All Things Books And Reading Thread - 2018

[Tobermory]

She hasn't really started in on the "Mrs. Murphy" books (yet), but only because she thinks Mrs. Murphy sounds too "human," and not nearly as smart as a cat ought to be.

I liked the early Mrs. Murphy books. At some point, though, I stopped reading them. Rita Mae Brown is very vocal about her political beliefs, and while I agree with many of them, I don’t want to read about them in her mystery books!

Has anyone mentioned author Donna Andrews and her amateur sleuth Meg Langslow? I searched the thread but didn’t see it. They’re well written and entertaining with quirky characters. They’re best read in order.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

I've only read the first two or three. I'll probably collect them, until I, too, get a bellyful of politics. Heck, I read as an escape!

I just started "Hell Hath No Curry" in the PennDutch series. Just started. I did get as far as the first recipe. I'm going to love this book if ONLY for the recipes. I'm fascinated with Indian cooking, and this book, along with the last two books in Tarquin Hall's "Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator" series will give me a nice, very basic collection of simple Indian "go-to" recipes.

 

[Margret]

Many years ago (back when I had a Palm Pilot) I bought a lot of books from Baen; they had a program (may still, for all I know) where you could subscribe and each month you'd get access to all the books they were about to publish in hardback, in electronic format, a couple of months early. You could see the book after it was essentially finished, but before the final edit had happened, and follow it through those final edits until the finished product came out, which you also had access to.

I read the original 1632 in that program, as well as some of the subsequent ones. I got a bunch of James Schmitz books when Baen re-released them, with Eric Flint editing. I got a huge number of the Miles VorKosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold in that program, and a lot of the Honor Harrington books. Also, Oath of Swords, by David Weber, and several of the Liaden Universe books by Sharon Lee and Steven Miller (in fact, as I recall, when Jim Baen asked for recommendations of good authors who might be looking for a new publisher I'm the one who told him about Lee and Miller).

On top of that, back in those days when you bought a Baen book in hardback it came with a CD containing other books that you might enjoy, frequently other books in the Honorverse, or the War God series. That's how I ended up with War God's Own and Wind Rider's Oath, by David Weber, the first two sequels to Oath of Swords. I still have the .html versions of those two, that I had saved to a CD. (Incidentally, they came with permission to give them away to anyone who wanted them, so if you're interested just ask; you can have all three.) Baen books has never used encryption schemes to protect their books; they've actually encouraged people to share them, because they've found that it increases sales in the long run. On top of that, they regularly have free books available on their website.

So, a couple of days ago I went to Baen Books Science Fiction & Fantasy - Home Page, reset my password (lost the previous one, of course ) and downloaded the .epub versions of all their current freebies, as well as the .epub versions of every single ebook I'd purchased over the years. I ran the .html versions of War God's Own and Wind Rider's Oath through Calibre to convert them to .epub as well (that being the preferred format of the Nook) and I now have a treasure trove of books to sideload to my Nook.

Even if you've never bought any ebooks from Baen, I highly recommend going to their website and creating an account, and then downloading all the free books that are available, in whatever format you're most comfortable with, from the old Palm Pilot formats to current Kindle or Nook or iBook formats. Also, if you have a Nook you need Calibre, which is a free program that will let you convert to .epub, edit books that you have in that format, and (with the correct add-ons) break the DRM on the books you already have. This would be illegal if you were doing it to pirate them, but when it's just for your personal use (like sideloading your Kindle books to your Nook) the U.S. Supreme Court has held that it counts as fair use. (I can't speak to the laws in other countries.) Be sure you download only from the official Calibre website; it's an incredibly popular program and some sites will give you damaged versions of it. It's available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.

Margret

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Um...Margret, I have no clue what you just said, or what "sideloading" is...but it sounds GREAT...I did get as far as "you can read books from another format." I even have a vague idea what a "format" is.

I'm still living in Hernia, PA in my mind. I'm on the next-to-last book that I have on hand. I am missing #18 and #20, and while I'd RATHER read in order, I'm making an exception in this case. After that, I'm on to Juliet Blackwell's "Haunted Home Renovation" series.

Hekitty is having a hissy fit. She confessed that she had planned on getting Perry Elizabeth Kirkpatrick's "The Kitten File" series for me for Christmas, but they are only available in ebook form, and YOU CAN'T WRAP EBOOKS! So, she's back to the drawing board.

 

[rubysmama]

Oh, that Hekitty. She's a comical cat.

 

[MonaLyssa33]

I started listening to Baby Teeth by Zoja Stage on Saturday and I finished it yesterday because it's one of those "unputdownable" books (granted I was listening to the audiobook).

 

[catspaw66]

Thanks, Margret . I just finished the new Honorverse book. Oh, my! He outdid himself in this one.

I cross-sideload between the Book and Kindle, too. That's one of the reasons my Fire 10 has a 128GB card in it.

I do have a few ARC (Advance Reader Copy) of Honorverse books. Baen still has a large number of free books in many formats.

 

[Margret]

Um...Margret, I have no clue what you just said, or what "sideloading" is...but it sounds GREAT.

Sideloading. Okay, there are two ways books can get on the Nook - I can buy them from Barnes & Noble (the people who manufactured the Nook), then download them to the Nook. There are three problems with this approach:

• The Nook has limited memory, so while I have (for instance) Lord of the Rings downloaded on the Nook it's hard to download anything else, and I like to read multiple books at the same time.
• B&N considers themselves to be "Partners" with Microsoft; hence, Nook for PC only runs on Windows 8 or higher (attempting to coerce people into "upgrading" to Windows 10). I have Windows 7 and have no intention of changing this any time soon. This means that I can't download the books to my computer and use Calibre to break the DRM and save the books for the future, when I may want to read them on some brand new device called (picking a name out of the air) a Mango, that stores its books in some totally new format that no one's even heard of yet.
• If I already own books from, for instance, Baen, in order to read them on the Nook I'd have to buy them again from B&N in order to download them! For some strange reason I don't like this idea.

The other way to put books on my Nook is to buy them elsewhere and save them on my PC where I can use Calibre to put them into a format the Nook can read. I've done this with the books that I bought decades ago from Baen books, and with Kindle books, and with books that I buy from Kobo (those are already in the correct format for the Nook, but they have DRM so that I have to use Calibre to break that before putting them on the Nook). (Note: DRM is short for Digital Rights Management and it refers to the encryption that companies put on books to keep you from pirating them.) So, the Nook has a slot for a MicroSD card. If I download, say, a picture from the internet, the Nook puts it on the card. But I can't use the card to store any of the books I bought from B&N; the Nook can't access it in that way. What I can do is hook the Nook up to the PC and access the card from the PC, and put those books from other sources on the card, or I can simply put the card itself in the appropriate port on the PC and put the books on it that way. Whichever method I use is referred to as "sideloading."

It still isn't unlimited memory or anything, but I can swap the books off of the card when I like (just as I can "archive" the books I bought from B&N), and I can have more than one card so I can swap them out. So, for instance, I'm currently, in addition to LOTR, rereading Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword (which I bought from Amazon I think) that I have on the card.

Hekitty is having a hissy fit. She confessed that she had planned on getting Perry Elizabeth Kirkpatrick's "The Kitten File" series for me for Christmas, but they are only available in ebook form, and YOU CAN'T WRAP EBOOKS! So, she's back to the drawing board.

Tell her to buy you a gift card for the books and wrap that.

Margret

 

[Margret]

I just finished the new Honorverse book. Oh, my! He outdid himself in this one.

Does she lose any more body parts? (I swear, sometimes Honor Harrington reminds me of the very old joke about a prisoner of war who's been seriously injured. Prison camps being rather dirty places, the injuries keep getting infected and going gangrenous, and whenever they amputate something the prisoner asks for it to be sent home for a proper burial. Eventually the exasperated camp Commandant says "What are you trying to do - escape one body part at a time?!")

Margret

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Tell her to buy you a gift card for the books and wrap that.

I will mention that to her, although she generally takes a "go big or go home" stance on things like that...she likes stuff in BIG BOXES. Guess why?

SO...if I understand all of the above, Margret , this kinda means that if I have Nook, Kobo and Kindle downloaded onto my computer, and plan to read on the laptop, I can just download directly to whatever is compatible, and not worry about it?

I was missing #18 and #20 of the PennDutch series, and ordered them this morning. SO...I'll set #19 aside for now, and go on to the Haunted Home Renovation series by Juliet Blackwell. Let's see...I think the first one is "If Walls Could Talk."

 

[Margret]

I will mention that to her, although she generally takes a "go big or go home" stance on things like that...she likes stuff in BIG BOXES. Guess why?

So, suggest that she put it in a big box. Better yet, tell her to use the turducken approach to gift wrapping - the gift card goes in a small box, with wrapping paper and ribbon, which goes in a larger box, with wrapping paper and ribbon, which goes in a larger box, with wrapping paper and ribbon, which goes in a giant box, with wrapping paper and ribbon...

Lots of left over wrapping paper, ribbons, and boxes which you can then give to the cat.

SO...if I understand all of the above, Margret , this kinda means that if I have Nook, Kobo and Kindle downloaded onto my computer, and plan to read on the laptop, I can just download directly to whatever is compatible, and not worry about it?

