Joseph ’s Comments (group member since Jul 28, 2009)

Joseph ’s comments from the Book Buying Addicts Anonymous group.

CD wrote: "This could be a tough challenge!"

Yeah, but tough is fun! :-)


Hands Of Flame by C.E. Murphy

Susan (Suz) wrote: "I feel left out! Guess I better get on the book buying bandwagon for February :):)"

Susan, I know the feeling. It's like I'm not doing my duty. lol. Unfortunately, my book buying budget has been severely cut do to the recent acquisition of a new used automobile. I think my days of binge buying are gone, at least for the next five years. :-)

Audrey wrote: "Joseph wrote: "Looloo, it is a bit strange. Bone Magic is still %50 off but most of the other UF I fortunately did already order have really shot up in cost."

OMG ... A new website (to me) and the book I wanting at 50% off! Thanks for the info! I don't know if this a good thing or a bad thing for me. LOL"

Hey Looloo! Look! We've corrupted another one! lol

Shattered Chains by Clayton Emery

Sorry I've missed so much guys, I've been having some computer problems lately. But how about this for another theme: Any title you want, but the LAST word in the title is the one that has to begin with the next letter? The title must be at least two words long.

Start with A Circle of ASHES by Cate Tiernan

I'll try, Looloo. But it's SO hard to wait sometimes. :-)

I want to buy Black Magic Sanction this month. Amazon is offering a 46% off preorder price while Book Depository is only offering 25% off. I'm debating whether to preorder it from Amazon now or wait and see if BookDepo will offer the 50% off when the book comes out like they sometimes do.

being a librarian, I was cataloging my personal library in a database I made long before I discovered Goodreads. At the end of each month, I like to tally up how many items I have in my library. And as of Jan. 31, 2010, I found I currently have exactly 4000 items in my collection. Not bad, huh? :-)

And that leaves me only 2487 items away from my goal of matching the number Thomas Jefferson donated to the Library of Congress. At my pace of acquisition, it should only take me about another six years. Hopefully by then I'll be able to afford a house so I'll have somewhere to put all these books, they sure won't all fit in my apartment. That is, unless I move into my downstair neighbor's place, which I might do by way of falling right through the floor due to the weight of bookcases. :-D

Miracle of miracles, I actually haven't bought anything yet. But Borders is really tempting me, today they sent me an All Books Buy 1, Get 1 50% Off coupon. I've read that Borders is really in danger of going out of business and I fear they might. They seem to be offering these unbelievable coupons every week to try and drum up more business.

Friends, any February purchases post here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...

January is over, you know. :-)

You'll like Skinwalker, it's an original story, a neat combo of vampires and shifters.

Traveller, you are going to fit in just fine here. If you want to feel better, check out the Jan. poll. Last I looked there were a couple who had bought just as many as you (like me) and some who had bought even more. :-)

January is now over, so feel free to head over to the poll and post your tally for the month here: http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/29...

www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-a...

chicagotribune.com
Publisher Macmillan's books pulled from Amazon.com in pricing dispute
HILLEL ITALIE

AP National Writer

10:57 PM CST, January 30, 2010

NEW YORK (AP) — New copies of Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall," Andrew Young's "The Politician" and other books published by Macmillan were unavailable Saturday on Amazon.com, a drastic step in the ongoing dispute over e-book prices.

Macmillan CEO John Sargent said he was told Friday that its books would be removed from Amazon.com, as would e-books for Amazon's Kindle e-reader. Books will be available on Amazon.com through private sellers and other third parties, Sargent said.

Sargent met with Amazon officials Thursday to discuss the publisher's new pricing model for e-books. He wrote in a letter to Macmillan authors and literary agents Saturday that the plan would allow Amazon to make more money selling Macmillan books and that Macmillan would make less. He characterized the dispute as a disagreement over "the long-term viability and stability of the digital book market."

Macmillan and other publishers have criticized Amazon for charging just $9.99 for best-selling e-books on its Kindle e-reader, a price publishers say is too low and could hurt hardcover sales, which generally carry a list price of more than $24.

Macmillan is one of the world's largest English-language publishers. Its divisions include St. Martin's Press, itself one of the largest publishers in the U.S.; Henry Holt & Co., one of the oldest publishers in America; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; and Tor, the leading science-fiction publisher.

