What books are we reading at the moment ?

[citoyen]

1. Fatuous pedantry. Yawn.

2. Wrong anyway. Do you seriously believe people don't talk IRL about things they've seen on the internet?

3. Also wrong because, as Led Zeppelin once so wisely put it, sometimes words have two meanings.

4. This is going boringly OT now. Stop it.

[mattc]

4. This is going boringly OT now. Stop it.

Whatever you say boss - I've no great desire to have a row over cat photos 

(I'm sure I can find a more trivial argument somewhere on YACF ...)

[andrewc]

Waterstones to close multiple branches   

The one at the bottom of Bold St in Liverpool has a sign up saying it will be closing on 1st February.  They have a larger shop in the newish Liverpool One mall within walking distance so I think it's days were numbered anyway.

I get most stuff for myself on Kindle these days, but that's due to lack of shelf space more than anything else.   I buy books as presents, and like to browse shops for them.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

1. Fatuous pedantry. Yawn.

On YACF? Surely not? 

Skagboys is on hold while I read library books - The Awakening by Kate Chopin and Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton.

[Quint]

Yeah, that'll be why a google search for "funny cat photos" returns 170 million results.

      How sad for them, I am a worrier by nature and while I think t'internet can be a good thing if used for communication and research I do wonder if maybe a bit of policing wouldn't be a good thing. By way of explanation I mean things like child pornography and in fact pornography in general, instructions for bomb making is another and, oh dear, where would we stop. Are nutters and perverts on the increase or were they always there in such numbers, I have a large bottle of Paddys Whiskey, it may help me to answer the unanswerable, wheres the bloody ice 

[ian]

Waterstones to close multiple branches   

The one at the bottom of Bold St in Liverpool has a sign up saying it will be closing on 1st February.  They have a larger shop in the newish Liverpool One mall within walking distance so I think it's days were numbered anyway.

I get most stuff for myself on Kindle these days, but that's due to lack of shelf space more than anything else.   I buy books as presents, and like to browse shops for them.

It's a bit of dead business model – at least for mass market paperbacks (does anyone buy hardbacks?). The internet is where it's at, same as for music and increasingly video. Bricks and mortar either need to provide something that the internet can't or something additional, otherwise they're little more than a showroom for Amazon. Merely having a large stock of books isn't enough, Amazon are always going to have more. I quite like the experience of browsing, but it's a pity they've no linked up the download, why can't I grab the book there and then. Instead I have to note it down and then go home and (more likely than not) order it from Amazon. They almost missed the boat with DRM - can I buy an e-book in Waterstones and read it on my Kindle? I've no idea, which I guess is the fail.

[rogerzilla]

Just finished Robert Harris' old account of the Hitler diaries fiasco, "Selling Hitler".  It was a con trick of the purest variety; one forger knocked up the whole lot along with a shedload of "Hitler paintings" and even flogged the idiot Stern journalist (who had a serious Nazi obsession) the revolver Hitler used to shoot himself - despite the fact that it was manufactured in the wrong country and was of the wrong calibre, the journalist was convinced by a tag the forger attached to it saying basically "This is the revolver Hitler used to shoot himself, signed Martin Bormann".

The forger was sufficiently sloppy that the gothic Letraset he used on the diary covers said "FH" rather than "AH" but once you've found someone gullible enough, you keep milking them.

Prize right-wing tit David Irving was the first to denounce the diaries as fakes and then changed his mind just before they were proved to be so 

[David Martin]

Popper - The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Very interesting so far; I've made it through both prefaces and am up to page 8 where he is denouncing induction.

[Steph]

David, my sweet, what an apt book for you!

[Ruth]

I finally unpacked 'Take On Africa', Helen Lloyd's account of her ride through Africa, yesterday.  Helen is a member of the CTC forum, if you're interested.

Helen's bike ride is about the journey, not the cycling, and she lives the opportunity to meet her environment wholeheartedly.

It's a cracking read so far.

[pcolbeck]

Waterstones to close multiple branches   
I get most stuff for myself on Kindle these days, but that's due to lack of shelf space more than anything else.   I buy books as presents, and like to browse shops for them.

That story is from Feb 2011.

[andrewc]

Waterstones to close multiple branches   
I get most stuff for myself on Kindle these days, but that's due to lack of shelf space more than anything else.   I buy books as presents, and like to browse shops for them.

That story is from Feb 2011.

So it is     I sent someone a text about the Bold St, Liverpool one closing and was sent that link in return.  I should have checked the date !

[mattc]

<Waterstone's' >

It's a bit of dead business model – at least for mass market paperbacks (does anyone buy hardbacks?). The internet is where it's at, same as for music and increasingly video. Bricks and mortar either need to provide something that the internet can't or something additional, otherwise they're little more than a showroom for Amazon. Merely having a large stock of books isn't enough, Amazon are always going to have more. I quite like the experience of browsing, but it's a pity they've no linked up the download, why can't I grab the book there and then. Instead I have to note it down and then go home and (more likely than not) order it from Amazon. They almost missed the boat with DRM - can I buy an e-book in Waterstones and read it on my Kindle? I've no idea, which I guess is the fail.

The coffee-shop + browsing model seems to have resuscitated the dying book-shop. Seems to work best in known 'book' places e.g. Oxford, Hay-on-Wye - perhaps because book-lovers make a trip out of browsing several shops.

