>>>BOOK BAG

Cash 4 Books opens in Kingston

The good news is that a new environmentally aware company is now offering a safe avenue to recycle used books and in a way that someone else can benefit from the use of the books.

Used-textbook trading company Cash 4 Books began operations in August, using the opportunity to fill a void that has presented itself within the education sector in Jamaica. Robert and Nicola Desnoes, the husbandand-wife principals of the company, upon identifying the tremendous potential of this niche market, have quietly opened their store, which seeks to ease the financial burden of book buyers as the new school year begins.

A major portion of back-to-school expenses comes from the cost of textbooks, Nicola tells Bookends, and “for those schools in which tuition is governmentsubsidised this is possibly the major cost for those parents and students, apart from the basic necessities of life”.

“Within this current economic environment in which we all have to survive, Desnoes continues, it is very hard to make ends meet, so whatever savings can be made will be most appreciated.”

It is against this background that the Cash 4 Books concept works. The company buys and sells textbooks from every discipline on the current list provided by the Ministry of Education (MOE) to be used in the school curriculum for the period 2014-2015 (See MOE Website) for Grades 4-13. These texts are available for purchase by the customers at a fraction of the retail price. The price points range from $500 to $1,000. Conditions, however, apply as it regards the state of the books: there are two grades – GOOD & FAIR – and the prices are set accordingly. So each customer, understanding their own finances, can opt to purchase a book in either condition, to suit their needs or their pockets. In addition, the company will provide the service of sourcing used texts if they are not immediately available.

HOW IT WORKS

“Once a customer enters the store,” Desnoes informs, “you have the choice of either selling your used textbooks to us or purchasing the textbooks you need from the supply we have accumulated from other customers. Or both. Persons have managed to save up to one-third of the cost of their booklists by using our service.

“If you are bringing a book to us to sell, its condition will first be assessed and the book will be colour-stickered according to condition for placement on our shelves to be sold to someone else who needs it. We also source books for customers who may need something that is not on our list. We have created a database of those books not on our list that customers have available, so we facilitate the transaction and try to help as many as possible to find what they need for school.”

Currently, the company only buys and sells used textbooks for Grades 4-13, but Desnoes informs that trading in tertiary-level textbooks is set to come on stream very soon.

“The Cash 4 Books service,” according to the affable Desnoes, “will not only be providing an income for our own family, but another deeply heartfelt reason is that we can do a small part in providing jobs for Jamaicans and providing a service that will allow our fellow citizens to be able to ease their burden a bit and, possibly, to be able to save enough to afford other much-needed items such as school shoes, fees, lunch money, uniforms, etc or to just help provide a little cash-in-pocket for other expenses. Giving back is what it is all about and helping to foster the education system in our country.”

Cash 4 Books is located at Shop 8, Southdale Plaza, Kingston 10. Opening hours are Monday to Friday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm. Telephone: 876-397-1909 E-mail:cash4booksja@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/cash4booksja

Amanda Hanna’s Dating for Dinner now on Amazon

Dating for Dinner, author Amanda Hanna’s latest book, has been released and is available exclusively through Amazon Kindle. The cost is 99 cents, and the author also informs Bookends that “I am also lowering the price of my previous six novels to 99 cents as well, in commemoration of lucky number seven!”

The premise of the novel is this: If you join the website Dating for Dinner, you not only get a free, fancy meal, but you also get paid to write a review of your dinner date! It is a literal, win-win situation: free meal, and money in your pocket.

That is, unless you are identical twins, Emma and Ramona McIntyre. Despite sharing a bed and an apartment, they manage to lead completely different lives. Emma is the more laid-back, artistic twin. Ramona is the ambitious, slightly uptight, bolder twin.

Everything changes, however, when they each decide to join Dating for Dinner, without telling each other.

They both soon learn that dating in Manhattan can be a dangerous thing, when you look exactly like your twin sister.

Hanna’s previous books are The Red Rock Café, The New York Catch, The New York Socialite, The New New York, Mid-life Wife, and The New York Series. EXCERPT FROM DATING FOR DINNER:

RAMONA

I swear: I’m going to change my phone number.

Does every bill collector have me on speed dial today? Okay, so fine, I went a little overboard with the store credit cards, but they are the ones that approved such high limits. A girl in my position cannot just waltz into work wearing jeans and sneakers. I’d be laughed off of the thirty-fifth floor. Like Bette always says, you have to dress for the position you want, not the position you have. Well, who knew doing that would drive a girl into nearly thirty thousand dollars’ worth of debt?

