Aro Books worldwide: October 2011

Friday, 28 October 2011

An evening with an odd boy - Bristol - 4th November 2011

An evening with an odd boy

enjoy an evening of wine, readings and book signing with Doc Togden

Friday 4th November at 7pm

Aro Ling, 127 Gloucester Road, Bristol, BS7 8AX

an odd boy is a memoire of an eccentric aficionado of Bach and Blues, poetry and painting. This is a portrait of the artist as a lad, set in the experimental cultural ferment of the late 1960s... A depiction of an era when the Arts set a generation on fire.

"I wish to inspire people to think of themselves as artists – even though they may never paint, write, or engage in any obvious way. Being an artist simply requires a compassionate state of mind that is open to a joyous appreciation of the sense fields."
— Doc Togden

Volume 1 of an odd boy by Doc Togden is published by Aro Books worldwide and is available from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and lulu.com - and your local bookseller.

Excerpts can be read on Doc Togden's Facebook fanpage and at anoddboy.com

Sunday, 9 October 2011

Either Doc Togden is normal, or I'm odd too. Kris Gray reviews 'an odd boy'

Either Doc Togden is normal, or I'm odd too, as there are so many similarities here with my early life we could be brothers. We both had fathers who fought against our chosen musical careers and the length of our hair. I like biographies and this one of Doc's early life with his introduction to blues music at the tender age of 7 is like no other I have read before. I couldn't put it down, although often forced to by the late hour. He illustrates his points with quotes from many a blues song, film, poem or book to the extent that I have never seen before. This book should be a benchmark for all future music biographies, I'll even have to go back and re-write some of mine!

Any musician who grew up in the 50's and 60's, when the boundaries of music were being pushed further than they ever will again, will empathise with Doc and his struggles with family, friends and school to fulfil his ambition to be a blues musician. I urge all of those musicians to read this book; it will bring a tear to your eyes of both sadness and joy. I can't recommend it enough. Anybody who thinks The Beatles `Revolver' album was the best one they made certainly knows his stuff!

— Kris Gray

Kris Gray is a Blues musician, record produce, music agent, manage and author. http://krisgray.co.uk/

Friday, 7 October 2011

Doc Togden interviewed by Cathy Stucker about 'an odd boy'

Cathy Stucker's Selling Books site features an interview with Doc Togden on the subject of an odd boy.

"I wish to inspire people to think of themselves as artists – even though they may never paint, write, or engage in any obvious way. Being an artist simply requires a compassionate state of mind that is open to a joyous appreciation of the sense fields." -- Doc Togden

Read the full interview here : http://www.sellingbooks.com/doc-togden-an-odd-boy/

Volume 1 of an odd boy by Doc Togden is published by Aro Books worldwide

Excerpts can be read on Doc Togden's Facebook fanpage and at anoddboy.com

The book is available on amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and lulu.com

Thursday, 6 October 2011

Backups sponsored by SpiderOak

A computer can let you down at any moment, and when it does the result can be disastrous - total loss of data. So we need backups.

With this in mind we've been backing up the server that hosts the Aro websites. Every day, a backup is taken of every website. The only problem with this arrangement is that the backup files sit on the server. So in the event of total disaster, everything is still lost.

With this in mind we have been copying the backups to a safe place every month. This is a piece of work that we could happily stop doing, if there was a way of automating it.

So in September we installed Spideroak on our server.

SpiderOak watches for any changes in the files and ships off any new or changed files to the SpiderOak servers. Because of this our daily backups are now copied to SpiderOak servers, so in the event of the loss of our servers we can recover all the sites. And all of this happens without us having to remember.

SpiderOak encrypts all the data, so it always remains private. It also deduplicates so that if the same file is backed up more than once it only takes up the same space as one copy.

The good people of SpiderOak have been most generous and sponsored us with 30Gb of space. This should keep our sites safe for some time to come.

If you want to know more about SpiderOak, please see their website (https://spideroak.com/). If you decide to sign up with them, please use our referral link -
https://spideroak.com/download/referral/90789c3635304ca63da83dec0b67dcfb - you will get 3Gb of space, free, and we get another 1Gb added to our space.

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

Relaxing into Meditation - Om Yoga and Lifestyle Magazine

From the What we're reading page of Om Yoga & Lifestyle Magazine, October 2011

"What exercises and practices will help us to live a life free of stress? Ngakma Nor’dzin, a Western Buddhist Lama, guides us through relaxation and breathing exercises that lead into meditation. The methods are described in friendly and accessible language, and will enhance the lives of those who practise them."

http://www.ommagazine.com/

Relaxing into Meditation Aro Books worldwide ISBN 978-1-898185-17-8 http://bit.ly/nrprim

Available from Lulu.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Wisdom Books, and other bookshops worldwide