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Links I’ve stumbled across this week

Bookish News

Dovegreyreader has an interview with Sarah Waters. I have renewed enthusiasm for The Little Stranger after reading it.

Amazon are hoping to launch the kindle in the UK in time for Christmas.

How telling the story behind an object’s history can increase it’s sale price on ebay.

Stephenie Meyer was worth more than £12m to the UK book trade in the first half of 2009

Margaret Atwood is embracing new technology to avoid travelling long distances for a book tour. She has invented a new pen which means she can sign books remotely.

A Few Books Which Have Caught My Eye


Sandy discovered another great audio book, The Wordy Shipmates. Unfortunately the audio version isn’t available in the UK, so I’ll have to wait until I decide which audio download company to join. Has anyone found a great audio download company they can recommend?.

 

 

Diane described The Magicians as being an adult version of Narnia. I think I’ll have to find a copy of it soon.

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An Award

Finally I’ve just received this award from Beth Fish Reads

The Humane Award is to honor bloggers who are kindhearted individuals. They regularly take part in my blog and always leave the sweetest comments. If it weren’t for them, my site would just be an ordinary book review blog.

I agree that having great comments improves a blog so much. Beth Fish Reads always leaves such thoughtful comments, not just on my blog, but almost every one I look at. Thank you so much!

22 replies on “Links I’ve stumbled across this week”

Woo hoo! So the big question is, are you going to get the Kindle when it is launched?????

I squealed out loud when I saw the link to the Sarah Waters interview. I just finished The Little Stranger on audio a few days ago, and was smitten. What an incredible story-teller! What an amazing story. My brain was going a hundred miles an hour when I finished. I must read more of Ms. Waters. Any suggestions towards my next one?

No – I don’t think I’ll get a kindle for a while. I’m still not convinced it is worth it. Perhaps I’ll change my mind when I see one though!

Fingersmith is one of my all time favourites, but I have to admit I haven’t read any of the others. I am saving them up for when I need a good read! I enjoy the anticipation! From what I’ve heard Little Stranger is the weakest, so I’m sure you’ll love them all!

Argh — so now I have to add Waters to my list? I swear I am falling so far behind in my reading. How will I ever, ever catch up?

Good news on the Kindle — I wonder if the same Kindle can be used on both sides of the pond.

YES! Fingersmith is one of the best books in the world! I don’t think we can ever catch up the TBR pile will always be too large to manage!

I have no idea about the kindle. I’m sure you’ll be able to download books from computers in both continents, but I don’t know how they’d make the Internet bit work.

Great, the links are back this week! 😀

Just picked up The Little Stranger this weekend, so the interview was particularly nice.

Also, think you’ve got the wrong linky to the Atwood-technology-travel article. It seems to point to the article on Ebay.

The Sarah Waters interview really made me re-think the book too and in hindsight this book is growing more and more on me.

The Magicians looks fantastic, am going to have to get my mitts on a copy!

I agree – The Little Stranger is growing on me. I guess that is the sign of a really good book. The only time it has happened before is with Beloved. That is an amazing book too – in hindsight!

Re: audio downloads. I used Audible for a while. Is that in the UK? I used it for a year’s worth of books (12), and it was okay. The files are in proprietary format and the audible player was annoying, fyi. (I actually converted the books to generic mp3 so I could listen to them easier; I deleted the files when I was done.) I don’t pay for audiobooks anymore; I have a great library system now with lots of options for audio and I can’t justify paying to listen to a book once, even when I convert it to a convenient format.

Sorry if that doesn’t help you at all…

Yes, audible is in the UK, but I don’t think it matters – if you are downloading I assume you can use any in the world. Maybe not?

It is interesting that you found the format annoying – it is that sort of information which is really useful.

Unfortunately my library system isn’t very good – especially for audio books. I have a growing list of books which just aren’t available on it. I’m working my way through the ones they do have at the moment, but at some point I’m going to have to join one to get those hard to find titles.

I ask if it was in the UK because apparently that matters when people talk about Amazon, which I wouldn’t think would matter. I just don’t know when it matters and when it doesn’t!

What I didn’t like about the player was that was it was proprietary: I’m just picky. I like the freedom to use a player I like! I can’t remember if it let me add book marks or not, which I find very useful with audiobook on my handheld. I think it did.

You could also try Librivox.org. They have audiobooks for works in the public domain. All the books I’ve listened to through that site have been excellent, but keep in mind it is all volunteers doing it! And I know you tend to read newer stuff; Libirvox is all stuff published pre-1920.

Sorry your comment ended up in my spam.

I can normally find the classics in my library – it is just the newer books I can’t get hold of. I’ll have to do a bit more research before deciding where to download books from. Thanks for the advice.

Really?! I only heard about it this week!

I did have it linked to another site, but the link wasn’t working so I searched for another web page. I’ve only just noticed that it was published in 2006! Thanks for pointing it out. Sorry I’m behind the times!

It’s one of those things that sticks in my memory, as I recall all the fuss when she launched it at the London Book Fair (I think?) back in 86. I remember thinking it was the most ridiculous idea I’d ever heard of, because surely the whole point of getting an author to sign a book is for them to do it in front of you, so that you can “meet” them and at least say hello.

That’s what I thought. It must have some implication for the price of books with her signature too. I wonder if there is a way of telling her real signature from the long pen one?

She was in the news this week for something to do with the long pen, but I pasted the link wrong and now can’t find it. Hence the old link – sorry!

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