Admittedly, I was never great at Math. That’s why I chose to become a paralegal in the first place. Reading is a piece of cake. I could read, and read, all day long, but numbers always tied my brain in a knot. Then, the same day I get this awesome job at Robinowitz & Kessler, five major credit cards send me magical pieces of plastic, to help me dress for the part. I didn’t realize I’d be losing such a huge chunk of my paycheque, every month, to taxes. I don’t even take the subway! Why should I have to pay for it?

So what I need to do now, is just get it together, somehow.

“What you need to do, is land yourself one of those,” my co-worker Bette dismisses, as she eyes the Senior Associates, waiting by the elevator bank, each one more handsome than the next, in their sharp suits.

“You realise, they hardly even notice us?” I say, getting the documents together for Brain’s brief. Brian Robinowitz, is my direct boss, a senior lawyer at the firm, the son of the name partner, and the most gorgeous man I’ve ever laid eyes on.

He calls me Regina, a handful of times, a day.

Not even my Jimmy Choos, could sway his attention. Lord knows I bought as many as I could get my hands on at the Sale at Saks last Fall.

“They notice us, just not in the office,” Bette says, with a mischievous smirk. “I’ve gone out to dinner with the one in the red tie, and he doesn’t even know I work here.” I look at the stunning African-American man, in the red tie. When he smiles, it’s like clouds parting and the sun coming out, but smiles are hard to come by, at this firm, these days.

“How?” I say, impressed.

“This website I sort of do part-time work for. It’s called Dating for Dinner. On the outside, it’s a dating site that matches eligible professionals up, for dinner dates. On my side, I enter the restaurants I am interested in dining at, plus a photo, and on the men’s side, they enter all the physical attributes they are looking for in a woman. Then the website matches them with me, and makes a suggestion for dinner. Most of these men don’t bat an eye at the five-star rated restaurants. Then, after dinner, I write a review of the food, place, and the date, then get paid $150 for my time. It’s a literal winwin situation.” Bette seems quite pleased with herself.

“I don’t get it. How does he not recognise you? Did you wear a disguise? Did you slip him a roofy? What’s the deal?” Something just doesn’t measure up.

“Of course I wear a wig, and coloured contacts. By day, I’m a mousey brunette with brown eyes, in a sweater set, but by night, I’m a Red-Headed, Green-Eyed temptress, called Cara.” Bette gives me a purring noise, and bites the air between us. We both start to giggle. “But Bette, what if he wants to see you again? What if you really like each other? Isn’t it wrong to mislead someone like that?” “Oh please. Enough with the Catholic guilt,” Bette raises a palm to my questions. “These men are not interested in love, they are interested in sex, and once you don’t give it to them,” she leans a little closer, “or even if you do–they are way too busy to have time for another date. It’s a one-night in Paris, sort of deal. Works out great. I get a free meal, cash in my hand, and an experience of a lifetime.” I think about this a moment. I guess it is plausible. How often do blind dates ever pan out to anything for me? Um, never. I haven’t even had a boyfriend since High School. I’ve been too busy working, shopping and trying to keep my head above water. I suppose it could be nice to date a guy like that, in a suit, and be someone else for an evening. “Anyway, it’s against the rules to fall in love. Once love is off the table, you’d be surprised, how it easy it is to have fun,” coos Bette, as we watch the gorgeous senior associates shuffle onto the elevator. “Let’s face it, we deserve a little fun.” My cellphone begins to ring, with another bill collector that I’ve gone ahead and labelled, “Do not answer”. “Maybe you should check it out. Might help supplement your shopping,” says Bette, who’s peeking over my shoulder. “And speaking of shopping,” she grabs her purse, and gives me a wink, “want to go to Macy’s for Lunch? They’re having a sale in swimwear, and you know we need to look delectable for the company party in the Hamptons next month. Even though it physically hurts to buy another outfit that Brian won’t notice, there’s a small voice in my head that is still holding out hope. “Why not? I’m already in this deep,” I say, leaving the brief in Brian’s box, and trailing Bette to the elevator bank.

The above excerpt from Dating for Dinner was published with the permission of Amanda Hanna (c) 2014

Hot-button issues dealt with in new book

Title: Culture Shock: A Biblical Response to Today’s Most Divisive Issues by Chip Ingram Reviewed by: Alfred Sangster

This is a 2014 US Baker Book publication of some 250 pages with notes and an extensive bibliography.

