Monday, June 21, 2010

Miscellaneous




To balance out the cat pics since it seems some people don't like the ugly one *g*


Miscellaneous isn't that different from ponderings really, but since I just did a Ponderings, I had to change it up. And generally, Miscellaneous is longer - at least this one is.

Response from Co-Workers on Romance Books

Well, Wendy (we shall call her Wendy) finished Sugar Daddy. And thankfully, she LOVED it.

Spoiler Alert

She was fine with who Liberty ended up with thank goodness. When she told me she finished it, I asked her if she was fine with the fact it didn't end up the way she was hoping - and she was :-). And now she's half way through Blue Eyed Devil. Wendy (we shall call her that) was delighted to hear there is a third book, Jack's story. She's blaming me for her lack of sleep however.

Another co-worker Deborah (we shall call her Deborah) recently read Patrica Gaffney's book, Wild at Heart that I brought in for her and loved it. She asked me to bring in more books. Now she's quite a speed reader. She's read all the Stephanie Plum books - the ones I didn't have she bought herself. And she's more than half-way through the In Death books. She just needs to figure out where she is and what she needs next. I'll bring them in, but she has to figure out what *g*.So in the meantime I brought her To Die For and Drop Dead Gorgeous by Linda Howard. I had to warn her that although I love Blair to death, some readers find her annoying. Well she read To Die For and accused me of ruining her Sunday. She couldn't put it down! And today she was telling me she loves books that take place in the South - New Orleans in particular. I'm going to have to get a flashlight while I look for Lucky's Lady by Tami Hoag for her next reading pleasure.

One of my coworkers, Tarryn (we shall call her Tarryn) who is also a very strong fan of the In Death series, got a Kindle a month or so before I got my Kobo. We took them out at the same time at lunch today to compare size and stuff. The screens on both are the same size but the actual Kindle device is bigger. And it has a key pad which the Kobo doesn't.

I was quite glad I went with the Kobo as there was an interesting article in today's paper. Unfortunately I couldn't find it online, but the gist of the article was that librarians are loving ebooks. It seems that they like the fact that there are no late fees and a lot less paperwork involved. There has been a real increase in the library lending out ebooks since last year; one of the reasons being many people got ereaders for Christmas. And now that the Kobo has made an appearance, they think the number of ebooks the library has will at least double by this time next year. I'm hoping Wendy or any other librarian pops as I'm curious as to whether other libraries are experiencing this dramatic increase in ebooks. And as Tarryn and I were comparing reading devices, I showed her the article in the paper. If I wasn't such a nice person, I would be thinking neener, neener, since you can't 'rent' ebooks from the library on the Kindle.
I had a doctors appointment after work today - need a supply of happy pills I did and I had my first chance to use my ereader at the doctors office. It was great!! And when the nurse saw what I had, she was very curious about it. Seems she's a big reader too. After the appointment, I showed her how it worked and she decided since it was her birthday coming up soon, she knew what she was going to ask for.

It's kind of odd in a way. Online, I'm one of the last holdouts in getting an ereader, but in the world I live and work in, I'm one of the first to get one. Tarryn is the only other person at work who seems to have one. And everyone I show is quite impressed. A couple of people haven't even heard of them before!

After I stopped to get my supply of happy pills and all the rest of the plethora of pills I have to take due to my advancing age, I stopped at Chapters. The book I was reading on the Kobo is The Conqueror by Kris Kennedy. I got it in eform after I read Wendy's review of The Irish Warrior. But d'oh - I already had the print copy of it. But I discovered another good thing about having an ereader. I don't have to worry about where I put the book!! I know I stared The Conqueror ages ago, but it disappeared in the land of books that I have. Anyway, after reading quite a bit of it at the doctor's office - you know you never get in on time - I was really enjoying it and decided to get it. And wouldn't you know - Chapters is having a buy 3 get 1 free sale!! I was determined to resist buying books for a while - what with both RomCon and RWA coming up soon. But you can't ignore a buy 3 get 1 free sale can you? No, you can not! So in addition to The Irish Warrior (and isn't that a great cover - that's why I went for print rather than e), these are the other ones I picked up for the can't say no book deal.


