Teaser Tuesdays #12 - Georgette Heyer

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should be Reading.

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Today, I am just beginning a detective novel by Georgette Heyer.

"He got out of the car and strode towards the girl. Now that he was close to her he saw that she was good-looking, a fact that did not interest him, and exceedingly nervous, a fact that aroused all his suspicions."

I'm still not sure how good this book will be, even though I am a huge fan of her genre romances.

Which is why I am keen on listening to what you all have to say, hopefully I get some new book suggestions. I need something exciting to read!

Free Ebooks Download - Do you want some?

My last post on Ebooks for Beginners covered the reasons to read an ebook. My next post highlighted Baen publishing, one great resource to discover ebooks.
Today, I'd like to give you three free ebooks to read. Click any one of the below books for a free download.

1) Scott Adams
Click Below to Download the PDF:
God's Debris or from another source here
The Creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams, has this to say about his book -  "It's a religion/science book written by a cartoonist, using hypnosis techniques in the writing. It's a thought experiment. It's unlike anything you've ever read."

2) Paul Carr
Click Below to Download the PDF:
Bringing Nothing To The Party - True Confessions Of A New Media Whore
A TechCrunch writer, (http://www.paulcarr.com/columns/techcrunch) his ebook is free for download by the CCL. His website is http://www.paulcarr.com/
Quick Review - Paul has a quirky, self-deprecating style of humour that permeates this book. I hesitate to call this an autobiography as the book also gives you a timeline of how publishing and journalism has evolved. A good read.

3) Seth Godin
Click Below to download the PDF:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/files/what-matters-now-2.pdf
The EBook has over 70 ideas from 70 important thinkers - Tim O' Reilly, Ariana Huffington to name two. Seth's blog post on the free ebook, including the new updated Part 2 is here

All these PDFs are DRM free, and available for free download.
Finally, a shoutout to Cory Doctorow, the pioneer of Free.
Do follow me if you liked this post, I have several more planned along these lines!

Minimalistic Book Covers - Photoblog

Authored by Dave Cullen, Michael Skerker, Eric Wilson and R. L. Stevenson.

And authored by Judy Budnite, Charles W, Particia Morrisroe respectively.

Wouldn't you just jump up and buy those books? I would! 

The last Hop on Friday asked about covers, and since then my eyes have been increasingly noticing cover art.

If you want to see more (about 40+) of these minimalistic designs, head to The Inspiration Blog. If you have any that you want to call out, add the links below!

Book Blogger Hop #3

This is a weekly event hosted by Jen at Crazy For Books. It's a chance to discover new blogs and to garner new readers for your blog as well. 

This Week's Question ...
Post a link to a favorite post or book review that you have written in the past three months.

My favorite review is The Walker Papers 4, an urban fantasy novel by  C.E. Murphy, or the one for Ilona Andrew's Magic Bites

My favourite (spelled for the UK and Aussie readers) post in general has to be one the reading difference between the Kindle, the iPad and paper books.

I'm following everyone back, so do let me know if you liked my site by following me and then leaving a comment.

Baen Publishing - a home for ebooks and new authors

The Baen Free Library is the brainchild of Jim Baen, the publisher and editor of Baen Publishing. It was started about a decade ago, late 1999, and they were (to my mind) the pioneers of the ebook and online publishing worlds. Dedicated to sci-fiction and fantasy, these guys revolutionized the nascent, piracy-fearing ebook industry.

Not only did they create a convival atmosphere for authors to chat, meet online, share stories, they also brought a whole new audience to these great authors. Where else could you have gotten a free book from a new author? Now, of course, amazon offers this as an incentive  - giving the first book in a series away for free. Now you know where it began!

Baen also has an internet publishing venture at http://baens-universe.com/, which just recently called it quits. They still have a huge collection of short stories and articles.

Authors I discovered, and later bought books from, via this free-book strategy from www.baen.com are:

• Mercedes Lackey
• David Weber
• Lois McMaster Bujold

It is funny how even Sharon Lee is one of the authors in Jim's fold, but I only discovered her Liaden books recently, thanks to her giveaway. There are still authors in that list that I am sure I will read, eventually. Sadly, the site doesn't seem to be super active, since Jim Baen's passing. Eric Flint does a stand-up job of his role as First Librarian, as always.

Most authors have a number of books available for easy download here, in html, epub, .lit and many other formats. You can browse The Baen Free Library by author, books or even by Series.

This is your chance to discover new scifi/fantasy authors!

Some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baen_Books

http://baens-universe.com/

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Teaser Tuesday #11 - Lord Sunday by Garth Nix

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should be Reading.

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Garth Nix is one of my favorite Young Adult writers, mainly cause his books are universal. I could recommend them to any of my friends, or the occasional reader, age no bar.