Chip Ingram is the senior pastor of Venture Christian Church in Los Gatos California and a bestselling author, and radio personality. Jim Daly the president of Focus on the Family makes this comment::

“Is it possible to articulate timeless Biblical truth without resorting to anger and argument and to lovingly embrace those with whom we disagree without compromising our beliefs? The answer is a resounding YES – in this timely and relevant book.”

Both the Introduction and the Acknowledgment are important sections for they define the strategic directions and the philosophical underpinnings of the author. Some key premises follow:

• We unashamedly believe that the Bible is still God’s word for today but are embarrassed when we hear hate-filled speech and name-calling by “Christians”

• We are equally dismayed by those in the church who have embraced as “Christian” popular culture’s views on human sexuality, abortion, and homosexuality and have abandoned or compromised the moral absolutes of Scripture in the name of tolerance, relevance, political correctness and compassion.

• Within Christian circles we have one group that champions the truth without love and another group that champions love without truth. We need to bring light not heat to the debate and explore the issues with love and truth together and explore what the Bible says about today’s most divisive issues.

• The reader is urged to think, read widely, be biblically knowledgeable and become informed so that he or she can take a balanced view on the issues.

The book is a kind of sandwich. At the top is: Chapter One: Whatever happened to right and wrong? We’ve lost our foundational understanding of what is right and what is wrong and of God’s truth which has not changed over time. The new Relative Truth becomes simply a matter of taste and ‘if it feels good do it’. Also at the top is Chapter Two: How did we get into this mess? This identifies the philosophical trends that have led to the thinking that would set biblical truth against man’s reason and the development of situational ethics which undermines and clouds the issues of whether there is a right and a wrong. In the middle of the sandwich are the five issues of: Human Sexuality, Homosexuality, Abortion, The Environment and Politics. The core concepts at the top of the sandwich along with the key premises listed earlier are applied to these societal hot-button – meat of the sandwich – issues of today.

Chapter Three: Human Sexuality begins by noting the recent significant shift of public opinion on traditional sexual values. The silence of the Church on the distorted values of “sex is dirty and bad” created a culture of ignorance and distortion which left future generations unprepared for the devastating wave of sexual license that followed. A number of myths are explored and the author notes that sexual immorality has become so acceptable to the church today that we have lost our moral distinctive and our platform to share the Good News. God wants sex in marriage to burn hot and passionate, where it brings light, heat, warmth and intimacy.

Chapter Four: Homosexuality outlines the presuppositions of both those of the classic/historic/biblical Christian community on sexuality and those of the homosexual community. In the case of the former:

• Sex is a sacred expression within the confines of marriage between a man and a woman

• Homosexuality is a moral issue in which something “wrong” is being promoted as something “right”.

The homosexual community articulates a number of premises which are often taken as fact and prominently pushed by the media. The following premises are examples of the untruths which have been clearly identified.

• I was born gay. There is no correlation between genetic makeup and homosexual behaviour.

• Ten per cent of the population are homosexuals. This myth generated by the critically flawed and proven false Kinsey Report (done on a prison population) has been corrected by US census report which found less that 1 per cent of the population to be homosexual.

• The homosexual lifestyle is a normal, healthy alternative lifestyle. This flies in the face of medical and empirical evidence

• Once a homosexual always a homosexual. A difficult step is to recognise that homosexuality is a behaviour and not an identity and can be changed.

A concluding comment by the author is to say to the homosexual community, “We are willing to ‘step up to the plate’ and speak the truth, but we are also committed to letting love, acceptance and God’s grace rule our words and actions. They too can leave sinful practices and habits behind.” There is an Appendix with answers to a number of situations.

Chapter Five: Abortion. This explosive issue which culminated in the famous United States Supreme Court Case, Roe v Wade pits the pro-choice against the antiabortionists. Pro-choice advocates spoke of the foetus as a mass of tissue and not of a baby, that an unwanted pregnancy puts women at risk and that the woman’s life is more important than the foetus. The pro-life position is that life begins at conception, that unborn babies are fully human, and a gift from God. Modern medical 4-D ultrasound images reveal an amazing look at a baby moving, kicking and sucking its thumb. This fact has led to a shift in the prochoice position and they no longer use of the term foetus. It has also led to a change in attitude of many women who realise that they have a living baby in their body and they no longer want an abortion. There are over one million abortions per year in the US and the conflict rages. The author argues, however, that harming others or breaking the law are never righteous options. The conflict must be resolved with actions of love, grace, truth and forgiveness.

Chapter Six: The Environment. It is argued that the world is God’s creation and humankind has been given the responsibility of caring, managing and maintaining the environment as faithful and responsible stewards.

