|
Joke's on you, the guy selling a book for penny doesn't work for Amazon, it's actually that bemused college vegetarian helping the bookstore make a few extra dollars by setting up a Marketplace account.
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 03:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 06:40 |
|
|
Finally decided to tackle Proust, and I'm maybe 100 pages into Swann's Way. So this guy is just like the biggest wuss in the world, yeah?
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 17:55
|
|
|
Ornamented Death posted:I'll never understand how, on a very consistent basis, The Book Depository can ship a book across the Atlantic Ocean and have it arrive in near-perfect condition, but Amazon can't ship a book from half a state away (and not even a big state like Texas, just an average-sized state) without it being beat all to hell. Confounding this puzzle is the fact that Amazon owns TBD.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 16:51
|
|
|
So is there like a "Help me remember the title of a book?" thread that I'm not seeing? I was talking with a friend and had a vivid recollection about a book that was about like a middle-school kid whose friends help him get into shape by eating McDonald's salads and then he punches a bully through a screen door, lacerates his arm, and then chases the antagonist through a backyard where two girls are sunbathing topless. My friend swears I dreamt this book and I'm starting to believe her  Edit: Ah-ha! Nevermind, found the thread! Doomsayer fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Dec 18, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2014 03:36
|
|
|
Oh crap, I remember that book too. Couldn't tell you its name if I tried, but I read it in maybe 6th grade.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2014 04:19
|
|
|
regulargonzalez posted:Finally decided to tackle Proust, and I'm maybe 100 pages into Swann's Way. I got about 250 in to Swann's Way myself. Those Russian nesting doll sentences sure are something. I wound up putting it down in favour of other stuff. It wasn't a slog by any means, and I'd like to go back to it someday, but I didn't really feel like I was quite getting out what I was putting in, if that makes sense.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2014 04:32
|
|
|
Chamberk posted:Oh crap, I remember that book too. Couldn't tell you its name if I tried, but I read it in maybe 6th grade. I actually ended up remembering it in the other thread: "The Biggest Klutz in Fifth Grade"
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2014 05:23
|
|
|
Pompous Rhombus posted:I got about 250 in to Swann's Way myself. Those Russian nesting doll sentences sure are something. I do like it, just goddamn this kid is "sensitive". Taking a break to read The Sense of an Ending. About 2/3 done, enjoying it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2014 07:49
|
|
|
I've finally gotten all my ebooks in Calibre, and synced up between computers using Dropbox. Now I'm not sure of the best way to organize ebooks. I want to keep books that I've read out of sight, but still a part of the Calibre library. I've looked at a few tutorials, but I'm not sure the best way to do things. Should I just be tagging books?
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 17:23
|
|
|
Juanito posted:I've finally gotten all my ebooks in Calibre, and synced up between computers using Dropbox. Now I'm not sure of the best way to organize ebooks. I want to keep books that I've read out of sight, but still a part of the Calibre library. I've looked at a few tutorials, but I'm not sure the best way to do things. Should I just be tagging books? I set up a second Calibre library called Books (Read) and use Calibre's "copy to other library and delete" on books that I send to my Kindle. I've used this method for years so there is probably a better way of keeping all your books in one library and just marking some as read, but my method still works for me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 17:30
|
|
|
I just keep everything in one library and tag books with "unread" when I import them. A search for "tag:unread" (or opening Category: unread on my e-reader) shows me only books I haven't read yet.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 18:32
|
|
|
Hey so like 10 years ago I read a book wherein there was a black woman who it turned out was the last black woman on earth because the Nazis took over the world like 200 years ago. Maybe she is trapped in a white woman's body? Like her conciousness got transported across time and space? It sounds dumb as hell but I remember it being pretty decent. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2014 13:47
|
|
|
What's the best way/app for highlighting passages, and then exporting those passages to -- in my case at least -- Evernote? Kindle is fine for books I buy through Amazon, but with Project Gutenberg or Internet Archive books or something, it doesn't show up in my Amazon account. I'd like to only have to use one app for all my reading (I'm using an iPad Mini, just switched from Kindle Paperwhite). Is there a Calibre-equivalent for the actual act of reading? Or something I *should* be converting my books to instead of mobi?
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2014 16:26
|
|
|
DirtyRobot posted:Kindle is fine for books I buy through Amazon, but with Project Gutenberg or Internet Archive books or something, it doesn't show up in my Amazon account. I'd like to only have to use one app for all my reading (I'm using an iPad Mini, just switched from Kindle Paperwhite). Is there a Calibre-equivalent for the actual act of reading? Or something I *should* be converting my books to instead of mobi?
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
Is there an ethical online UK based alternative to Amazon that can be recommended? I'm not sure local bookstores exist anymore, certainly not round here anyway.
|
|
#
?
Dec 29, 2014 16:47
|
|
|
knees of putty posted:Is there an ethical online UK based alternative to Amazon that can be recommended? I'm not sure local bookstores exist anymore, certainly not round here anyway. By "ethical" are you referring to how Amazon reportedly treats its business partners and employees (both in the warehouses and at corporate) like poo poo, or that buying from big companies is less ethical in general than buying from small companies?