"A boy – a Piper’s child – stepped through the gap and, without a word of warning, lunged at Arthur with a six-foot- long, three-tined gardening fork, each of the tines red-hot, the air around them blurred from the intense heat they radiated."

Today's Teaser is taken from the end of Chapter 3, the page I am on. The book is Lord Sunday, book 7 in the Keys of the Kingdom.

If you haven't read Garth Nix, a great place to start is with The Old Kingdom series; beginning with Abhorsen. Highly unique.

Amazon link is below:

Starting with EBooks - for beginners and explorers

Have you ever tried reading an ebook?
Most readers would have read one or two non paper-based books, at least.Usually, this is the point that you decide that you do or do not like reading this way.
Perhaps those books weren't the right ones to read in the ebook format, perhaps the device being used was a laptop. Perhaps it just wasn't a good day!
Give ebooks another chance...Technology has improved so much - lighter, faster, better.
 
FIVE Quick Advantages of an Ebook -
1) Super convenient - simply load an entire series
2) Font size is easy to change and Contrast is better than on paper
3) Easy to scroll down or turn pages (even with just one hand)
4) Look up dictionary immediately and on the fly
- I love this, it allows me to get a deeper understanding of words I might have just read contextually before.
5) Make notes as you read
- If you want to make a quick note to yourself, or put a bookmark into a favorite scene, e-readers will give you this freedom
Finally, it saves trees and the rainforest! Now, what are you waiting for?

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Book Blogger Hop #2 - And August Roundup

 Hi! Thanks for stopping over from the Friday Hop - Today also happens to be the day that I do my monthly round-up (which follows the Hop question), so do scroll away.

The book blogger hop is hosted by http://www.crazy-for-books.com, and the idea is for the event to last over the weekend to give everyone a chance to visit the other bloggers.

Do you judge a book by its cover?

Ans: Yeah! I don't usually get to see covers, what with my Kindle and e-book reading habits. However, if I'm in my store or at the library, I will totally judge what I pick up based on the cover and the spine.Also, when I'm itching for a new not-yet-released book, I will go gaze at the cover at Amazon.
In the spirit of this question, my post below, from earlier today, is on the Cover of Blameless, the new just-released book by Gail Carriger.

Grand August Round-Up

Wins: 
Teaser Tuesday - Maker's Song got the most number of views

Followed by Friday Blogger Hop #1
and New Blogger Header - What do you think?


Highest read post (aside from those above) -
Walk inside Bookshelf - Designed for a Museum 
The biggest win to my mind has to be the New Name (Thanks to the winner!) and my new header design.
I could use some suggestions on how to measure views - I'm an analytical person, and I use Google Analytics to track my site here, and Blogger Stats. I also have a matching Posterous site, which has a lot higher reads per post than here ('cause it links to Twitter, Faebook) - http://readseverything.posterous.com/
According to Posterous, My post on a new ebook reader entrant to India got 480 views!! The numbers below are purely from Google Analytics.

Upto 591 visits in Aug (up from 418 visits last month!)

 Whoo! 1355 pageviews. Blogger says I have 908! Posterous is even higher..which one is right? Any help on this?

Reviews/Interesting Posts:
Walker Papers #4 - Walking Dead by C.E. Murphy 
New eBook Reader 'Wink' to Enter India
Graphic meme comparing Tablets

Making of: Blameless Cover

This isn't the first time I've seen this, but my anticipation for the Third Alexa Tarraboti Novel is so high, that I can't stop looking for whatever is even remotely related to the book.

In this video, the funniest moment is the "Oops the Eiffel tower wasn't built yet" edit :)

Even if you aren't a fan of the series, just watching the book's cover come to life is pretty amazing! Who knew the amount of editing that went into this thing?

The end result -

 

 

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Review - Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart

Grade: A

Excerpt:  Taken from a page when the author is describing the importance of the drummer while two swordsman compete in Sword Dancing:

It is said that a truly great drummer is the equivalent of a third sword. Sample gymnasium conversation:
"I hear that Fan Yun has challenged you.Who's your drummer?"
"Blind Meng."
"Blind Meng! Great Buddha, I must sell my wife and wager the proceeds! Orderly, be so kind as to order flowers for Fan Yun's widow."

 This is really a standout book for the year.  A debut novel that sets its story in Ancient China, 13 and a half centuries ago? Clearly, this is fiction that is so strange to our world today that it becomes fantasy. Add in a pinch of heroic adventure, a soupcon of religion and mystical beliefs, ghosts and myths, hilariously funny lines and you will see why I loved this book.

I'm not going to make this a full-length review with the usual plus, minus etc - This is a book that I recommend for most readers, as it is genre-defying.

I would add that of the three books featuring Master Li and Number Ten Ox, the heroes of this book, are not up to the high standards of the first book.

You might remember that I took one teaser from this book a while ago -

Teaser Tuesday