Chapter Seven: Politics, What’s the Role of the Church? This is one of the most divisive issues in the American scene, which pits Christians at odds with one another. The separatists argue that political issues should never be talked about from the pulpit. The activists argue that the Church is a tool in the hand of God. What does the Bible say? There are two kingdoms – a spiritual and a physical – in conflict and every believer has dual citizenship. The role of government is to restrain evil. The Church as a whole is ordained to make disciples who by living the life and being change agents in society – are to infiltrate where the bacteria of unrighteousness and darkness have permeated and made themselves at home. God is not a Democrat, Republican or Independent but calls his people to exercise individual responsibility in acting for the advancement of the kingdom of God.

At the bottom of the sandwich is Chapter Eight: Where do we go from here? Ingram argues for positive action as ambassadors with truth, love, courage and integrity.

This is a book with a different approach to these challenging issues and one that calls for a different way to deal with the conflicting views on these contentious issues. It is highly recommended for all sections of society.

>>> NEW IN BOOKS FROM PEEPAL TREE PRESS

Love It When You Come, Hate It When You Go: Stories

by Sharon Leach ISBN: 9781845232368 Price: £8.99 Sharon Leach’s new short story collection occupies new territory in Caribbean writing. Its characters are not the folk of the old rural world, the sufferers of the urban ghetto, or the old prosperous middle class of the hills rising above the city, but the black urban salariat of the unstable lands in between. These are people struggling for their place in the world — as Jamaicans, of course, but part of a global cultural world dominated by American material and celebrity culture.

The Way Home

by Millicent AA Graham ISBN: 9781845232344 Price: £8.99 In these very intimate poems, Millicent Graham marks out a distinct poetic territory for herself with an immediately recognisable voice, an assured handling of language and a daring richness of image. Her work is guided first by her desire to write her home – both the actual and physical world of Jamaica, and her other home, her equally rich imaginative and poetic home. This is a collection that adds to the corpus of Caribbean poetry in important ways.

Sounding Ground

by Vladimir Lucien ISBN: 9781845232399 Price: £8.99 Vladimir Lucien’s poetry is intelligent, musical, gritty and graceful. This is a collection that is alive with its conscious tensions: between divergent family visions of respectability and revolt, tradition and modernity. It is enriched by an instinctive humanity that encompasses different social classes. There is, too, amidst a young man’s zest in life, a tender awareness of the inescapability of the frailty of age. In the music of the poems themselves, there’s an enlivening counterpoint between the natural rhythms of creole speech and the metric organisation of the line and its patterns of sound.

Ground Level

by Jennifer Rahim ISBN: 9781845232054 Price: £8.99 In 2011 the Government of Trinidad & Tobago declared a state of emergency to counter the violent crime associated with the drugs trade. Ground Level confronts the roots of the madness and chaos seething under the surface of this ‘crude season of curfew from ourselves’ when the state becomes a jail. An ambitious collection from Jennifer Rahim — a poet who has constantly worked at her craft, but who also takes formal risks to capture the reality of desperate times.

>>> BACK PAGE

The Pleasure Spot

CHAPTER SIX

An older client was having a dispute with one of the stylists, Annalisa. “I didn’t ask you to chop off so much,” the woman wailed, waving her hand about her head despairingly. Her thin steel-grey hair, newly cut, was close to her scalp and sticking up in bristly spikes on top. At the base of the styling chair lay small clumps of grey hair.

Annalisa looked distressed. “But Mrs Benjamin, you said you wanted it short.”

“Not this short!”

“You said you want fi see scalp.”

“Not only scalp! Now you’ve made me ugly.”

Maxine had heard the commotion from the spa. She’d just wrapped another relaxing session with Brian and had been putting on her clothes when the sounds had filtered in through the walls. She hurriedly stepped into her shoes and flung the door open, bumping into Margaret who was also rushing out to the front.

“What the hell is going on?” Max said.

“How should I know?”

Maxine glanced at Margaret, wondering about the subtle hostility tingeing her sister’s words. Margaret had been frosty toward her in the last few days, and she was clueless as to the reason. They hadn’t had a fight, and she was pretty sure she hadn’t said something to offend her. The only reason she could surmise for the passive-aggressiveness was maybe trouble on the home-front. Her nephew Evan was a sweetheart, but she knew for a fact how much of a handful her niece Lucia could be; Lucia had lived with her for a few weeks, once, before Margaret and Robert finally split up. The girl was relentlessly rough on Margaret, blaming her for the disintegration of the marriage. To be fair to her niece, though, Maxine didn’t blame Lucia for acting up; that was the purview of teenage girls. And Maxine remembered another teenager – Margaret – years before, when their parents had been taken from them in that terrible automobile accident, who had also acted out. Mags had been 14, and she’d been 24 and just like she’d become the guardian of the sullen child left bereft by their parents’ sudden abandonment.