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 00:50
|
|
|
The former mostly.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 20:59
|
|
|
Local bookstores exist as long as you live near a city and not in the british countryside which I have been lead to believe looks like the shire.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 22:25
|
|
|
I live in the British countryside and there are still bookshops in the area and there's no way you live so far from a town that you couldn't pop into a bookstore next time you are there. Just google place where you live book and you'll probably get a bunch of Yelp things telling you where all the good poo poo is.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 22:34
|
|
|
Yeah, a lot of local bookstores around here have websites with their inventory up so you can call in an order, even if they might not have a fullfledged shopping cart.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 22:40
|
|
|
Even if there's not a good second-hand store, there'll probably be a Waterstones which is, as far as I know, less bad than Amazon.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 22:42
|
|
|
Anywhere that's big enough for a Waterstones there'll probably be a second hand bookstore which will be cheaper and have a nice weird old man you can talk about books with.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 22:50
|
|
|
It's true, looks like the Shire - even comes with twee Gaelic pipe music and bagpipes for greater authenticity! In the end I used the Hive. Looked a good alternative to Amazon. In terms of local independent stores, only one and the rest are specialist bookstores.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 22:55
|
|
|
CestMoi posted:Anywhere that's big enough for a Waterstones there'll probably be a second hand bookstore which will be cheaper and have a nice weird old man you can talk about books with. Or even charity shops for ultimate moral superiority in your book-buying, although you usually can't talk about books with the nice weird old man.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 22:57
|
|
|
The trouble is, these local bookshops in the Shire are often small, specialised, and don't have a very large or comprehensive selection of books. If you want basic airplane fodder or local authors, you're grand. Otherwise, you're often out of luck.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 23:30
|
|
|
In my experience the owners or employees usually know of other stores that specialize differently.
|
|
#
?
Dec 30, 2014 23:32
|
|
|
Let's sum up our 2014 reading! # Books read: 24 (normally I get through 45-50, so a disappointing year) # Books bought: Somewhere in the range of 50-60 Best ones: - Hyperion by Dan Simmons - A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge - The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman - Night Watch by Terry Pratchett Worst/least good ones: - Beginning Operations by James White (sexist and dated) - Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh (a kinda stupid blog turned into a book, it's as pointless as it sounds) - The Burning Dark by Adam Christopher (good premise rendered laughable by a terrible ending) Longest book read: - Pandora's Star by Peter F Hamilton (1144 pages) Regrets: - Not reading more Iain M Banks - Not reading more female authors - Not reading more nonfiction - Being too distracted by other things (comics, video games) to read more
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2014 09:25
|
|
|
2014: Before They Are Hanged - Joe Abercrombie (First Law #2) Last Argument of Kings - Joe Abercrombie (First Law #3) The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch (Gentlemen Bastards #1) Red Seas Under Red Skies - Scott Lynch (Gentlemen Bastards #2) The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap - Matt Taibbi The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch - Lewis Dartnell The Republic of Thieves - Scott Lynch (Gentlemen Bastards #3) The Light Fantastic - Jeffrey Lang The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell Willful Child - Steven Erikson The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin Ghostwritten - David Mitchell Tau Zero - Poul Anderson currently reading: Bell Weather - Dennis Mahoney (advance copy, got it from a giveaway he did on Twitter, it's really good so look for it next year) Best: David Mitchell, Worst: nothing really, but I didn't like most of Left Hand of Darkness, Regrets: never
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2014 15:11
|
|
|
# Books read: 35 (planned for 52 but some long rear end books took up more time than I thought) # Books bought: 5, rest were library, physical or e-book borrows, or re-reads. Best ones: The Alexandria Quartet series - Lawrence Durrell Autumn of the Patriarch - Gabriel Garcia Marquez Tales of the City series - Amistead Maupin Worst/least good ones: Lets Explore Diabetes With Owls - David Sedaris (dude's run out of steam ever since his animal short story book) Something Like Summer - Jay Bell (holy poo poo this was infuriatingly awful, even for m/m) Further Tales of the City - Amistead Maupin. (Just not as good as the rest of them, really. Felt like treading water before getting to the emotional heart of the series which was the next 3 entries.) Longest book read: The Recognitions - William Gaddis (976 pages) Regrets: - Not reading more Gaddis - Not getting through more of Proust, made it almost to the end of the second book of In Search Of Lost Time but a whole book without a perspective change from the narrator exhausted me. - Not making more of an effort with Pessoa's Book of Disquiet hope and vaseline fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Dec 31, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2014 15:35
|
|
|
# Books read:\ 59 # Books bought:\ 6 Best ones:\ Ficciones The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat Eva Luna Worst/least good ones:\ Retribution Falls The Sword-Edged Blonde Longest book read: Shogun (1152 pages) Regrets: None.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2014 16:23
|
|
|
# of Books Read: 76 # of Books Bought: 308  Best: City of Stairs The Forever War Annihilation Worst: The Chapman Books Hidden Language of Demons Longest: I don't know; looking back over my list, nothing jumps out as being noticeably longer than anything else. Regrets: Didn't read as much as I wanted, even considering various limitations placed on my free time.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2015 00:32
|