That's correct, though if you're downloading it from somewhere like Baen, which doesn't have any particular device for you to download it directly to, you'll want to download it in, for instance, .rtf format (Rich Text Format) which most editors can handle, or .epub, in which case you'll want to download Calibre to read it, or .html which can be read by your browser or by Calibre. I'm not sure whether it's possible to "sideload" to Kindle/Nook/Kobo for PC; it may be as simple as putting the appropriately formatted book into the correct folder, but I don't know. If you try it please let us know how well it works.

Margret

 

[catspaw66]

The thing I like best about the Book is that you can "lend" a book to another Nook. Kindle won't do that.

No, she loses no more body parts. That is all I will say. $10 is a lot for an e-book, but it has been 5 years since the last main arc book.

 

[Margret]

No, she loses no more body parts. That is all I will say.

Oh, good! She has so many prosthetics there isn't much left of her! (Admittedly, it's useful to be able to focus one eye as either a telescope or a microscope, but just not worth it, IMO.)

One of these days I'll pick it up. Probably at a used book store - I have a huge number of books on my wish list.

Margret

 

[catspaw66]

I now have all the Honorverse books. Including House of Steel and the young adult trilogy Treecat Wars.

Folks, it is very easy to get hooked on an author and buy everything they write. I have David Weber (Honorverse), Sir Terry Pratchett (Discworld), Piers Anthony (Xanth) and Brian Jacques (Redwall). The Redwall are all paper and ink, everything else is e-book.

 

[Margret]

Folks, it is very easy to get hooked on an author and buy everything they write.

Ain't that the truth! The problem with this, of course, is money.

Margret

 

[Winchester]

Money. And space. Sadly, I have no more space for books. In fact, when we did the living room over, I had to put my books in totes and store them in the basement. I'm one who will read and re-read AND re-read my books forever, so not having access to my books has really thrown me. But our house is small and I simply do not have room. I have 3,000 books on my Kindle Paperwhite, but they're the free books from freebooksy and, quite honestly, some of those books are downright pathetic. I read a lot of ebooks from our library, too. But I really miss my books. I used to walk over to the books, look around, and then say, "You!" and grab a book. Flop down on the couch and spend an hour or so with my nose in the book. Doesn't matter if I've read it once, twice, or more. They're my books and they're worth yet another read.

As for the library ebooks, it's hard to find many of them. If I want to read a series, I might find 2-3 in that series and that's it. Or several of them will be audio (and I don't listen to audio).

Tobermory I've read most of the Donna Andrews books; they're good.

From the library:

20th Century Ghosts - Joe Hill
Gem of a Ghost - Sue Ann Jeffarian
Promises in Death - J.D. Robb (trying to work my way through the series)
Crime and Poetry - Amanda Flower
The Death of Mrs. Westaway - Ruth Ware
Flowers and Foul Play - Amanda Flower
Batter Off Dead - Tamar Myers
The Midnight Line - Lee Child (trying to work my way through the series; I really like Reacher)

 

[catspaw66]

Space is the best thing about having an e-reader. 10,000 books weigh the same as 1 book and take up the same physical footprint. Just buy the biggest memory card supported by the reader. My average book takes up half a megabyte. My Fire could hold 238,000 books. Portable library indeed! I only have about 400 books on it, right now. And 60 movies. And a couple of days of music.

Yet, I would miss the smell of my paper books. My favorite used book store smells so wonderful. When I was paying my property taxes in August, I explained to the young lady at the counter why I kept inhaling and smiling by the 100 year old leather-bound property ledgers.

 

[Winchester]

I know that being able to store tons of books in one spot is pretty darn cool. But still, like you, catspaw66 I like the smell of books. I really do. When I was going up to the Book Barn in CT, the first thing I would do when I entered the Annex in town was inhale. There's something about that many books in one place. Like a library, but better, in a way.

If we could afford it, I'd put an addition on the house, just for books. Rick has offered to put a she-shed on our property, complete with AC and heat. Just so I have a place for reading. Away from felines and Beasts. Just me, a chaise and shelves and shelves of books. As silly as it sounds, I'm thinking of taking him up on it.

BTW, did you all know that Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King? He writes a lot like King, too. I've read two of his books and they were both good.

 

[Tobermory]

I still miss card catalogues. Most were beautiful wood pieces, and I loved the possibility of discovering another wonderful book while flipping through the drawer to find my original choice.

 

[rubysmama]

If we could afford it, I'd put an addition on the house, just for books. Rick has offered to put a she-shed on our property, complete with AC and heat. Just so I have a place for reading. Away from felines and Beasts. Just me, a chaise and shelves and shelves of books. As silly as it sounds, I'm thinking of taking him up on it.

That sounds pretty cool.