I Break for Book Sales

I'm in bargain book heaven right about now. Amazon's Kindle store is having an e-book sale called the Big Deal. Hundreds of titles have been marked down to $3.99 or less and my Kindle is filling up fast.

There's some great speculative fiction in there, including a few of my faves: Mark Hodder's The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, Nicole Peeler's Tempest Rising, Leanna Renee Hieber's The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, and Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Scion. There's even the Quirk Classics series of re-invented stories on sale for .99c, which means I finally got my (digital) copy of Android Karenina.

I've really been stocking up on random non-fiction because I'm a research fiend who's interested in almost every subject out there. Here are a few gems I just could not pass up for the price:

From Girl To Goddess - The Hero's Journey re-examined from the female perspective.

How To Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians - For the 16th century Martha Stewart.

Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them - Biographical tour of physics laws. Yes, I am that geeky.

The Words You Should Know to Sound Smart - If there's one thing I love as much as books, it's words.


The other reason my wallet will soon be much lighter and my shelves more crowded is the unfortunate bankruptcy of Borders. My local store is expecting to close shop in eight to ten weeks and it looks like most locations are liquidating all merchandise till the end.

It's hard to be excited about the upcoming deals when I feel a bit like a vulture preparing to strip someone's bones. I worked for Borders for several years in my early twenties, and I can say from experience that they were a company that took care of its employees better than most retail chains. The training and experience I learned during my time with Borders was invaluable and I truly sympathize with its employees.

But the fact is that it's happening, and I plan to take multiple trips to Borders over the next few weeks and blowing my budget every time. One thing I can't have too many of is journals, so that's something I'll definitely be looking for.

What do you hunt for when it comes to book bargains? Any thoughts or reflections on the end of Borders? 

I've Surrendered

Writers are bookish people, right? We like the smell, look, and feel of the physical object. Print on pages. Texture of paper. Weight in hand. Yep, that's me. Book person.

And as a book person I was never going to get an e-book, right? Right! Just like I would never become a nurse. Or be caught within ten feet of a romance novel. Well, I bought a Kindle. I did it just the way I ended up doing the other two "nevers." I was sitting at work, reading a book, and I wanted to read one of my writing books. But it was at home. On my laptop. With all the other notes and research materials I needed for applying to the novel I am working on. And I was happy that I had left it at home. I've been carrying the laptop around for a few years and it's beginning to feel like a chore rather than a respite from work down-time.

I have Kindle for PC and I thought that was good enough. Suddenly it wasn't. So, I bought one.

And felt a weight lifted. I didn't know, when I bought it, how much other material I could load onto it. All my drafts, research notes, workshop notes, reference material... That whole potential pile of paper now fits into my pocket.

I took it, a notebook, and a reading book to coffee soon after I bought the Kindle and felt like I was on retreat. I am imagining all kinds of other occasions where I might take the work without the "work". Today, I'm taking a road trip, on the ferry, to San Francisco. It's just a day trip to return a couple of library books and do some visual research for the novel, get some atmosphere.

As of this writing I don't know exactly what I'll be taking with me. Besides the Kindle. I'll take a photo and add it later. Being able to relax while still getting something done on the novel, making notes for editing, sketching scenes, seems to be one of the better ideas I've had for a while. I thought the laptop was liberating when I finally got one. Nice to know I'm still able to move forward.

Do you Kindle? What do you put on yours?