Two-for-one e-book and paperback offer for Christmas

 

As a special Christmas offer, if you purchase the paperback book Battle for the Soul of Canada for your family or friends, you will receive a complimentary ebook version as well. The special Christmas 2012 price, including handling and shipping, is $9.99 in Canada. ($11.99 in the USA)*

The ebook will be emailed to you (normally the same day as your PayPal order) in three versions: epub which works with KOBO, pdf, and MOBI (which works with Kindle). To obtain this special Christmas offer, it can be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net  . The other option is to mail a cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC Canada V7N 2J7. If you choose to pay by cheque, please notify right away by e-mail ed_hird@telus.net so that the paperback can be promptly mailed to you.

Online Payment, Merchant Account – PayPal

www.paypal.com

PayPal is the safer, easier way to pay online without revealing your credit card number.

*Overseas shipping costs are variable, making the total price somewhat different

Two-for-one e-book deal for Christmas

As a special pre-Christmas offer, if you purchase the eBook Battle for the Soul of Canada for yourself ($6.99 Christmas discount), you will receive a second complimentary copy as a Christmas present for your family or friends. 

 

The ebook will be emailed to you (normally the same day as your PayPal order) in three versions: epub which works with KOBO, pdf, and MOBI (which works with Kindle). To obtain the ebook, this can be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net  . The other option is to mail a cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC Canada V7N 2J7.

 

Online Payment, Merchant Account – PayPal

www.paypal.com

PayPal is the safer, easier way to pay online without revealing your credit card number.

 

 

The Birth of the Book

By Rev Ed Hird

 

 

I love libraries. In our family, we have four favorite places for ‘down-time’ and restoration: beaches, parks, gyms, and libraries.  I see lifting weights and lifting up books as equally stimulating and healthy. One exercises the body; the other one the mind.

 

My parents love books. My father reads so extensively that he exhausts virtually every library he joins, and has to move on to another neighbouring library just to find new options.  Scholars have discovered that the best way to motivate one’s children to learn is by example. If your children never see you reading, it has a profound impact on their likelihood to pick up a book themselves.  There is no better way for your children to expand their minds than to turn off their video games, iPods, or TV, and actually crack open a thought-provoking book or e-book.

 

The latest library book that has fascinated me is Dr Andrew Pettegree’s “The Book in the Renaissance”.  Dr Pettegree is the Head of the School of History at the University of St. Andrew’s in Scotland, and founding director of the St. Andrew’s Reformation Studies Institute. I have learned so much from reading this amazing book. I was shocked to discover that before the sixteenth century in Europe, educators did not teach history in school. One of my growing passions is history, which is why I included so much Canadian history in my last book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada.’  Dr Pettegree comments that “the teaching of history was in many respects the most original curricular innovation of the Renaissance period. History was not taught in the classrooms in classical times…”

 

I was also surprised to discover that in England, there was no formal provision for teaching writing in the grammar schools.  Few classrooms even had desks.  If one wanted to learn how to write, it had to be done during school vacations, perhaps employing a private writing master. 

 

The existence of books can be traced back to before the 7th century BC.  Some of the earliest books in Mesopotamia were made of clay tablets. Others were made of silk, bone, bronze, pottery, shell, dried palm leaves, or wood.  The Greek word for ‘book’ biblos originally meant “fibre inside of a tree”. The Chinese character for book is an image of a bamboo tablet.

 

The ancient Egyptians developed a very sophisticated form of book-making, using papyrus made of stretched-out reeds, pasted together in scrolls, sometimes up to forty feet. Beginning in the 3rd century BC, parchment made out of animal skins gradually replaced papyrus as the dominant form of book-making. Parchment was both very durable and very expensive. Until the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in the fifteenth century, virtually all books were handwritten manuscripts, often painstakingly transcribed in monasteries. 

 

We are all very aware of how the internet and social media has revolutionized our 21st century.  Gutenberg’s printing press was just as revolutionary.  Before Gutenberg, books were only for the wealthy elite.  After Gutenberg, books democratized Europe by making new ideas available for ordinary people. His revolution did not just birth printed books, but gave rise to newspapers, further educating ordinary people and infusing their minds with dreams of freedom and equality. 

 

The first book that Gutenberg printed was the Bible.  The ready accessibility of the Bible in one’s own language was a radical innovation that many bureaucrats resisted with a passion.  Bibles were burnt openly in every part of Europe.  Tyrants knew that if ordinary people were given a chance to read the Bible for themselves, liberty would break out everywhere.  As the Great Physician put it, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. 

 

I was fortunate to be number seven of the eight people to receive an IPhone 4 at a local phone store. My only problem was that I didn’t know how to make it work. So I went back to the phone store, asking about the user guide. None of the three employees had ever seen or read the user guide. All had IPhone 4s. “How did you learn to use it?” I asked. One of the young employees said to me “I just pressed buttons until something happened.”  Eventually I found the user guide, and actually read it. What an amazing difference it made.  As my math teacher said in Grade 10, “When all else fails, read the instructions”. We live in an amazing age when most of us are able to read, yet we still often fail to make the most of this gift. 

 

Gutenberg gave us the gift of printed Bibles available for all to read. Isn’t it about time that we take a look once again at God’s user manual?

 

Rev Ed Hird, Rector

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

http://stsimonschurch.ca

- published in the Nov 2010 Deep Cove Crier

-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada 

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

Over 150 receive a free copy of the new ebook Battle for the Soul of Canada

During the last days of August, 155 people downloaded a free copy of the new e-book Battle for the Soul of Canada.

Your comments welcome

If you downloaded the e-book, you are invited to send your comments to ed_hird@telus.net with permission to post them on the Battle for the Soul of Canada webblog.

Still available

This e-book is in pdf form. It is also available for purchase ($9CND/USD) through E-bay in e-pub form.  To read an e-pub or pdf e-book, you can download a free Adobe Digital Editions reader.

p.s. If you already have a paperback version of Battle for the Soul of Canada, you qualify for the special $4.99 discount price for the Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book. Just contact me directly at ed_hird@telus.net for this option.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada 

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide