The Not a Book Club Club discussion
Random Musings..
If you have a PC, install kindle for PC. Run it and download the books you've bought. Then install calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com/). Then do a search for the DeDRM plug in and install it. Open calibre and drag and drop the azw files from "My Documents/My Kindle Content" into calibre. You've now got yourself a backupable database of ebooks that you can format shift to read on any ebook reader. Once you get free of kindle you'll be amazed at how good some of the readers are.
Awesome!I've been toying with the Tolino reader that is popular in Germany, but I love the foward/back buttons on my Keyboard Kindle and don't want to tap/swipe the screen to change page.
Mine are organized by size and series. So my big thick series are on the bottom shelves of my cases (hardback Harry Potter and ASOIAF) and the size decreases as they go up the case.
Yes, I somewhat have a similar setup, because I found that the IKEA Billy shelving units have way too much space between shelves if you're only putting paperbacks on them. So to save some space I put in an extra shelf in each bookcase. The middle shelf is fixed, and could not be moved to space them out, but I now have 3 shelves above the middle, rather than just two. That means big books at the bottom, small books at the top.
Beware of Billy shelving.They crumble under the weight of books after a little while :(
My books are divided by genre...and stacked to optimize the space. Filled to the brim :)
I split into three size categories (small paperback, large paperback, hardcover), if they vary in a series it goes with whichever book is largest, then alphabetize according to author. I don't have a lot of non-fiction but if I did I would those separate by topic.
Oh, don't scare me about my Billy's! I have 11 of them!Although, I used to have two rows of books on one shelf, and recently got new shelving so that now it's 1 row per shelf again, as it should be. The oldest Billy I have is 8 years old, but so far it holds up well.
And I kid you not, back in high school my classmates voted me "most likely to be killed by an avalanche of books".
Kat wrote: "And I kid you not, back in high school my classmates voted me "most likely to be killed by an avalanche of books""That made me laugh:)
Ideally, I'd shelf my books alphabetical by author then by series. But, in reality, it looks very unsorted. I have all of my Stephen King books in chronological order. But then some of the fantasy books are in the bottom right, but the rest are in the top left. It comes down to efficiency, I think. Certain groups of books fit a particular shelf, so that's where they sit. On a whim, I could think of a new way arrange them on the shelf, and I'll feel compelled to give it a shot.
My books are a mess. I put 3 big bins of books in my parents basement and have the rest stuffed every which way on two shelves in my closet.
Okay, so yesterday I spent an hour and a half standing in my library, looking at the shelves, trying to decide how to best organise it.I most like the idea of alphabetically by author - ideally with little dividers sticking out for the letters, like they have in bookshops - but had to abandon that idea when I realised that most hardcovers won't fit the upper shelves, and I would be wasting space elsewhere if a lot of small paperbacks end up on larger lower shelves.
I will most likely keep my current fit-where-there-is-space scheme, but I want to make an effort to at least keep authors together. Bernard Cornwell will finally get his own shelf. Sanderson will get his own half of a shelf. Pratchett already has two, and Minette Walters and Jim Butcher each have a half one.
The rest I'll try to roughly organise by genre. Nautical books will get their own section. I will make a section for crime /thrillers, and I will make a special little shelf for books set in my home town / district. Small shelf for anthologies and short story collections. Separate shelf for books that I advertise for swapping online (along with envelopes and stamps to send them out).
I will try to put them alphabetically within sections, but not strictly. If a series fits better on an adjacient shelf, it'll go there.
I fancy making little signs to show off the sections - perhaps a little sailing ship for the nautical section, and a dagger for the murder mysteries....
Aaaarrgghhh!I just got The Bands of Mourning in the post. With the nice white/sky blue cover.
And guess what - it's a different size to the other 8 Sanderson books that I have.
THIS IS SO ANNOYING!
I checked all the online bookshops I use, and they all have this bigger edition only. What the actual F !
After so many delays and speculations, The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch has FINALLY been published today. Available on Kindle, hardback expected anytime and paperback probably in January 2017. I'd have expected there to be a bigger announcement after all that struggle, but instead I was informed by people who pre-ordered that it suddenly downloaded to their Kindles this morning.
Yippieh!
Mod
The audio is really great.
What was the "struggle" your talking about? Has it been a really long time since book 5 was published or something?
It was meant to come out way earlier in the year and was delayed a couple of times.
Mod
I wonder when the audio will be out. Not that I'm caught up, but I hate it when audio doesn't come out the same day as the ebook. I realize there is extra work required, but audio is big business now, and I've gotten spoiled that 97% of books I want to read seem to have simultaneous releases now.
It was first expected to come out in early 2015, but it kept being announced and pushed back, announced, pushed back... the last announcement was for the paperback to come out in 2017, so the ebook getting out now is a surprise. As far as I know it was the publisher who delayed it, although I do not know what the reason was. Personally, I suspect there might have been negotiations about royalties, as that is the most common reason for publishers to leave a successful author hanging with their manuscripts.
People started to suspect the book wasn't finished, but Aaronovitch demented that several times online, assuring readers that the book was done but that he had no control over the publication date.
So excited I just went to my local library and got a huge haul of books for $7. First off I found a 1965 first edition boxed set of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit(separate but same edition) for $1 because the librarian said they would count the boxed set as 1 book.
I also got a hardcover copy of The Summer Dragon by Todd Lockwood which came out earlier this year and lists for $26 for $1.
