Category Archives: Ein Mensch Von Gestern

Smashword did it again!

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As the year-end approaches, Smashword has deep discounts on thousands of ebooks. The SALE starts at midnight on December 25th and ends at midnight on January 1st.

All my books will be available at 50% off. Click on the following link:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/GiselleRoeder

How the Program Works:

At one minute past midnight Pacific time on December 25, the special Smashwords End of Year catalogue goes live on the Smashwords home page:  http://www.smashwords.com

Readers can browse the catalogue and search by coupon code levels and categories.  After 11:59pm Pacific time on January 1, 2020, the catalogue disappears.

The coupon codes are exclusive to Smashwords and will not affect prices at other retailers.

There’s no need to remember coupon codes.  Readers will receive the discount automatically by adding the chosen books to their cart.

Don’t forget – at this sale, you can pick up ebooks for incredibly low prices – and some even for FREE.

 

 

A New Promotion during The Last Week of 2018

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Another year has come and gone. For some of us, it was a good one. Others say “it was a dark year, I am glad it’s over.” As for me, I wish it would be starting and not be finished! I am at an age now when the days, weeks and months just go too fast!

You know I have written several books, one of them, “We Don’t Talk About That” – the memoir of my first thirty years – has made it around the world through ninety countries. YOU, my readers, have been asking and are waiting for the continuation. “What happened next?” was asked by many of you. You will get the answer in 2019. I have just started chapter eighteen of the sequel. Let me know if you want to be on the list for the first people who get the notice when it is ready!

My short story book “Forget Me Not” is a  favourite of mine. When I held the first copy in my hand, I said: “If this were a teddy bear, I would take it with me into bed.” A number of those stories are parts of my next book. Most of them will keep you wondering until you come to the end. Some will make you laugh and shake your head. Yes, I had an interesting life, and I met many interesting people. Those short stories are about real people, believe it or not!

Then there is my little German Poetry book “Ein Mensch von Gestern – Heute.” A tongue-in-cheek book in verses about the things people born during the last century had and have to contend with. This happy book makes a wonderful present for your German friends. Actually, it gives my German friends, who can not read English, a glimpse into my life.

If you have not read any of these books yet I joined an e-book Christmas-New Years Promotion of Smashwords. All my books are on half price, prices are $1.50, 2.00 to 2.50. For more information or to order, click on:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/GiselleRoeder

I wish you the best of health and happy reading in 2019! If you have read my books, tell your friends about the Smashwords Promotion for the coming week! It ends on
January 3rd.

Smashword’s Birthday Celebration and Summer/Winter Sale

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Summer where I live – winter Downunder! Starting at Midnight July first through the whole month Smashwords has invited their authors to celebrate their 10. Birthday by offering the readers deep discounts on all e-books. Thousands of books are listed. It’s hard to find a book you are looking for – but I make it easy for you:

E-books of my historical memoir “We Don’t Talk About That” – Surviving WWII, (a UK history writer said it should be placed next to ‘Anne Frank’s Diary’)

“Forget Me Not” – A Bouquet of Stories, Thoughts, and  Memories

“Ein Mensch von Gestern – Heute” – my little German Poetry book

are on sale for 50% off the already low prices at Smashwords.

Click on https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Giselle and scroll to my books. Click on the book title you are interested in, put it in your ‘cart’, a coupon will automatically appear to reduce the price by 50%.

Happy Reading!

A Chance Encounter

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Image may contain: flower, plant, sky, nature and outdoorIt was a bit cooler today, we had some rain last night. By far not enough here in Bavaria while they had heavy thunderstorms in other parts of Germany. During the morning, after my water treatment and massage, I packed up some clothing I don’t need anymore and went looking for a Salvation Army container to donate it. I saw a Red Cross shop, just looked in for curiosity sakes. I could not believe a) the quality of their donated offers, and b) the prices. 2.00-3.00-5.00 or 7.00€ for really GOOD stuff. If I ever come back, I’ll travel without a suitcase, get what I need, donate it at the end of my trip and be worry free on my way home.

But, now I need to tell you about that afternoon. After a healthy noon meal and a little nap I took my Nordic Poles and wandered off. I got myself a kilometer counter. I seemed the only person walking through still blooming meadows, quiet forest as the birds were resting during the midday heat. Coming by a Hunter’s restaurant I decided not to stop for their fantastic cheese or apple cake. I rested on a bench for a while, feasted my eyes on the beauty surrounding me and checked my km counter. It said 3.7 kilometers.

