Read the full article at ABC15.com (ABC Affiliate – Phoenix, AZ)
If you’re an avid reader you know buying books can break your wallet. So why not rent them instead? There’s a website called bookswim.com and they rent paperback and hardcover books online….
….If you decide you’re all booked out you can cancel your service at any time but you’ll only have ten days to return your books before you are charged for them.
It always gets me: that compelling sentence in a book’s description that catches my eye and forces me to read through the rest of the blurb, when all I’d meant to do was add it to a customer’s rental pool. I’m talking about the sales copy, the short book description written with action verbs and the same melodramatic, slightly inaccurate terms used to sell hair growth medication, diet pills, and $14,000 exercise machines.
Here are some of my favorite examples of riveting, exciting, man-I-gotta-read-that-book yet surprisingly generic blurbs. Can you match each compelling blurb with its book?
1) The killer has the whole city by its strings–and he’ll stop at nothing to become the most terrifying star that Washington D.C. has ever seen.
2) With this life-affirming tale of friendship and fate, [author] once again shows why she is a nationally bestselling author with legions of loyal fans.
3) But there are some lines that should never be crossed—like the one [character]’s stepping over . . . again!
4) A story of depth and emotion, hilarity and imagination, [title] tells a story of love, family, and loss.
5) But when a chance encounter brings them together again, the time has finally come to make a choice, one that will have profound consequences for them both for the rest of their lives.
a) The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
b) Double Cross by James Patterson
c) Lone Eagle by Danielle Steel
d) The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison
e) Second Chance by Jane Green
It’s been a busy week in the life of Eric. But I’m never too busy to read on the train. Heck, I even finished a book this past week – David Sedaris‘ Holidays on Ice (which, admittedly, I had already read most of before picking back up in the last few days). I polished off the last three short stories in no time and even had a few chuckles along the way.
I am now contently working on Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake. I haven’t gotten too far into the book yet, but I’m enjoying it so far. Her wit is quick and she has a terrific way of describing things and inserting mini-stories into the already short stories. For instance, in a longer story about sleep-away camp and the lice infestation that arose therein, she ticked off the items which she was forced to incinerate, which included, “an amiable stuffed rabbit named Bruce, whose hobbies included warding off ghosts and being thrown at snoring girls.”
In that one moment, though referring to instances otherwise unmentioned elsewhere in the story, the reader is brought into the life of a cabin-dwelling 10-year-old in the middle of the night, and all the maleficent forces that conspire to rob one of sleep. The sentence (or rather, part of a sentence…there is more than one such gem in that singular sentence, alone) also conveys a child’s love for and attachment to a stuffed animal which, for anyone who has ever had or been a child (which should be most of us) is simultaneously intrinsic and ethereal.
Another shining aspect of these stories, for me, personally, is that the writer is unabashedly Jewish and relates of her parents in an according manner. It may seem strange to use the word “unabashed” in describing someone’s discussion of their faith, but for all of you people out there who have never felt the isolation on December 25th and the rest of the year as countless characters in the movies, on TV and in books talk in a manner that embraces a faith that is not your own, I can tell you with a certain degree of delight that there is something indescribably comfortable about being able to relate to a character with whom you have such a defining quality in common – something for which, it seems from my potentially damned perspective, Christians too often take for granted (it being the norm for them, and all).
No, Crosley doesn’t just mention that she is Jewish in passing, but rather embraces it as a pivotal aspect of her character’s background and motivation, which I quite enjoy.
I’ll make it a point to thank the person who recommended this book to me as you may thank me some day, since I thoroughly endorse it as a fun read for anyone who enjoys the short story medium. What do you think I should send the recommender? A fruit basket? Flowers? Chocolate? A card? Something else? Help me out!
