Tag: Links

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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!

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What I’ve been up to and a few other links

You might notice that I’ve made a few changes around here. The annoying thing is that most of them are behind the scenes, so as you won’t be able to tell what has taken up so much of my time this weekend. I hope you can notice a slight difference though.

Here is what I’ve done.

  1. Changed my blog theme to one which supports threaded comments and performs better in the search rankings.
  2. Upgraded to Word-press 2.8.
  3. Found and added new plug-ins after I discovered half of my old ones didn’t work with Word-press 2.8!
  4. Added a broad column above the two single ones in my sidebar.
  5. Changed a few of the things I display in my sidebar.

It has taken me ages, but I am really pleased with the results.

The main thing I am really excited to have achieved is that I have now made the front page for people googling ‘book blog’ in the UK.

There are still a few things that aren’t quite as I’d like them, but I think I’ll leave them for another day!

A Few Links

Thanks to Cornflower Books for finding this link to the most Beautiful Libraries in the world

On a similar theme I have just discovered the RobAroundBooks Blog. He has a great bookshelf of the week feature along with lots of other interesting bookish posts. If you’ve never heard of him before, then go and take a look – I think you’ll like what you see! 

A Few Books Which Have Caught My Eye

Violet from VioletCrush recommended My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar. I liked the sound of this one so much I bought a copy!

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Stuck in a Book recommended Parents and Children by Ivy Compton-Burnett. I bought this one too!

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Megan from a little breeze recommended Wanting by Richard Flanagan. I’ll buy this one when it gets a bit cheaper! 

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An Award

Finally I’ve just received this award from Another Cookie Crumbles. Thank you so much! I love your blog too!

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Links I’ve stumbled across this week


 Tim Winton won the Miles Franklin award for a record fourth time with his latest novel Breath. I still haven’t got round to reading any of his books, but I plan to read Cloudstreet very soon.

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The ANONthology project sounds great. They have published a book of short stories by nine different authors, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Joyce Carol Oates and many lesser known writers, but they aren’t letting you know which author wrote which story. The aim is to guess, and there is a prize for one of the people who guesses correctly. I’ll definitely be taking part in this challenge and will be reviewing the short stories over the coming weeks.

I have seen authors comment on a book review before, but never their husband, especially one who isn’t complimentary!

Book, Line and Sinker showed us her beautiful book embosser. If I kept any books once I’d read them then I’d buy one straight away! 

I saw the trailer for Time Traveller’s Wife for the first time this week. I was really worried that they’d ruin one of my favourite books, but the trailer was so good I actually had a tear in my eye watching it!1Q84

 

Haruki Murakami fans snapped up his latest novel 1Q84 after five-year wait, unfortunately we still have to wait for it to be translated into English.

 

I didn’t even realise that the little icon in the address bar was called a favicon until I read Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’s excellent post on how to add them.

Finally, Maw Books told us about the Website Grader site. You just type in your blog’s address and it gives you a report highlighting where you can improve things on your blog, and how your site ranks against all the other ones out there. I love statistics, so could play with it for hours!

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Links I’ve stumbled across this week

Bookish Links

Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. I have never heard of this book, and it doesn’t really appeal to me. Has anyone read it?

Unfortunately this advert was created for April Fools Day, but I’m sure we are in no need for it, as we all have enough old books lying round the house to smell while we’re reading!

I found this interesting post about the seven types of customers in a book store. I think I can hold my hands up to being all of them at some point – including the idiot!! I tend to be a seeker though, by TBR pile is too high for aimless browing at the moment! Which type are you?

Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness wrote a great post on non-readers. I can feel her annoyance oozing through the words!

Awards

I am honoured to have received two awards this week. Carrie from Books and Movies gave me the Literary Blogger Award, and Louise from Lous_Pages gave me the Lemonade Award.

Thank you so much! The awards have brightened my day!

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Links I’ve stumbled across this week

Bookish Links

  • I think this qualifies as the weirdest news story I found this week: Popular Japanese horror writer Koji Suzuki will publish a short horror story on toilet roll.  I can’t imagine anyone is actually going to use it as toilet roll, but I guess it is a good marketing tool!
  • The Man Booker Prize has announced that there have been more entries submitted than ever before.  Entries for this year’s Man Booker Prize  are up from 114 last year to 133 . I found this article about how the books are selected really interesting.
  • I’ve just discovered Readiac. The site aims to showcase only books which people love. They are asking for reviews of your favourite books, so if you’d like to submit your gushing reviews, go and take a look.
  • Book Binge had a really interesting discussion on infidelity in romance. I’d never really thought about it before, but I think this is why I have a problem with a lot of ‘chick lit’ books, and may be why I didn’t love The Post-Birthday World as much as other people did. I think I’ve realised that I have a problem with infidelity, and just don’t empathize as much with characters who have affairs.

New Blog Discoveries

  • I’ve just discovered this new blog in need of a bit of love. I was the first person to comment on it, and so feel I now have a special duty to share my discovery! Verity obviously has very good taste in authors, as she rushed out to buy Little Stranger as soon as it was released, and then read it during her tea breaks! I hope you can welcome her into the blogging world.
  • I have also discovered Paperback Reader, if you like my blog then you’ll love hers, as she has a scarily similar reading taste to mine.

Books I’ve added to the wish list this week

  • I had never heard of Heather Armstrong and her hugely popular blog, but after reading Heather’s review, I’ve added It Sucked and Then I Cried to the wish list.
  • My newly discovered blog, Paperback Reader (see above) managed to add a book to my wish list straight away. Her review of Snow Goose has persuaded me to find a copy soon, and it is only 48 pages long, so should be easy to squeeze into the schedule! 

Amazing Give Away!

I don’t often blog about give aways, as they are very rarely international, and those that are often don’t appeal to me, but this one is special:

Nicole at Linus’s Blanket is hosting the best give away I’ve ever seen. (I’m easily excited by rare international give aways!) She is giving away an ARC copy of Catching Fire by Susanne Collins . This is the book I am most looking forward to reading this year, so I’m keeping everything crossed for a win. Wish me luck!

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Things which have caught my eye this week…..

The winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize was announced yesterday. The winning book is The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas of Australia.

 

 Chair of the judging panel the Hon Justice Nicholas Hasluck commented on the  winning book:

“A controversial and daring novel, The Slap uses the iconic scene of a suburban Australian barbecue to examine identities and personal relationships in a multicultural society. Offering points of view from eight different characters, it taps into universal tensions and dilemmas around family life and child-rearing. This book is sure to challenge readers and provoke debate.

It sounds really interesting, so I actually attempted to buy a copy, but it’s price and rarity put me off. I’ll have to wait until it’s inevitable reprint.

The winner of the best first book was A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif. This was short listed for the Booker prize last year, and has been on my wish-list ever since then – I’m still on the look out for a bargain copy! 

Other books which have caught my eye this week include:

The Rooftops of Tehran as reviewed by Gautami Tripathy. I don’t think I have read many books set in Iran, and this one really stood out for me. It’s gone straight on the wish-list.

Matthew’s continual repetition of his love for The Master and Margarita managed to persuade me to part with my cash, and I now have a copy winging it’s way to me – I hope it lives up to his claims!!

Jo wrote a great review of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. She has really inspired me to read it –  I didn’t realise how short it was! I’ll have to try and get hold of a copy soon.

On a lighter note……

I smiled quite a few times when I found this blog dedicated to finding things that are wrong!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an interview with a stick of butter before!

Has anything special caught your eye this week?

Have you read any of the books I highlighted?