Sargent credited Amazon in his letter, calling the company a "valuable customer" and a "great innovator in our industry."

But, he wrote, the digital book industry needs to create a business model that provides equal opportunities for retailers. Under Macmillan's model, to be put in place in March, e-books will be priced from $12.99 to $14.99 when first released and prices will change over time.

For its part, Amazon wants to keep a lid on prices as competitors line up to challenge its dominant position in a rapidly expanding market. The company did not immediately return messages seeking comment Saturday.

Barnes & Noble's Nook and Sony Corp.'s e-book readers are already on sale. But the latest and most talked about challenger is Apple Inc., which just introduced the long-awaited iPad tablet computer and a new online book store modeled on iTunes. Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, suggested publishers may offer some e-titles to Apple before they are allowed to go on sale at Amazon.com

The e-book market is an increasingly important one for Amazon. The company hasn't given specific sales figures on the Kindle, but CEO Jeff Bezos said Thursday that "millions" own the device. The company now sells six digital copies to every 10 physical ones of books available in either format.

To preserve the more lucrative hardcover business, publishers including Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins Hachette Book Group USA have said they will impose delays on the release of digital copies.

It's not the first time that books have disappeared from Amazon's virtual shelves. Last summer, Kindle users were surprised and unsettled to receive notice that George Orwell works they had purchased, including "1984" and "Animal Farm," had been removed and their money refunded. It was a deletion of pirated copies that had been posted to the Kindle store, but the ordeal highlighted a concern — that a book already paid for and acquired can be revoked by an e-tailer. The Kindle operates on a wireless connection that Amazon ultimately controls.

Bezos later apologized, and Amazon offered affected customers free books or $30.

Late Friday, author Cory Doctorow, who is published by Tor, the Macmillan division, called readers and writers "the civilian casualties" of the dispute in a post on his popular Web site, boingboing.net. It's a "case of two corporate giants illustrating neatly exactly why market concentration is bad for the arts," he wrote.

Another Tor writer, John Scalzi, speculated that Amazon's move would have "a long-term effect on Amazon's relationship with publishers, and not the one Amazon is likely to want," he wrote on his Web site.

___

AP Business Writer Andrew Vanacore in New York contributed to this report.

I don't know about you, but it sure feels like January went by fast. Since tomorrow is the first of February, I thought I'd get this thread started so it would be up and ready for us to list our February purchases. Have fun.

P.S. Don't forget to go to the polls and tally up your January purchase total to see how bad or how good (depending how you look at it) you were compared to the other Book Buying Addicts. :-)

I went to a book signing last night and got Alice I Have Been: A Novel signed by Melanie Benjamin. I went back through my library and found I've got a pretty nice collection of signed books. I have:
The Ann Landers Encyclopedia, A to Z: Improve Your Life Emotionally, Medically, Sexually, Socially, Spiritually. signed by Ann Landers
From Fishponds to Warships: Pearl Harbor--A Complete Illustrated History signed by Allan Seiden
Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, AND Digital Fortress signed by Dan Brown
Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities signed by both the author Amy Stewart and the illustrator Briony Morrow-Cribbs
and When the Dead Speak signed by S.D. Tooley

How about you?

I went to a book signing tonight and got Alice I Have Been: A Novel signed by Melanie Benjamin. She also talked a little about how she wrote it. Her talk was really interesting and I gave the book 5 stars.
I also won an uncorrected advance proof as a door prize there: The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni
That brings me up to 70 books I've added to my library this month. Still have 3 days to go. :-)

Michelle wrote: "Borders has a 33% off coupon that expires 2/1/10; I almost never allow one of those coupons to go to waste :P ..."

I'm doing the best I can to fight off the urge to use those 33% off coupons. So far so good, but it is NOT easy! lol

Oy vay. Guess what? I brought home another five used books from the library:
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Secret Supper: A Novel by Javier Sierra
206 Bones by Kathy Reichs
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
and
National Geographic on Indians of the Americas

Quite a variety, huh? And that brings me up to 68 for the month, too.

Got another delivery from Bookdepository.com : Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde
A great book, one of the two 5-star reviews I've given so far this year.