Yet more books, and also, stats in Calibre

[annathepiper]

I promise to post about something else as soon as I do this latest book roundup, I swear. ;)

Picked up in print:

• Red Hood’s Revenge, by jimhines (Jim Hines). Fantasy. The latest in his Princess series, which came out just as I was finishing book 2, and I am now working my way through this one! Score!
• Rift in the Sky, by Julie E. Czerneda. SF. Read this as a library book when it came out, and this is me getting my paperback copy, since Ms. Czerneda remains on the Must Have in Print list!

And, picked up electronically:

• Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord. Sort of fantasy/magical realism, from what I’ve been hearing from the buzz this book’s been getting lately. There’s a nice Big Idea piece about it over on John Scalzi’s blog, which is a nifty source for new books for me these days.
• Exit Light, by Megan Hart. Urban fantasy/paranormal romance, one of my new purchases from Carina Press. DRM-free epub files FTW! This one’s featuring interactions in dreams as the paranormal aspect.
• Song of Seduction, by Carrie Lofty. Historical romance, another Carina purchase. This one sold me for being centered around a gifted musician and the composer she adores, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
• Fatal Affair, by Marie Force. Romantic Suspense, third Carina purchase of five. Political and suspenseful stuff set in D.C., I believe.
• Love and Scandal, by Donna Lea Simpson. Another Carina historical romance. The schtick of this one is that the heroine’s been writing scandalous novels–but OHNOEZ, a notorious rank is being accused of writing them, and won’t believe that sweet little ol’ her is the actual author! Sounds like fun.
• Captive Spirit, by Liz Fichera. One more Carina historical, and I’m looking at this one since it’s featuring a non-white heroine, so looking forward to that.
• Dark and Disorderly, by Bernita Harris. Urban fantasy/paranormal romance, the last of the Carina purchases for this round.

And that’s 189!

On a related note I finally decided that I have so many ebooks that it was high time I yoinked them all into Calibre. This is a super-helpful tool, both for organizing your ebook library and for converting ebook formats (as long as they’re DRM-free). It’s also clever enough to communicate with both my Nook AND the Stanza app on my iPhone so I can do a pretty decent job of keeping track of what books I’ve got where.

It may amuse you all to know that I have a total of 426 ebooks now. Of these, 140 were acquired from various free sources: the big ebook giveaway that tor.com did when they came online, the Baen Free Library, the Suvudu Free Library, assorted authors doing promotions of their releases by giving away older releases, some acquired from Drollerie as free short pieces, and one that I won from Carina!

Of the books I bought, 63 were purchased from Barnes and Noble, 7 from Amazon, 176 from Fictionwise, 11 from Carina, and 16 from Stanza. Small presses represented in my purchases are Drollerie, Small Beer Press, Cobblestone Press, and the Book View Cafe. (Carina, being powered by Harlequin, is NOT a small press. Just so we’re clear on that!)

My next purchase is going to be naominovik‘s sixth Temeraire novel, because this is pretty much NOT OPTIONAL. But once I get that, I’m thinkin’ I’m going to take a book buying hiatus for a bit and actually READ some of these things I’ve been purchasing! Place your bets now on how long I’ll go before I buy something else!

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

How does one go about buying electronic books for the Nook from sources other than B&N? I didn't know it was possible, and still have no idea how.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, it's totally possible to put non-B&N content on the nook.

Basically, anywhere that sells in eReader/PDB, epub, or PDF formats will be nook-friendly. Epub is best, but eReader format is good as well. PDF is readable on the nook but it may show up as sloppy in the formatting, so I recommend epub as the format of choice.

What you need to do once you download books from non-B&N sources is to simply plug the nook into your computer via a USB cord. It should show up as an external drive and you can copy stuff right onto it. You will want to put non-B&N content into the "my documents" directory, and then, once you eject the nook, it should update itself and find the new content.

Also: any sites that sell Adobe Digital Editions, FWIW, are also nook-friendly. You need to go through the ADE program to do it, but it'll detect if you have a nook plugged in and will let you copy stuff down to it. It uses a 'digital editions' directory on the device rather than 'my documents', but it works.

Let me know if you need more specific instructions. I'll be happy to walk you through it step by step if need be next time I see you.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes.

[annathepiper]

You're quite welcome! Good luck!

Exit Light by Megan Hart

[(Anonymous)]

I saw this in your post: *Exit Light, by Megan Hart. Urban fantasy/paranormal romance, one of my new purchases from Carina Press. DRM-free epub files FTW! This one's featuring interactions in dreams as the paranormal aspect.* and wanted to mention that this book is NOT a romance. It's speculative fiction, and it is about dreams, and it is a wonderful book IMO, but don't read it if you're expecting a love story with a riding-into-the-sunset ending.

Re: Exit Light by Megan Hart

[annathepiper]

Hi and thanks for your comment. Just so you know, I'm actually predominantly an SF/F reader, with lesser emphasis on outright romance in my reading, though I read that too. So if there's less romance in Exit Light, that'll be fine; in fact, I like less emphasis on the romance angle and more on the actual plot. ;)

I described it as urban fantasy/paranormal romance, though, mostly because there's a very blurry line between the two these days. Also, Carina Press itself files the book under "paranormal" on its site, so it seems they're putting it onto the UF/PR spectrum.

How close it swings to either end of said spectrum, I'll be happy to discover once I actually start reading it. :)