Not too long ago, I got an email from Amazon: We’re pleased to announce that the Amazon Associates program is again open to residents of the State of Illinois. We’re now able to re-open the program because the Illinois State Supreme Court recently struck down legislation that had forced Amazon to close the program to residents of Illinois. Amazon strongly supports federal legislation like the Marketplace Fairness Act that’s now pending before Congress, which is the only constitutional way to resolve interstate sales tax collection issues. Well, now. It seems like I have to re-apply if this email is to…
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This year’s science fiction books are going to rock. John Scalzi returns to the Old Man’s War universe, there’s a brand new Neil Gaiman novel, and Stephen King’s long-awaited sequel to The Shining. Plus brand new books from Austin Grossman, Nalo Hopkinson, Christopher Priest, Diana Gabaldon, Robert J. Sawyer, Joe Hill… and J.R.R. Tolkien? via All the Essential Science Fiction and Fantasy Books That Are Coming in 2013 So here’s a list of things for me to think about reading this year instead!
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How many of these books have you read? How many would you like to read? I’ve read a small fraction of the books on this list, but a whole lot more authors and books are missing in action. Admittedly, this list is pretty heavy on British authors. Selected by the Guardian’s Review team and a panel of expert judges, this list includes only novels – no memoirs, no short stories, no long poems – from any decade and in any language. Originally published in thematic supplements – love, crime, comedy, family and self, state of the nation, science fiction and…
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Sometime next year I’ll get around to blogging about our wonderful recent vacation to the Olympic Peninsula and Seattle – one of the most fun things was dropping in on my friend Seattle Tammy at her store, Books on 7th, in Hoquiam Washington. You can even BUY BOOKS FROM THEIR ONLINE STORE, and I happen to know they just got in a big consignment of old cookery books… Turns out Hoquiam is now famous after a recent incident with a deceased member of the Family Mustelidae put them on the international news wires, and LOLmarten images went viral. “We’re not…
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The iPad has been tempting me to try buying eBooks to eRead in my copious sPare time. Last night I happened to catch an episode of the Canadian culture and current events show Q that included a very positive review of The Imperfectionists: A Novel by Tom Rachman. As a former English major, I’ve avoided reading serious novels for decades; I’ve read a couple of books in recent years that featured that cutesy scribbled-script kind of font with whimsical names like “The Lost Weekend of Cooking In Provence” or “The Lumpy Girl’s Guide To Off-Putting Personal Hygiene” and that was…
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Dan Brown’s scat-illogical* books are at the top of the Oxfam list of books most likely to be donated to the charity, which runs a chain of 686 second-hand bookshops. But the Top Gear presenter my husband David and I most love to hate is the first non-fiction author to make the Oxfam list of “most donated” books. The rants of Jeremy Clarkson, meanwhile, have made the Top Gear presenter the first non-fiction writer to enter the charity’s top 10 of authors most likely to be donated to its 686 shops: either his readers are notably generous, or unwilling to…
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Soulless, by Gail Carriger, is a fun vampire/werewolf/steampunk romp. Well done, Miss Carriger; might we have some more treacle tart?
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The Man with the Golden Torc (Secret Histories, Book 1), by Simon Green I’m about midway through this book, and although I’m enjoying it, it’s an exhausting read. I got on to it because of a review I ran across on NPR.org recently, which compared it favorably to the The Dresden Files) books by Jim Butcher. Both series feature male protagonists who walk between the mundane and magic worlds, but Green’s anti-ish hero, Eddie Drood, is British, somewhat of a Bond fan, and fully human and not really a magic user, although he has magic golden armor. Butcher’s guy, Harry…
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I’d like a mystery heroine to be less of a Mary Sue and more like Harriet Vane. Not like the protagonists in the first two “Aunt Dimity” novels. #fb Amazon.com: Aunt Dimity’s Death (Aunt Dimity Mystery) (9780140178401): Nancy Atherton: Books From Publishers Weekly Despite its buoyant tone, this blend of fairy tale, ghost story, romance and mystery proves a disappointment. First novelist Atherton creates a potentially appealing heroine in bewitched and bewildered Lori Shepherd, but never places her in danger, thus sacrificing suspense. Recently divorced and newly bereaved by her beloved mother’s death, Lori is scraping by as an office…
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San Clemente Church in Rome must be the real-life model of the church from Ngaio Marsh’s mystery novel, “When In Rome.” Although it’s one of her later books, and not the best of them all, it’s got its points, and the mystery takes place in the Mithraic temple 2 levels below the church. Underground Fun: European Edition – Boing Boing What makes San Clemente special is what lies beneath. Take the stairs down from the 12th century church, and you’ll find yourself in a previous incarnation of the Basilica that dates to the 4th century. The light is bad down…