Enough love stories in our Reviews o’ the Week. This week’s review by Cheryl from California draws us into a harrowing journey out of the heart of darkness, via Malika Oufkir’s Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail:
This is truly an amazing story and one most of cannot imagine. When I first read this book, I was so moved by what the human mind and body can endure when necessary. Would I have been able to get thru this hell on earth? The most heartbreaking aspect of it is her youngest brother, 3 years old when they were imprisoned and 23 when they escaped. To be 23 and never have seen houses, cars, roads, cities, other people, regular clothing and food… I think often of her youngest brother and hope he’s been able to find his way. I met Ms. Oufkir when she was doing the book tour for her second book and she was elegant and gracious — how is that even possible?!?. This is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it to anyone.
Sounds like a stunning and little-heard story. Thanks, Cheryl, for your review!
Last week, you, the BookSwimmers, voted that, of James Patterson’s more notable detectives, you’d be most afraid of having Alex Cross on your tail by 57%. Sorry ladies. Lindsay Boxer doesn’t instill the same level of butt-kicking fear and awe.
This week, because we’re SO excited to go to NYCC (New York ComicCon) this weekend, we’re breaking out our favorite graphic novels (collections of comic books, for those of you not in the know) and asking you which is the greatest of all time.
Haven’t read one or more of these? Take a moment to add them to your Rental Pool…because they’re all freaking awesome.
In other fun news, be sure to submit your questions for Alex Irvine, Tom Brevoort, Danny Fingeroth, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Brian Francis Slattery, J. Michael Straczynski, Matt Fraction, F. Paul Wilson, Jim Lee, Grant Morrison, Marjorie M. Liu, Kim Harrison, Melissa Anelli, Carrie Vaughn, Charlie Huston, Brian Michael Bendis, Geoff Johns and Jeaniene Frost so we can ask them your questions at ComicCon.
What? No Alan Moore? No Neil Gaiman? Not even Frank Miller? Sorry folks. Even we’re not that cool. Maybe next year. Your questions below.
Another week, and another podcast with your favorite people named Chip and/or Eric (now with pictures!) We hope you enjoyed last week’s podcast, but we hope you enjoy this week’s podcast even more, because that will let us know that we’re getting better at this thing!
Take a good listen since, this week, we talk about the new BookSwim redesign, wax philosophical about books, and pay tribute to the late John Updike.
As promised in this week’s podcast, we’re looking for your questions that we should pose this coming weekend at NYComicCon. We’ll be interviewing some of the following writers: Alex Irvine, Tom Brevoort, Danny Fingeroth, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Brian Francis Slattery, J. Michael Straczynski, Matt Fraction, F. Paul Wilson, Jim Lee, Grant Morrison, Marjorie M. Liu, Kim Harrison, Melissa Anelli, Carrie Vaughn, Charlie Huston, Brian Michael Bendis, Geoff Johns and Jeaniene Frost.
Please comment below with your question(s) and be sure to let us know for whom each question is.
Read the full article at PublishingTrends.com
It’s hard to remember a time when Netflix didn’t seem like a good idea. The company opened its first distribution center, in San Jose, CA, in 1998, and initially aimed to create the typical Blockbuster experience: Each rental was $4, plus $2 for postage, and there were late fees. In a 2002 interview with Wired magazine, the company’s founder and CEO, Reed Hastings, described the pre-2000 Netflix as “a typical Internet company…an ugly financial story, with not much hope of breaking even.” But when the company switched to its now-familiar subscription, no-late-fee model in 1999, it took off, delivering 100,000 DVDs by October of that year. It shipped its billionth DVD (Babel) in February 2007 and today has 8.7 million members and over 100,000 titles, with plans ranging from $4.99 to $47.99. The company’s Amazon.com-like recommendations feature is used by 60% of members to select their DVDs, and its revenue-sharing agreements means that film studios are invested in the company’s success. Netflix was named the Retail Innovator of the Year by the National Retail Federation in 2007…..
….So will libraries eventually become people’s main source of digital reading material and audiobooks? Will book-rental sites eventually become their main source of old-fashioned reading material? “As a society we have reached the epoch of clutter, and we’re starting to shed it,” says Ginsberg. “As we move into the twenty-first century, people are a little more secure about who they are and much more interested in getting what they want out of life. As the cost of living goes up, the size of our living quarters goes down, and people are interested in not being completely crammed out of their own place.”
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