|
|
Ornamented Death posted:# of Books Bought: Jeez dude.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2015 00:37
|
|
|
I read so many books that I'd never be able to come close to saying exactly how many, it's easily at least one a week though. How does everyone keep track of what they read? I need to find a good way of doing that. Anyway, Best: James Ellroy - Perfidia T.C. McCarthy - Germline Marlon James - Brief History of Seven Killings Margaret Atwood - Year of the Flood and Madaddam Allan Massie - Tiberius Worst: Dennis Lehane's Moonlight Mile Peter Brett's Daylight War Longest: Roberto Bolano - 2066 Regrets: reading Lehane's Moonlight Mile, as it was so bad and annoying that I'll probably never read anything by him in the future, and I used to love his stuff I see David Mitchell popping up on people's Bests and I think he's probably one of the most talked about authors of the recent past, I'm going to have to check him out soon savinhill fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jan 1, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2015 03:07
|
|
|
Read: Way fewer that I had hoped, though I've read a good many longform articles. Best: Grumpy Old Rockstar and Other Wonderous Stories (Rick Wakeman), Down and Out in Paris and London (George Orwell), Stephen King's Joyland. In the case of Wakeman, yes I can be swayed by stories of farting and shagging inflatable dinosaurs Worst: Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, whose second half was way too preachy and full of stereotypes. That was the worst I finished. There were a handful of other contenders that I quickly lost patience for and abandoned. Longest: The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan (Rick Perlstein). Regrets: Catherine Bailey's The Secret Rooms - the secrets of John Manners, the Duke of Rutland, died trying to hide and of which Bailey only partially tries to solve. I paid money for that one.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2015 03:53
|
|
|
savinhill posted:I read so many books that I'd never be able to come close to saying exactly how many, it's easily at least one a week though. How does everyone keep track of what they read? I need to find a good way of doing that. No offense, but one a week isn't a particularly rigorous pace for TBB; Stupid_Sexy_Flander typically finishes some absurd number like 200+ books in a year, for example. That said, I think most people use either Goodreads or make their own list to keep track of everything.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2015 04:39
|
|
|
As long as we're summing up our 2014 reading: Best: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Cyteen. The Goldfinch. The Golem and the Djinni. Worst: The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600: I didn't even finish this because the author was so drat insufferable. The basic idea behind a history of books isn't bad, but Steven Moore just ruins the whole thing with his smug atheism and sexism. "An owl-eyed feminist critic can find misogyny in any man's work"? gently caress you, give me my money back. Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops: Turned out to be way more boring than expected. Longest: Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (1200 pages).
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2015 22:05
|
|
|
Ornamented Death posted:Regrets: Thats to bad maybe... quote:# of Books Bought: Oh
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2015 22:07
|
|
|
I'm curious, has anyone made a thread about or talked about Space War Blues by Richard Lupuff? I've been reading it over the past few months and it's been one of the wildest scifi books I've ever read. Space Haiti fighting a war with Space Alabama, weird humanoid jellyfish creatures that allow for the creation of reanimated corpses, political intrigue, Space Aborigines that have melanin counts so high that they can withstand the radiation of SPACE ITSELF, all sorts of crazy poo poo. It's a bit hard to read due to the author trying to write the southern characters with full accent and lack of grammar, but it really lends to the overall craziness of the book. Only sad thing is they don't really describe the technology well, so it's mostly a character story. (and there are ALOT of characters it swaps focus between) Definitely recommend reading if you have the chance, it's a real trip so far, and I'm only two thirds in.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2015 22:07
|
|
|
Ornamented Death posted:No offense, but one a week isn't a particularly rigorous pace for TBB; Stupid_Sexy_Flander typically finishes some absurd number like 200+ books in a year, for example. I just use the Reading Challenge thread as my book log. I keep a local notes file where I log each book as I finish it and then transfer to the thread at the end of the month.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2015 01:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 06:40 |
|
|
# Books read: 21. A bit disappointing, I was targeting around 30. I got hung up on one book for like four months. # Books bought: 29, I think. Best ones: - A Prayer For Owen Meany, Irving - Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie - To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee Worst/least good ones: - Retribution Falls, Wooding. I'm fine with genre fiction and spec fic but this was horrendous. Not my choice, someone from my book club picked it. - The Revolutions, Gilman. Gilman has neat ideas but is utterly unable to pace. - Lie Down In Darkness, Styron. This is the one that took me four months. It's not bad, exactly, but it was a slog. - Tigerman, Harkaway. Harkaway's debut a few years ago, The Gone-Away World, was really fun, but it's been downhill from there -- I liked the premise, but he does nothing interesting with it and it's irritatingly self-indulgent. Longest book read: - A Prayer For Owen Meany, Irving. 637 pages. Regrets: - Not finishing the Styron faster, it really arrested my reading - Getting sidetracked from reading too long with other activities - Reading Retribution Falls - Not reading more serious lit
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2015 17:40
|
|
