.
More info on Betty MacDonald fan club birthday card contest will come soon.
Bengt asked for some for more info on this mysterious couple.
Maybe you can see some of Betty MacDonald's relatives........
It isn't difficult at all!
Send us the names please and maybe you'll be our next Betty MacDonald fan club contest winner.
Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and Betty MacDonald interviews have fans in 40 countries. I'm one of their many devoted fans.
Many Betty MacDonald - and Wolfgang Hampel fans are very interested in a Wolfgang Hampel CD and DVD with his very funny poems and stories.
We hope to hear from Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli very soon.
Betty MacDonald fan club honor members will be included in Wolfgang Hampel's new project Vita Magica.
Enjoy a new breakfast at the bookstore with Brad and Nick, please.
Betty MacDonald's Vashon Island is really a paradise.
May I introduce my favourite ESC 2016 song?
Take care,
Brigitte
Vita Magica
Betty MacDonald fan club
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Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )
Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel
Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
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Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I
Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund
From The Seattle Review of Books
Meet Brad Craft, University Book Store’s used book buyer
Brad Craft, the used book buyer at University Book Store,
says he “didn’t grow up in a bookish atmosphere” — he didn’t have
access to a good library, and none of his teachers introduced him to the
joys of literature. Where did he learn to love books? “Yard sales,” he
says. He was especially drawn to a certain type of book: “I’ve read more
gothic romance novels than most men my age,” Craft explains. He assumed
the bodice-rippers that he bought from his neighbors were classics of
literature. “They looked like classics to me,” he says. The women on the
covers “were in historical costumes,” after all, just maybe with a
little more cleavage than you’d find on the cover of your typical Bronte
book. For a long time, Craft says, “I couldn’t tell you the difference
between a novelization of Airport ’77 and a Jane Austen novel.”
But he did eventually move on from the smut to the real classics: “I
didn’t read Austen until I was in my late thirties, and then she was a
revelation.” Now he’s obsessed, calling himself “a big set person.” At
his home, he has matching sets of works by Fielding, Kipling, a
24-volume Balzac collection and “four sets of Dickens, I’m afraid.”
What’s his favorite Dickens? “David Copperfield is close to my heart. I’ve read that more than all the others, including The Pickwick Papers. And I’m a big fan of The Old Curiosity Shop. I
don’t even like allegory, but I think it’s a really exquisitely
achieved allegory.” Craft has heard the quote attributed to Oscar Wilde
that a reader “would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of [Curiosity Shop’s] little Nell without dissolving into tears...of laughter,“ but he disagrees: “I actually think it’s beautifully done.”
Craft worked at the late, lamented Stacey’s Books in San Francisco for
12 years. He’s done time at other used bookstores, and he even worked a
handful of months in a corporate bookstore — “I had no emotional
attachment to the place, but it did give me insights into the sale of
things that happened to be books.” He can’t recall exactly how long he’s
been at University Book Store — 12 or 13 years, give or take — but he
knows that he helped convince management to add used books to the
bookstore’s stock about a decade ago. He’s been behind the counter ever
since.
Craft has been drawing since even before he could read. “My mother tells
me that I drew before I talked. If she wanted me to be quiet and
content, she just put a drawing implement in my hand and put me in the
corner and I kept myself busy.” He started out copying John R. Neill’s
illustrations from the Oz books, and even today he posts his bookish
illustrations on his blog, Usedbuyer 2.0.
A collection of his illustrations is for sale at University Book Store,
and he sells author caricature calendars every December.
With all the talk about classics and used books, some might be surprised
to learn that Craft is an avid podcaster. He’s been recording his Breakfast at the Bookstore show with Nick DiMartino for
over a year now. “I’m a relatively late adopter of technology,” he
admits, “but then I can become very enthusiastic.” Craft got into
literary podcasts as a fan, but then he discovered that most of them
were “over-specialized,” focusing only on specific subgenres of mystery,
say, or certain types of science fiction. Instead, he wanted to do
something a little broader, talking about all kinds of book-related
topics with all kinds of guests.
Craft also headlines events at University Book Store on a regular basis.
He reads Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” every year at the
holidays — this last year was his eighth performance — and he’s also
celebrated the birthdays of Dickens and Thackeray with readings, as well
as a celebration of the poems of William Cowper. (“That was a
barn-burner, right there,” he laughs.) “It allows me to serve ham three
or four times a year,” Craft says, and it provides a rare opportunity
for adults to sit and be read to, which is a pleasure that too many
people give up after childhood. “I just think literature is meant to be
read aloud,” Craft says. “The greatest literature needs to be put into
the air now and again.”
What does Craft love most about University Book Store? “Perhaps its age
more than anything else,” he says. “There’s a tradition here of respect
both for the customers and the employees. They really want their
booksellers to have things like health insurance and a livable wage. The
values clearly are from an earlier era in a lot of ways — in a lot of
good ways.”
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