Lord of the Highlands by Veronica Wolff - a time travel by the looks of it.





No Chance by Christy Reece - I have the first two in this new trilogy





and

Burning Alive by Shannon K. Butcher - just cause. I wanted a variety of the books so I figured this was as good a paranormal as any.




And that wasn't all I got at Chapters!! One of the best places in the world to go if you ever get a chance is Medieval Times Dinner Theatre. (if you click on the link, you can see the 'Toronto' Knights - the Red Knight is my cutest knight - heh heh heh) Of course you can't go there now as the G 8/G20 meetings are being held in Toronto and if you get me started on that subject, this post will last for eternity - suffice it to say they've pretty much locked down the city AND CANCELED THE RETURN OF DOC HALLIDAY and spent over 1 billion $'s in security (it's no wonder I don't do taxes).

I've been a few times now, the last time with Ames and Nath and if we do a Canadian Blogger Get together, we really should go again as I can't think of a more fun place to have dinner!
Anyway - I was walking to the romance section of Chapters, having read a pretty good Medieval book and on my way to get another one, when what should catch my eye but these REALLY COOL knights on horses figurines. What can I say? It was destiny!!
Are they not awesome or what!?!? I got the green one to start my collection.









And I know JUST where they will go! On the upstairs book case, next to my
Guy of Gisbourne figure.




~~~~~UPDATE~~~~~


There was one other figurine I got too, but since I didn't see a picture of it, I didn't post it. But doing further 'looking into', I did find a picture. Now this is how shallow I am. One of the reasons I picked it up was because I thought they did a pretty good job in making the figurine kind of cute. Is that not a shallow reason? I'm almost embarrassed. The other reason, it was less expensive without the horse




And *sigh* I was cataloging my books and it seems I already have copies of two of them - the Veronica Wolff book and the Christy Reece book. I missed the Wolff book at first because I only gave her one F so it didn't come up. Oh well, back to the bookstore I go for another two. And I'll have to try and stay away from the other Knights and their horses!!

And why was that underlined? I don't understand Blogger sometimes.

10 comments:

Wendy said...

It's kind of odd in a way. Online, I'm one of the last holdouts in getting an ereader, but in the world I live and work in, I'm one of the first to get one.

Oh Lord, yes! If you believe everything you read in Romance Bloglandia, you'd think everyone on the planet has an eReader. Um, no. No they don't. I have an "ancient" Sony PRS-505 and every time I take the darn thing out anywhere in public, I end up playing show and tell. At least I've now gotten my coworkers use to seeing it around the office :) And you'll probably learn rather quickly that everyone will call it a Kindle. I get asked that all the time. "Is that a Kindle?" Even though my Sony looks NOTHING like a Kindle - LOL. Amazon's marketing machine at work, no doubt.

We just started doing ebooks at work, and so far they've been well-received. Given our sad money situation, we concentrated on older titles by well-known authors (we have some early Julia Quinn for example). The service we use supports the Sony and Nook - but I'm thinking the Kobo would work as well since it reads ePub files. Pretty sure anyway....

I'm glad you are liking The Conqueror enough to run out and buy The Irish Warrior. I think I gave both books the exact same grade (B), but I liked TIW better than TC. Splitting hairs there.

And I like the cat pictures...it's just that the ugly one freaks me out just a wee bit.

Lisa Marie Wilkinson said...

I really enjoyed The Conqueror and I'm looking forward to the Irish Warrior.

I love those knight figurines...I wonder if I can find them locally? That's the sort of decoration I love having around me, you can build stories just looking at art like that!

Scorpio M. said...

Hi Kristie, hope I didn't sound too crabby yesterday, didn't mean to vent on your post, LOL.

Been meaning to ask you, what are your most favorite Jo Goodman titles? I have been a Goodman fan since the early 90s. I used to track her the old fashioned way..via newsletter. This was pre-blogging-internet days. I loved her up until the Thorne Bros. trilogy and then she kind of lost me with the Compass Club (I couldn't even finish some of those). I did enjoy "More Than You Know" which came out around the same time.