Besides those I got 10 other books. One was an omnibus of Michael Moorcock's entire Von Bek series. All of the others are already on my tbr.
Bill wrote: "I also got a hardcover copy of The Summer Dragon by Todd Lockwood which came out earlier this year and lists for $26 for $1. .."Excellent haul, and I just wanted to add that this book is brilliant.
Lindsay wrote: "Excellent haul, and I just wanted to add that this book is brilliant."I have heard really good things but was going to hold off until the series was closer to being done to start.
Rob wrote: "Nice!"
Thanks!
Bill wrote: "So excited I just went to my local library and got a huge haul of books for $7. First off I found a 1965 first edition boxed set of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit(separate but same edition) for..."
Nice finds! I'm always partial to anything LoTR and I was pleasantly surprised by Summer Dragon.....nice artwork as well.
I got a used copy of The Silmarillion recently. It's an old hardcover with the fold out map in the back. It's awesome!
@Ctgt - I've been going through Summer Dragon just looking at the artwork and it is really nicely done.@Geoff - That's awesome. My Silmarillion is sadly lacking a fold out map.
Mod
I think the money you'd spend to get there would offset any money you'd save on books. :-D
like Rob said don't think it would be worthwhile. I think I got lucky and someone had just donated their collection because there is usually only a few fantasy books there from lesser known authors.
But.... wait.Is the money you paid the lending fee, or do you get to keep the books?
I NEED THIS !!!
I finished my Reading Challenge for the year today so was looking at the stats and they are crazy.Participants 2,932,632
Books Pledged 137,965,616
Books Finished 34,774,349
Avg. Books Pledged 47
Challenges Completed 10,097
Time Left 36 days, 8 hours
I realize that there is still over a month left and there are also probably a ton of people who set a number and then never look at GR again but the number of unfinished challenges is staggering.
Mod
Hence my modest 20, which I finish in July/August.For the past 3 years I read my 20 books in the first half of the year, then only read 3-6 in the second half.
My excuse is that I have exams in the second half, so have to study and can't read. If only I believed that myself.
Mod
I tend to slow down at the end of the year too. This year is far worse though, because I'm spending so much of my free time on WoW instead of reading.
Hey does anyone know if there is a way to mute notifications specific topics/threads? I know I can configure goodreads to not notify me at the group level but I am interested in doing this at the discussion thread level.I am anal about having no unread notifications, but 80% of the notifications (for all the groups I am in) are for books in which I am not participating in the read.
It'd be great if I could configure goodreads to not notify me at the topic/thread level but still keep group notifications enabled - that way I might go from 40 notifications a day down to 10 :)
Thanks!
Once you're getting all notifications for a group you get all notifications for it and can't turn them off at a thread level.It's not what you want, but you can turn off notifications for the group and just turn them on for the threads you're interested in. That would require a bit of work to get what you want (you'd have to remember to turn on notifications for the book threads you want to read).
Yeah, I turned everything off, and then went into the threads I wanted and clicked 'notify me' at the bottom. You'll need an extra click if you only want website notifications and not email.I don't do it for most book discussions, because I check my recent group activity from the discussions overview and will see the threads popping up there. Then again, that only works if you check daily and your groups aren't huge.
Interesting - thanks both. I am going try that. Yes, I prefer just getting the website icon notification, not email. I check daily so I can just look at recent activity for each group and check the threads I am interested in. This way I can check goodreads once a day instead of every few hours so my notifications don't overflow.I really didnt realize how little free time I'd have after having a baby :)
Next up is to unsubscribe from the 200 random emails I get each day from ecomm sites and newsletters.
Mod
Bigger groups I do selective notifications based on what Lindsay/Kat recommends.
I do tend to use the "unread" page the most though. In fact I have bookmarks for all of those.
Ex: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/unrea...
Or maybe more importantly for S&L: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/unrea...
Then once I've skimmed over the new stuff and read/subscribed to any new threads of interest, I click the "mark all as read" to clear things out for my next visit.
I generally check those pages about twice/day.
If you don't want emails, I think there is a global profile setting to make that the default when you subscribe to a thread, but I'm not 100% since I prefer the emails myself. Check under account settings/Emails (https://www.goodreads.com/user/edit). Note that link isn't direct. You'll still have to click the Emails tab.
The Draons & Jetpacks group is doing Secret Santa. I don't post frequently enough there to take part (they said it's for members with a minimum number of posts).Anyone interested to do something similar here? Not sure we're enough people though.
Mod
I nominate Kat to spearhead the effort :)
I started reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? yesterday but after 2 chapters I just could not continue with the book, it was just too much disorientation for me.So started Wild Seed and so far I am liking it.
I had exactly the same reaction Sumant. I can't get into much of Dick's writing at all.
Rob wrote: "In theory yes. In reality though I'm way too behind on my reading."You would be allowed to put your secret santa book on your TBR pile until you get to it.
I wouldn't mind organising it if people are interested.
Mod
The Not a Book Club Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Hanging Tree (other topics)Sword Song (other topics)
Dark is the Moon (other topics)
Foxglove Summer (other topics)
The Bands of Mourning (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Anthony Ryan (other topics)Miles Cameron (other topics)
Sebastien de Castell (other topics)
Sebastien de Castell (other topics)
Miles Cameron (other topics)
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I don't know how to get ebooks that I bought from amazon into a safe place other than my amazon account.
But yeah, I tend to delete ebooks off the Kindle once they're read.