After another 3 km I arrived at the “Kurpark”. I was drawn to a bench in the sunshine, occupied by a big elderly gentleman with a bright red sweater, his pretty little brown dog next to him. For an unexplainable reason I stopped and commented on the dog. I am a bit of a dog nut, and this was one I could have fallen in love with. I heard a sad story about it, how it was born in Spain in a garbage pile with three others, the mom went out scavenging for food, came to nurse and went off again. The dog babies were very afraid and shy, but this man and his wife decided to rescue one. They picked a little boy and called him Carlos. Carlos liked me, sniffed my hand but did not lick it. We just sat there next to and looked at each other. Then Carlos decided he had enough sun, got down, the man let the leash out and Carlos settled in the shade of a nearby tree.

Now, as you can guess, the man asked me if I lived in this town. When I told him about my home in Canada, he was amazed that I still spoke perfect German without an accent. I mentioned that I have a book reading next week.
“Oh, on Tuesday in the Gugger Hause and you are Mrs. Roeder.”
I exclaimed, “How do you know that?”
“I happened to see a poster yesterday and decided to be there. My name is Roeder as well.”

Can you imagine that the next half hour was taken up with ‘what, where, when etc.’ – and how that little dog had made me stop to experience something so totally out of the ordinary.

I needed to share this with you!

Buchlesung

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Buchlesung aus “Ein Mensch von Gestern – Heute” am 15. Mai um 19.30 Uhr im Gugger Haus in Bad Woerishofen. Die Kurverwaltung laedt ein zu einem heiteren Abend mit der Canada-Deutschen Autorin Gisela Fiting-Roeder. Ihre Gedichte im Stil von Eugen Roth ueber das “rein Mensch-liche” und “Kneipp mit Doppel P” zaubern ein Laecheln auf jedes Gesicht. Freier Eintritt.

Free e-book Promotion Results:

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It is interesting for me, the writer, to see the results of the e-book promotion from March 4th to March 10th, offered by Smashwords:

FREE ‘sales’ of my book “We Don’t Talk About That” = 15

FREE ‘sales’ of my book “Forget Me Not”                      =   4

FREE ‘sales’ of my book “Ein Mensch von Gestern”     =   3

It will be even more interesting to see if the giveaway FREE is creating real sales. I like to thank all my faithful Facebook and other social media friends for sharing my promo-blog and saying a few words about my books they have read.

For all who have received my FREE e-books, happy reading. Please place “Reviews” on my website www.giselleroeder.com or Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734091.

Thank you!

Promo: Read an e-Book Week March 4-10

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Three of my books in e-book format are FREE only at Smashwords from March 4th – 10th.

To access the sale follow these links:

We Don’t Talk About That:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734091

Forget Me Not:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/608409

Ein Mensch von Gestern:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/732607

Goodbye 2017

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It is the last day of the year 2017. I am thinking of the 365 days past. I am contemplating what the New Year may bring. I have no crystal ball. Nobody has an answer. If we are a few billion people with a brain on this planet, every single one has different hopes, wishes, and beliefs. I am trying to write a blog that means something, possibly something that touches a nerve in everyone. Everyone? Who am I kidding! I can but try. And try I will.

New Year’s Eve: We celebrate and make a lot of noise. We make New Year’s Resolutions, resolutions that will be broken within the next few weeks or even days because ‘life happens.’ Something always gets into our way to do what we set out to do, want to do or planned to do. We woke up with a thought to write a fantastic blog – someone asked to do something else, and everything changes. The mood, sometimes even the energy is gone. What we really wanted to say changed. The moment, that magic moment, when you felt just right to do this one thing, is gone.

Looking back on 2017, it was a troubled year. Worldwide, politically and for me, even personally. But what is my personal pain compared to the pain of thousands of people fleeing their homes with just the cloth on their back, children starving, soldiers raping helpless women, beheading or killing well-meaning men? The worst is that all of this is done in the name of religion. Did anybody choose to born a Muslim, a Christian or a Jew? Or belonging to any of the many other denominations? How many Gods are there? I always thought there was but ONE, and he is a loving God, not one who spews hate and fire at one particular group that tries to kill another group. Who’s side is HE one when soldiers in war pray for victory? I’m reminded of a little story:

A zebra goes to see God. He asks ‘Lord, am I white with black stripes or am I black with white stripes?’

God looks at the zebra and says: ‘That depends entirely on how you see yourself.’

