Feb 192012
 
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The Sunday Salon.com I’ve been a member of ebookfling since December, and though I haven’t used it all that much I really like it so far. Basically, it’s a website where you can lend and borrow ebooks with other people via the “lend” ability of Kindles and Nooks. As such, it only works with Kindles and Nooks (or Kindle/Nook apps) and their corresponding ebook formats and lending rules (two weeks to keep a borrowed book, can only lend each ebook once, can’t read a book you’ve lent to someone else while it’s being borrowed, etc.).

To borrow ebooks you need credits. You get credits from lending ebooks to other people, or from buying them for $2.99 per credit. I think that’s kind of a high price for a credit, especially since you don’t get to keep the book, but I suppose if you’re desperate to read a book it’s cheaper than buying a copy for yourself. (Maybe?) The easiest way to get credits is to just load a bunch of available-to-borrow ebooks to your account, and then wait for people to request them from you. I’ve got about 120 ebooks in my library at the moment, and I get about two borrow requests a week.

To request an ebook, you can either search for what you want or add books to your wishlist, which you can set to email you once a book is available. Once you request a book, the person you requested it from has about a day or so to agree to lend it to you. I’ve only requested one book so far (Those Who Hunt the Night) but it went very smoothly and I got it within a few hours of requesting it. Neat! From loaning books to other people I’ve noticed that you don’t learn anything about the person you’re lending the book to. The process is almost completely automated, and at the most I think you’d only see their username on ebookfling. Maybe their email, too. Continue reading »

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Feb 162012
 
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I’m getting my new glasses today! They came in early. Yay!

The book: This is one of those books that I’ve had for so long I’ve forgotten why I originally got it, but once I started reading– I remembered! Well, sort of. So far Fame Fatale is (I think) about book publishing and authors and how there’s a lot of spite and backstabbing and stuff. It’s funny! I think some romance shows up later, too, which’ll be nice.

By-the-by, has anyone read Wendy Holden’s Pastures Nouveaux? Apparently it’s like an updated Cold Comfort Farm. True/false?

The tea: I have almost a whole box of Holiday Chai with me, and I’m not sure why. Because I don’t like it! It doesn’t taste good, and honestly I should have just left it somewhere instead of dragging it around with me for two months.

Do they go together? Not really, no. Unless! Oh! Okay: maybe the way I hate Holiday Chai but keep carrying it around with me is like the way that one of the protagonists hates her clients, but has to keep working with them so she’ll get paid? Yes?

Other tea drinkers

Leave a link to your TT post in the comments and I’ll add you to the tea drinkers list!

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The Sunday Salon (Feb. 12): Time

 Posted by Anastasia on February 12, 2012  6 Responses »
Feb 122012
 
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The Sunday Salon.com Now that I’ve moved to California, I’ve lived in every time zone in the continental US at one point or another. That’s kind of exciting! And living in the PST zone is, I’ve found, the most exciting one of all. I’ve been feeling lately like I’m on an entirely different schedule than everyone else, like because I’m living PST I’m almost getting away with something. For instance: when people complain that it’s late and they’re hungry and tired, I’m usually having early afternoon tea and wishing I had more cookies. When it’s dark and cold over there on the east coast, it’s usually warm and sunny over here on the west. When people get up to go to work and start their day, I’m asleep and dreaming of fantastic lands. It feels a bit like I’m on a permanent vacation, to be honest. Continue reading »

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Feb 092012
 
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This has been such a good day! I’m getting new glasses soon, and they’ll hopefully be awesome. My eye exam went really well– my optometrist was so nice!– and I didn’t spend nearly as much money getting them as I thought I’d have to. Yay!

The book: I’ve been wanting to read A Drowned Maiden’s Hair for a while now (about a year?), but I kept getting scared off by the title. It’s scary, right? I was sure it’d be a book about dead people, and not in a good way. Well, it IS a book about dead people…sort of. So far all I know is: it’s set in 1909, stars a clever and hardhearted young orphan girl, and the people who’ve adopted her have turned out to be con artists! And it’s really fun to read.