Of her older titles, books 1 & 2 of the Dennehy sisters and the Marshall Bros set are my favorite. I'm trying to reconnect with her work and wondering what your thoughts are.

Kristie (J) said...

Scorpio: Not to worry - I didn't even notice *g*. As for my favourite Goodman books, well *gulp* I really enjoyed the Compass Club books. Also enjoyed A Season to be Sinful, One Forbidden Evening, If His Kiss is Wicked and Price of Desire. I was disappointed though with Never Love a Lawman. I had such high hopes - Jo Goodman - AND a Western. But it wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be. It didn't seem to have the same depth as many of her others and I felt somewhat disconnected from the heroine/hero. And I did enjoy the Thorne Brothers books. Another older one I really liked was More Than You Wished. I haven't read all of the Dennehy Sister books. I didn't really discover her until More Than You Wished, which I think came out before More Than You Know, but she didn't really appear on my radar until the Compass Club books. I've read every book since those ones.

Lisa: Aren't they great?? I googled them after I got home and it looks like you can get them online. Here's the link:
http://www.sierratoysoldier.com/Schleich-World-of-Knights.asp

I also found another one I got - just a knight - not a knight on horseback. It wasn't a costly *g* I'll have to do an edit and post it too.

Wendy: It will be interesting to see how the ebook library goes in SoCal. The article in the paper here was very positive and yep - it says they support the Kobo. It said they had about 1,000 titles so far in eform so I'm going to have to check out the library online! And I think here in Canada most people will be calling it the Kobo, since very few people have Kindles that I know of - it being supported by Amazon. Com and all. I don't think you can get books through Amazon. Ca - so it doesn't make sense for people here to get one - unless they have someone close in the US and can use their address. That's what Tarryn does.

Mitzi H. said...

Hi Kristie....I'm loving your comments on your ereader. I've been trying to decide which one to buy for over 6 months...weighing all the pros/cons....and I'm just not sure. Having the library access on yours is definitely a big plus...but I'm still not sure...hmmmm.

Kristie (J) said...

Mitzi: *grin* I held off on getting one for what I considered ages. I was afraid of them and I still liked holding a 'real' book. But I've been converted!!! I didn't think it would happen, but I love my ereader - I didn't think I'd ever say that. And having held off for so long, it's so strange to be ahead of so many in my day to day environment *g*

Karenmc said...

You double buy, too, eh? I actually have a database on my Touch that I'm SUPPOSED to look at before I buy any backlist books, but I'm a failure at following through.

And the Touch is my ereader until all the dust settles. I'm thinking the Nook will be my eventual choice, because I already have so many books from Fictionwise that the Nook can handle. Time will tell.

nath said...

Glad that your co-workers are eating up your suggestions, Kristie :D It's always gratifying knowing you were right LOL.

I still haven't read much on my Kobo. I'm trying to go through my books from RT and the ones I just bought. But I've read some and I'm really liking it.

Those are some nice buys you had. Too bad for the double buy, but at least, you can go and exchange them :) and starting a new collection!! Hmmm, I haven't seen those knights at my Chapters :(

Oh and we definitively should go back to the Medieval Times!

orannia said...

Kristie - you are awesome in spreading the romance love! I just love hearing how much your work colleagues are enjoying all the books you're lending them!

And I love that you have a Guy of Gisbourne figure. Hmmm. Thought. Not medieval romance but medieval suspense. Have you read any of Maureen Ash's books? The first is The Alehouse Murders. I love how...realistic (i.e. dirty :) medieval Lincoln sounds!

Scorpio M. said...

Thanks for the Jo Goodman thoughts. I own the first 2 Compass Club books so I may just give them another try. I loved Jo Goodman SO much that I always felt a bit bad that I dropped her from my must-buy list.