I like to see it not just depending on color but ‘how we see ourselves.’ Has HE given humanity ‘free choice’? A choice to do what is right? HE doesn’t get involved in humanity’s foolishness. Someone on Facebook asked ‘How can God let this happen?’ and another answered that HE may have turned his back on us because we don’t allow HIS name in schools, and we try to banish him from our lives. It’s troublesome to think about all this. And, maybe it is better not even to write about it. I stepped into a wasp’s nest once when I wrote an article for a newspaper questioning different parts of the bible and mentioned Emmanuel Kant’s Philosophy. It was also a New Year’s write-up, and boy, did I touch many nerves! The Newspaper had a hay-day with all the pro- and contra letters for weeks!

What do I look back to, personally? Problems with my health, physical problems that affected me mentally. I got depressed but tried hard to pretend all was alright. I had a terrible time getting to work on my sequel to my memoir “We Don’t Talk About That.” In that book, I was honest and told how it was, and I couldn’t find a way to tell what happened to me and my life after those first thirty years. I thought of all the things I still had to do, wanted to do and never got around to do. I went through all my files, sorted, destroyed and found papers I didn’t want to go into the wastebasket after I’m gone. I found poems I had written over many years, mostly funny ones, many with double meanings, my goodness, actually a history of human life during the years starting around 1960! Reading these gave me hope and smiles back, and a will to do something with them. My little book “Ein Mensch von Gestern – Heute” was born. It’s in my first language, German, but there are still a lot of people who do speak it. The title means “A Human from Yesterday – Today.” The story of how we people from yesterday cope with life as it has changed since yesteryear. Hahaha, and now we are back to today, the last day of 2017.

Did I have moments when I thought of stopping the time from flying? Yes, there were some. But how do you stop time? With a stopwatch? Heh, buddy, it doesn’t work that way.  Every breath you take is part of a second that moves time forward. Did you ever read Goethe’s ‘Faust’? The first two lines inspired me this morning to write about it. Here is part of Dr. Faustus’ conversation with Mephisto about time:

“If to the moment, I shall ever say
‘Oh, linger on, thou art so fair!’
Then may you fetters on me lay.
Then I will perish, then and there!
Then may the death-bell toll recalling,
Then from your service you are free;
The clock may stop, the pointer falling,
And time itself be past for me!”

The answer of the devil, Mephisto, was a warning. Faustus should not be hasty with his wish, but if so, he wanted it in writing, signed with blood. Maybe here we find a base for what we often say nowadays: ‘Be careful what you wish for, you may get it!’

       Happy New Year to all of you! I love you, my readers! I love people!
A big hug for all!

Grand Book Promotion

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“Smashwords” – the largest distributor of e-books worldwide – is offering an annual huge promotion for the whole month of July. Thousands of e-books are deeply discounted at 25%/50%/75% to ‘FREE’. My books are available at 50% off – a terrific deal if you are still waiting to read about my incredibly interesting life in my memoir “We Don’t Talk About That” and the companion book “Forget Me Not”.

   NOW is the time to take a look at my books again. I have published the Second Edition of my memoir “We Don’t Talk About That” on Smashwords as an e-book. I have made slight changes within but especially with the ending, since so many of you were unhappy with the way I left it. After all the time I spent on it, I can now go back and continue writing the sequel. Actually, there will be two more books in my memoir series: This one, book I, “We Don’t Talk About That” covers my first thirty years in Germany; the second book will deal with the next thirty years in Canada, and then we’ll have to take a good look at my incredibly active ‘retirement years’ – I am not sure yet if I quite make it another thirty years! Close though…

You may even find a little ‘surprise’ when you peruse my titles! Should I tell you about it? Okay, why not! I have added a pretty little poetry book in German language. “Ein Mensch von Gestern … Heute”. A happy book! It was a reprise for me after the heavy duty topics I dealt with and it made me laugh, every time I re-read and edited it. Many of my older relatives and friends, who cannot read my English books, have been complaining. They have tried repeatedly to convince me to translate my books. That will not happen – friends, it is not a matter of translation, it will be a total re-writing. I don’t have enough years left in my life to tackle it. Therefore, this little book may be a “candy” – and I promise that many of the poems deal and tell a lot of my life! For those of you who have German friends or relatives, you couldn’t send them a better gift! However, I find a poetry book is something you have to hold in your hand, it does not read the same when it’s an e-book, so – I have another surprise:

Here is a link to my books on Amazon: Within the next three to five business days you will be able to order a printed version of “Ein Mensch von Gestern … Heute” – the Author listed is Gisela Fiting-Roeder. Since I was well known under my maiden name in Germany I decided I ought to use it. Naturally, Amazon also enrolled the book in their KDP (e-book). By the way, if you purchase the paperback copy you can obtain the e-book for free.

And now, my dear friends, happy reading!