Posts Tagged ‘books’
1
Joyful Books
1Thanks to Waterstone’s Woking (@WokingBooks) and Jacqueline Harvey (@JacquelineHarve) on Twitter, I’ve just discovered this wonderful clip on YouTube (recommended as Video of the Week at Flavorwire here) and had to share.
I can appreciate the benefits of e-books, but I can’t imagine I would get the same amount of pleasure from watching a time lapse of e-readers moving about on the shelves. I’ve recently been shuffling books about on my own shelves and love tht there is pleasure to be found in simply looking at books, not just reading them.
1
Buying Books From Westfield Online (+ Giveaway!)
1I was recently given the opportunity by Westfield Online to indulge in a little book browsing with benefits at The Nile on the Westfield website. I was asked to check out their online bookstore with a voucher for $40 burning a hole in my virtual pocket.
I have a list of books I want to buy about seven pages long (if I was organised enough to write it down, that is). Given the debate about the pros and cons of buying books online, however, I decided to simply browse the virtual bookshelves and see what caught my eye, much as I would in a bricks and mortar bookstore.
I narrowed my search down to Fiction. After 5 minutes of clicking on random pages, I had found several books that I already owned and had managed to tag 20 books that I was interested in having a closer look at. Like any true book addict, once I started book browsing I couldn’t stop. Should I buy a $40 book, two $20 books, a new release, a classic, something for the kids?
I’m sure they didn’t realise the kind of decision making torture they would be putting me through when they offered me the voucher. I should have asked for extra as compensation for psychological distress.
My final selection:
Mary Poppins She Wrote by Valerie Lawson
Mary Poppins She Wrote: The True Story of Australian Writer P. L. Travers, Creator of the Quintessentially English Nanny by Valerie Lawson ($25.49)
Pippi Longstocking (50th Anniversary edition) by Astrid Lindgren ($17.99)
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
Well would you look at that. It looks like I did ask for a little extra to cover the psychological distress caused by my pathological difficulty in making a decision. Oops. 
I confess I’m a big fan of shopping for books online. It gives me a chance to check my bookshelves to make sure I’m not doubling up and it is easy to compare prices between retailers to make sure I am getting the best price. Several online bookstores (including The Nile through Westfield Online) offer free delivery which makes them easily comparable to buying books in store.
Do you shop online? A friend on Twitter recently commented that they buy everything online and rarely venture out to a shopping centre. I’m not quite that enthusiastic, but I do have certain products (such as books) that I shop for online regularly.
Now that I’ve rattled on about my online shopping experience, I can let you know that Westfield Online is offering one lucky reader a $40 voucher for a little online retail therapy.
Giveaway Guidelines
- Add yourself as a follower on my blog (Google Friend Connect and/or Networked Blogs)
- Leave a comment telling me what products you like to buy online.
- You can earn one extra entry for tweeting about this giveaway. You need to come back and leave a separate comment letting me know that you have done so to qualify for an extra entry.
- Entry is open to Australian residents only.
- Entries close at midnight (Aust EST) on Monday, 23rd May 2011.
- The winner will be drawn using a random number generator. Please make sure you include your email address with your comment (it won’t appear on screen) so that I can contact you if you win. The winner will be announced on the Reading Upside Down Facebook page and contacted by email. The winner has one week to contact me to arrange delivery of their prize or the competition will be redrawn.
- Disclaimer: My original $40 Westfield Online voucher and the $40 Westfield Online prize voucher were provided by Westfield Online. The nature of this post and the giveaway offer were not influenced by Westfield Online in any additional way and any opinions expressed are entirely my own.
Good luck!
This giveaway has now closed. The winning commenter was drawn using a random number generator from random.org. The winner was comment #27. Congratulations Anj (@AnjWrites). Thanks to everyone who entered.
1
Can You Limit Yourself To Just One?
1I’ve heard that there are people who read just one book at a time. They start a book, read page by page until the conclusion and then find another book. It doesn’t matter what the genre is, they are book monogamists, even if their faithfulness only lasts for the time it takes to read from cover to cover.
Despite my rather conservative nature in many other areas of my life, I must confess that I am just not capable of limiting myself to just one book at a time. I can have more than 10 books on the go at once and that doesn’t include the picture books and young reader novels that I read with my children.
I am a shameless book hussy.
I need to read multiple books at once because I need to read. Constantly. Compulsively. I packed a book to read while away at the Aussie Bloggers Conference last weekend, even though I knew that I would be chatting with Meredith (Oh, the Thinks you can Think) on the train journey to and from the conference, would have no time to read while I was in Sydney and needed to pack as little as possible. Despite all those sensible reasons, I still snuck a novel into my suitcase ‘just in case’.
If you think I’m exaggerating (which I confess I am wont to do from time to time – for dramatic effect of course), behold the pile of books on my bedside table. I have started all of these books and am in the process of reading them. They have all been read at least once in the past two weeks.
If that pile of 11 books wasn’t enough, this is the pile of books next to my bedside table waiting for a gap to open in the existing ‘what I’m reading now’ pile. This is not my TBR pile. These are simply my ‘reading now’ understudies – waiting in the wings for their chance to shine. My TBR pile is currently residing in the spare room, dining room and next to my desk.
For those who would like a look at the titles, here is a closer shot.
What about you? Are you a book monogamist or a book hussy like me? One at a time, or enough to create a pile of books on your bedside table that could quite possibly crush you in your sleep?
What are you currently reading?