The tea: I found some Earl Grey the other day during breakfast at the hotel! It’s kind of crappy, but even crappy Earl Grey is better than none, I think.

Do they go together? A Drowned Maiden’s Hair is set in the US, but I think the con artists seem like the sort of people who drink a lot of tea. Do they drink Earl Grey tea? Probably!

Other tea drinkers

Leave a link to your TT post in the comments and I’ll add you to the tea drinkers list!

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Feb 052012
 
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The Sunday Salon.com Bad things:
1. People sending me notices about “events” they’re doing online when those events are actually just giveaways. Stop it!
2. People emailing me review offers for things that are completely outside of what I normally read/review here. Multiple times.
3. Hulu videos taking forever to buffer. It took me over an hour to watch the first episode of Smash! (Loved it, btw. Musicals!!)
4. Having to lug around all those used books which I was really happy to buy at the time but now wish I hadn’t because they’re seriously heavy.
5. Not having any candy or snacks or yummy things in the hotel room and I can’t get any unless I want to spend $4 for a small box of Cheezits from the hotel snack store thing.

Good things:
1. My new Smash book (no relation to the show of the same name), which I probably didn’t need but it’s really nifty and I like having a place to put things that I don’t want to put in my journal and/or carry around with me for another month in a big stack of ridiculousness.
2. The packets of Earl Grey tea I found at breakfast today! EARL GREY. YAY!
3. My hives are going away! The children’s Benadryl is working! DOUBLE YAY!
4. I finally got a swimsuit top so I can go swimming soon! (I accidentally packed my other ones in the moving pods.)
5. It’s my 24th birthday in 20 days and I’ve started getting lots of nifty birthday stuff like coupons for free food and discounts on things I don’t need to buy but will. Huzzah!
6. My new packet of circus stickers. They are awesome.

What good/bad things have happened to you this week?

Weekly Book Stats

Books read this week:
020. Boy Meets Girl – Meg Cabot [rating: 3.5]
021. Wanderlove – Kirsten Hubbard [rating: 5] e
022. The Wizard, the Witch and Two Girls from Jersey – Lisa Papademetriou [rating: 3]
023. Stupid Fast – Geoff Herbach [rating: 4] e
024. The Unidentified – Rae Mariz [rating: 4] e
025. Entwined – Heather Dixon [rating: 5] e

Books reviewed this week:
013. Withering Tights – Louise Rennison [rating: 2] e
016. ttyl – Lauren Myracle [rating: 3]
017. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants – Ann Brashares [rating: 2.5]
018. Vesper – Jeff Sampson [rating: 3] e
019. Dramarama – E. Lockhart [rating: 4]

Books acquired this week:

  • Dust by Arthur Slade (bought).
  • Jane by April Lindner (bought).

Also: I’m on Pinterest now! Figured I might as well try it out and see what I can do with it.

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Thursday Tea (Feb. 2): Entwined

 Posted by Anastasia on February 2, 2012  2 Responses »
Feb 022012
 
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The book: Hives I mean, hello! Welcome to February. It’s cold and overcast and a bit drizzly here in SoCal, but I’m sure it’ll clear up eventually. I can’t say the same about my hives.

Today I’m reading Entwined by Heather Dixon, which is currently only $0.99 at Amazon if you’re interested in getting it for yourself. It’s another retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses story, though I think I’m going to like it more than the previous retelling I read. For one thing, the princesses have more memorable names (still flowers/plants, but more unusual than “Daisy” or whatever. Bramble is an awesome name, don’t you think?).

The tea: I’m actually not drinking tea. I’m drinking water. Lots and lots of water. To flush out my hives, I guess? Some people have said it works. Eh.

If I had some tea, I’d probably have something with flowers in it. Because…duh.

Do they go together? Water goes with everything, really, although only in a boring kind of way.

Other tea drinkers

Leave a link to your TT post in the comments and I’ll add you to the tea drinkers list!

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The Sunday Salon.com I LOVE reading classic books, but I have the hardest time ever writing reviews for them. It’s like I get intimidated by all the thousands of people who’ve written about classics before me (and who’ve probably done a better job), and then everything I write comes out sounding stupid. You know? Continue reading »

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