Pronunciation guide to some difficult authors' names   Robert Crais (rhymes with "grace")  Michael Chabon (SHAY-bon)   John Donne (dun)   Erica Jong (zhong)   Carl Jung (yoong, with the vowel as in "book")   Jodi Picoult (pee KO)   J. K. Rowling (like "rolling") Find more names at http://www.pegasusbookexchange.com/2009/11/pronunciation-guide-to-some-difficult.html

June 24, 2015  If you’ve been drinking Beck’s beer thinking that you were consuming an authentic German pilsner, Law Blog suggests that you might want to sit down for this:  Beck’s is produced in St. Louis, brewed with water from Missouri.  The good news is that you may qualify for a refund—up to $50 if you or your family downed hundreds of Beck’s bottles since 2011 and had the foresight to save the receipts.  The compensation is thanks to a class-action settlement of a lawsuit claiming that Beck’s maker Anheuser-Busch InBev tricked consumers into thinking Beck’s was a German beer.  The agreement struck by plaintiffs and the world’s largest brewer received a preliminary approval this week from a federal magistrate judge in Miami.  A final approval hearing is expected to take place in the fall.  On top of the refunds, it awards up to $3.5 million in attorneys’ fees and costs split among Florida firm Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, LLP and three other law firms representing the plaintiffs.  Beck’s used to be brewed in Germany, owned by local German families until 2002 when it was sold to Belgium’s Interbrew, which then merged with Brazil’s AmBev, to become InBev, which in turn acquired Anheuser-Busch. Production of Beck’s moved to St. Louis in 2012, according to the lawsuit.  The lawsuit claimed that phrases featured in Beck’s packaging, such as “German Quality” beer and “Originated in Bremen, Germany,” gave consumers the wrong impression about where the beer is made in violation of state consumer protection laws.  “Beck’s consumers in the United States knew that the only way to get German beer of such high quality, as boasted about on Beck’s packaging, was to import the beer from Germany,” the lawsuit said.  Settlement class members include consumers who purchased Beck’s beer, including Beck’s Dark and Beck’s Light, since May 2011.  Once it’s finalized, they’ll be able to fill out an online form to claim a refund. Beck’s drinkers can get 10 cents back for every individual bottle purchased; 50 cents for a six-pack or $1.75 per 20-pack.  Refunds, though, are capped at $50 for claims backed by a valid proof of purchase.  Consumers who didn’t keep receipts are entitled to no more than $12.  You can still get a refund even if you Googled Beck’s and knew all along that it’s no longer made in Germany.  Jacob Gershman  http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/06/24/becks-beer-fans-can-get-refunds-in-class-action-settlement/

A Robinsonade is a plot about characters being stranded in the wilderness far away from civilization, and forced to live off the land in order to survive.  Robinsonade takes its name from the 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, which spawned enough imitations that its name was used to define a genre.  The term was coined in 1731 by the German writer Johann Gottfried Schnabel in the Preface of his work Die Insel Felsenburg.  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Robinsonade  See also 34 UNFORGETTABLE ISLAND SETTINGS at http://thewhynot100.blogspot.com/2014/09/34-unforgettable-island-settings.html

Making risotto involves stirring hot chicken stock into uncooked arborio rice (which is a starchy variety of short-grain rice) a ladleful at a time, and cooking slowly so that the stock is absorbed into the rice.  This technique releases the rice's starches, making a creamy, velvety dish.  Danilo Alfaro   Find recipe at http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/ricegrains/r/risotto.htm  Find a recipe for broken spaghetti cooked like risotto at http://www.cearaskitchen.com/vegetarian-broken-spaghetti-risotto/ 

Google Hotel Finder makes it easier to compare and book hotels that are found across the web.  Try it out at google.com/hotels.  Here’s what you can do with Google Hotel Finder:  Find hotels according to what is important to you, such as price, location, amenities, and user ratings. Review accurate and detailed information about those hotels, including photos and amenities.  View location information to help you decide where to stay.  Keep track of your top choices with the Save button.  Connect with hotels and vendors to reserve a room or ask for more information.”  See also Hotel Finder Help.  http://www.bespacific.com/google-hotel-finder/

Songs of a Sourdough is a book of poetry published in 1907 by Robert W. Service.  In the United States, the book was published under the title The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses.  The book is well known for its verse about the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon a decade earlier, particularly the long, humorous ballads, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee."  Songs of a Sourdough has sold more than three million copies.  Service, an employee of the Imperial Bank of Canada, was posted to Whitehorse, Yukon, in 1904.   He "took part in the extremely active Whitehorse social life.  As was popular at the time he recited at concerts – things like "Casey at the Bat" and "Gunga Din", but they were getting stale."  Out on a walk one Saturday night, Service heard the sounds of revelry coming from a saloon, and the phrase "A bunch of the boys were whooping it up" popped into his head.  Inspired, he ran to the bank to write it down (almost being shot as a burglar), and by the next morning "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" was complete.  "A month or so later he heard a gold rush yarn from a Dawson mining man about a fellow who cremated his pal."  He spent the night walking in the woods composing "The Cremation of Sam McGee," and wrote it down from memory the next day.  After having collected enough poems for a book, Service "sent the poems to his father, who had emigrated to Toronto, and asked him to find a printing house so they could make it into a booklet.  He enclosed a cheque to cover the costs and intended to give these booklets away to his friends in Whitehorse" for Christmas.  His father took the manuscript to William Briggs in Toronto, whose employees loved the book.  "The foreman and printers recited the ballads while they worked.  A salesman read the proofs out loud as they came off the typesetting machines."  An "enterprising salesman sold 1700 copies in advance orders from galley proofs."  The publisher "sent Robert's cheque back to him and offered a ten percent royalty contract for the book."  Service's book, Songs of a Sourdough, was "an immediate success."  It went through seven printings even before its official release date. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_a_Sourdough

THE SPELL OF THE YUKON AND OTHER VERSES by Robert W. Service  [British-born Canadian Poet — 1874-1958.]  [This text was also published (in Britain) under the title, "Songs of a Sourdough".]  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/207/207-h/207-h.htm#link2H_4_0007

August 5, 2015  A recent study has found that people who eat spicy food three times a week cut their risk of dying by 14 per cent compared with people who abstained.  The research was undertaken at Harvard University and studied nearly 500,000 Chinese people for over seven years.  Link to spicy recipes at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/11784486/Delicious-spicy-recipes.html

Republican candidates Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie and John Kasich will all appear on the dais August 6, 2016 for the first presidential debate in Cleveland.  That leaves Rick Perry and the six other major declared candidates--Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Jim Gilmore--to appear together during a debate earlier that evening.  Theodore Schliefer   http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/04/politics/fox-debate-cleveland-announcement/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1333  August 5, 2015  On this date in 1620, the Mayflower departed from Southampton, England on its first attempt to reach North America.  On this date in 1935, New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger was acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he had published was true.