You're right about downloading the book you've just browsed - I guess they need some sort of scanning tech, like the supermarket 'Self-scan' thingies, or something app-based.
I'd be pretty certain someone is looking into this already, but I'm surprised it hasn't appeared yet in any form.

Instead I have to note it down and then go home and (more likely than not) order it from Amazon.

"note it down"? you luddite - where's your camera-phone?!?

[citoyen]

Why even wait until you get home? The Amazon app has a barcode scanner and 1-click ordering...

[ian]

Actually, I do have some barcode app that indeed does all the work for me and brings back prices and availability on anything across the web. In all honesty, I mostly just rely on my good olde-fashioned wetware to remember the books I want.

Coffee shop works fine, though I'm not convinced whether it translates into sales of anything but coffee. Coffee, tbh, is probably far mure lucrative that books.

According to the internet, Waterstones do offer some kind of browse-and-download service, but considering I've been hanging around in Waterstones for several years, it's news to me. Which again is the problem. Despite spending a long time in their stores, I don't know how to buy ebooks from them or if I can read them. That's a fail.

Businesses didn't learn much from Apple decimating the music industry, in the much the same way, bookshops and publishers owned the space and yet they let Amazon march in take everything, while they still wittered on about the NBP, totally missing the point that the threat was somewhere else.

[mattc]

Coffee shop works fine, though I'm not convinced whether it translates into sales of anything but coffee. Coffee, tbh, is probably far mure lucrative that books.

Yes I'm sure that's the case!

Nevertheless, a lot of these places have a quite small cafe attached to (and/or subsidising) truly massive physical collections of browsable titles. whether I buy their coffee* or not, I find this a good thing. (And better than a High St of just coffee chains and mobile phone shops).

*I usually pick the best smell, then order off Amazon-rainforest-coffee.com. Sometimes it's home before me

[mrcharly-YHT]

'Alif the unseen'

Hacking, 'net security, Islam, the Arab spring and djinn. What's not to like?

[L CC]

Last week I finally finished the (shite) audio book I'd been listening to. It had become an audax-esque chore, in that I'd started so I was determined to finish, and I simply wasn't enjoying it.

(The Secret Keeper By Kate Morton)

This week I've started on The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon and in a New Years Resolve (see Poor Student) have given it 50km, am not having any fun, have removed from my device.

Golly, this is liberating.

[citoyen]

Levels Of Life by Julian Barnes

Confirmation, if it were needed, that I could happily read Julian Barnes on any imaginable subject - I never imagined I'd be so captivated by an essay on 19th century hot air ballooning and photography, but I was. And then it turns out to be a sublime extended metaphor for his grief over the death of his wife. Heartbreaking and beautiful.

[Bledlow]

Terry Pratchet - Raising Steam

[Nuncio]

Finished Tom Sawyer. It seems to me like Richmal Crompton and the Simpsons writers owe a lot to Mark Twain. Now enjoying Huckleberry Finn, with Harvest lined up next.

[David Martin]

Why even wait until you get home? The Amazon app has a barcode scanner and 1-click ordering...

And my basic barcode scanner gives me the amazon link to the ISBN when I scan it.

[Steph]

Terry Pratchet - Raising Steam

Just finished.

[Steph]

Have you read 'How To Be A Woman' by Caitlin Moran? I just finished it and, while I don't agree with her necessarily, it's very very funny indeed.

Halfway through; ta for the suggestion. Laughing like a drain and recognising a lot of common ground. I have collected, for later use, "as thick as a barrel of toes"

[mattc]

I've been sent a couple of reading challenge suggestions, from one of the 30 zillion book blogs that my Literarally Better Half reads. If you like this sort of thing:

(if tl, dr!)

(click to show/hide)

The 2014 Global Reading Challenge (2014GRC) challenges you to expand your reading boundaries, go where you haven't been before, move a little outside your comfort zone. It is hosted by Kerrie of MYSTERIES in PARADISE.

The goal is to read one or more novels from each of these continents in the course of 2014:

Africa
Asia
Australasia
Europe
North America
South America (please include Central America where it is most convenient for you)
and
The Seventh Continent (here you can either choose Antarctica or your own ´seventh´ setting, eg the sea, the space, a supernatural/paranormal world, history, the future – you name it).

* You may read any genre so long as the books are fiction. There are three levels: Either read one book, two books or three books from each continent.
* Decide which level you will attempt, although you can change that later if you wish. I am committing to The Easy Challenge: Read one novel from each of these continents in the course of 2014. I know I will read more than one book for some of these continents, but I am trying to keep my challenge involvement low pressure this year.

Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2014
Posted: 08 Jan 2014 07:13 PM PST

I am joining in on the Mount TBR Reading Challenge for the third year. This challenge is hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block.

 Challenge Levels:

Pike's Peak: Read 12 books from your TBR pile/s
Mount Blanc: Read 24 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Vancouver: Read 36 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Ararat: Read 48 books from your TBR piles/s
Mt. Kilimanjaro: Read 60 books from your TBR pile/s
El Toro: Read 75 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Everest: Read 100 books from your TBR pile/s
Mount Olympus (Mars): Read 150+ books from your TBR pile/s


Some of the rules are:

* Once you choose your challenge level, you are locked in for at least that many books. If you find that you're on a mountain-climbing roll and want to tackle a taller mountain, then you are certainly welcome to upgrade.
> * Challenge runs from January 1 to December 31, 2014.
> * Books must be owned by you prior to January 1, 2013. No ARCs (none), no library books. No rereads.