In the salon, Annalisa was trembling with rage, her full bosom heaving. She was a first-rate cutter whose only fault was that she tended to be impatient. Sporting a scowl and a daring hairstyle that involved her hair at various lengths and colours, she held the shears menacingly in one hand.

The barbers and other stylists and their clients were all watching the scene play out with rapt attention.

“What is going on?” Maxine cried, moving toward Mrs Benjamin, who’d become a regular since the day the salon opened. Margaret closed warily in on Annalisa, whom she didn’t like and, as of now, didn’t trust.

“Look at my hair,” sobbed Mrs Benjamin, still seated with the styling bib around her and eyeing herself in the mirror.

“She siddung right in front the mirror –”

“Who are you referring to as ‘she?’” Mrs Benjamin temporarily forgot her woes to become incensed. She was the retired mother of one of the island’s major captains of industry and was accustomed to being deferred to.

Annalisa stepped forward, dark eyes flashing. “You neva see how much I was cutting? You wait till mi finish to complain?”

Maxine looked helplessly at Margaret, who in turn returned a confused look. Neither woman was sure how to defuse the situation.

They needn’t have worried, though. Because just then Brian appeared. He was wearing a gleaming white wife beater and dark grey slouchy yoga pants that somehow managed to intimate the perfect apple shape of his ass beneath them. “Ladies, ladies,” he said in a soothing, conciliatory manner, stepping past both Maxine and Margaret to take charge of the stand-off. “Let’s keep things civil, shall we?”

In no time he’d brokered a peace deal and the salon had gone back to business as usual.

Later, in her office, Maxine thanked him. “Brian, thanks for stepping in when you did,” she said. Margaret, who was seated beside him, nodded. “You had those women eating out of your hands,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes dreamy.

That was when Maxine realised that her sister was not having problems with Lucia; she was attracted to Brian. Watching Margaret stare at Brian with barely concealed rapture as they spoke, Maxine wondered why she hadn’t seen it before. Margaret’s attitude towards her had changed since that first time she’d come across them by accident that morning in the spa room. Yes! Margaret had been upset to see Brian rubbing her body down. She’d thought the reason Margaret had backed out of the room so quickly was that she’d been embarrassed, having been put in an awkward position by seeing a man touching her sister’s naked body. And, since then, whenever Margaret noticed she was having a session with Brian she started acting peculiarly all over again. Now she saw it all so clearly: Margaret was jealous of her.

As she drove home that evening, Maxine was still preoccupied with thoughts of Brian and Margaret. Did Margaret have a legitimate reason to be envious of her? Maxine had to admit that she did enjoy the feel of Brian’s fingers on her skin; he was very thorough. But she wasn’t thinking of what they did in sexual terms. Was she? Okay, she’d had a dream about him one night. A sex dream, to be honest. She was convinced, by this, that Brian De La Grange was definitely NOT gay. But she hadn’t planned on doing anything about it. It was true she hadn’t had sex in a while. She and Jake seemed to have come to a crossroads in their relationship and, consequently, the physical aspect had also cooled. Truthfully, she’d begun to suspect he was having an affair with someone else. No other reason for this, other than woman’s intuition. Jake had practically stopped having sex with her over the last few weeks. He’d refused to discuss the reason. Naturally, Maxine suspected he was having an affair. Although it seemed unlikely; Jake was getting on in age. Still, that never stopped a Jamaican man did it? All he cared about was his many business interests afforded him from his many years in politics. Truthfully, he’d never been overly sexual. Low testosterone levels, she’d surmised. She couldn’t imagine him cheating on her. Still, how to explain the total sexual withdrawal?

As she pushed open the front door of her house, she found her mind wandering back to Brian. He was a mere boy, and she’d never considered him in a sexual light. If she had, she would never have gotten naked in front of him and agreed to let him touch her that way.

She read a note taped to the front of the fridge. It was from Jake, explaining that he wouldn’t be around that night. It was the third evening he hadn’t slept at her house.

She went to the fridge and took out the bottle of wine she’d begun night before last and poured a glass.

In the living room she kicked off her shoes and propped herself up in a comfortable position on the sofa. Brian was good-looking, she was surprised to hear herself think. She wasn’t the cougar type of woman; she liked more mature men. She took a sip of wine and closed her eyes.

But what if?

To be continued next week