Book Binge
Oh, I was a bad girl today.
I’ve had a $40 gift card to Borders burning a hole in my wallet since mid-April, when my brother (who is not a reader) turned up with a late birthday present. Unfortunately, two days later I took off for the field, where there is not a Borders within 50 miles. And when I got back, I had a glut of BookMooch and LibraryThing Early Reviewer books waiting for me, so I didn’t feel right going and acquiring another pile of books.
But, I’ve had a mildly-crappy few days and needed a reward for surviving the week, plus the smell of burning wallet was getting a little bit strong.
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Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, Book 2) by Brandon Sanderson Read my review here This just came out in paperback, and Brandon said on his blog that initial week sales count for quite a bit in the publishing world, and a) I think Sanderson’s a great author who deserves the “push” of good first-week sales, and b) I was planning to buy it for myself eventually. I love the new-style of cover art, too… the old cover wasn’t bad, but the new cover… that is exactly how I pictured Vin (except where are the tassels on her mistcloak?). |
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The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 1) by Patrick Rothfuss
Every review of this book that I have heard, both professional and from people I know, has been that it is orgasmically good for anyone who likes the fantasy genre. How could I pass it up? While I’m sitting around waiting for the third Mistborn book (by Sanderson), the twelfth Wheel of Time book (Robert Jordan’s series being finished posthumously by Sanderson), George R. R. Martin’s fifth book in A Song of Ice and Fire, I have been seriously lacking in 700-plus-page fantasy, and summer’s my favorite time to get into really fatty-fat paperbacks. This one is probably coming on vacation with me in July. |
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501 Must-Taste Cocktails, edited by Emma Beare
Oh, that pesky Bargain Books rack. It’ll get you (and by you, I mean me, and my liver) every time. On a quick flip through, more than a few of the recipes call for relatively rare ingredients, like guava syrup and the like, but the recipes are organized by main alcohol (rum/gin/vodka/etc.), which I appreciate. |
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Not a book, but it was on sale for $6 and I couldn’t resist. I strongly suspect that it was impossible to be a teenage girl in the mid-nineties and not love this movie. |
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Also came in the mail from BookMooch today:
The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice, by Margaret F. Rosenthal To be honest, I absolutely and completely purchased this book because I love the movie Dangerous Beauty. Flipping through it, it looks more academic than I was expecting, but I’ll give it a shot. And, if it’s terrible or unreadably dry, I’ll re-mooch it, mix myself a cocktail, and then go watch the movie. |
Plus I’ve still got $9.01 left on my giftcard, awaiting some future must-have-it book! Hooray!
Happy weekend, y’all.
(Also, if anyone knows why my code is being all weird and giving me those giant spaces between books, let me know. I can’t figure it out, and it’s time for bed.)
Fyrefly's Book Blog 
Okay, and now I’ve got the theme song from Clueless stuck in my head.
“She is, literally, the polaroid of perfection…”
I LOVE Clueless. Hilarious movie.
Hey – I saw a comment you made on http://thewrittenword.blogspot.com about getting rid of the borders and “Search Inside” things on images from Amazon.com. I didn’t quite get how to do it. Can you walk me through it – very slowly?? I hate using images from Amazon because of the borders/Search Inside. Thanks so much! You can email me at blogginboutbooks@gmail.com . TIA.
Sure! It’s only concerned with the stuff between the the last slash of the address and the end – the front part of the address is going to vary based on which server Amazon has the image on.
Here’s the original address:
Basically, you can take out any of the little chunks surrounded by underscores – each of them controls part of the image – white space, arrow, etc. For instance, getting rid of the arrow gives this address:
Getting rid of the BO part of the address gets rid of the border, a subtle change:
The AA part makes it a square, 240 x 240 pixels, which gives the white bits on the sides. The SL part allows you to control the scaling – in this case it’s a maximum of 500 pixels tall. Of course, you can strip ALL of the parts with the underscore to just get the base image:
Which you can then control the size of with a height=”300″ addendum after the src=”whatever” inside your image tag.
The best way to get familiar with this is just to open the image in its own window and play around with the address. Another trick I’ve learned is for image addresses that end in _SLZZZZZZZZ_, the L can be changed to M for medium images, or T for thumbnails.
Dev, I don’t know if it’s better or worse than the theme song, but I’ve had Alicia Silverstone going “I am totally, butt crazy in love with Josh!!!” stuck in my head since yesterday.
Just to share the fun.
Clueless can cheer anyone up! I’ve only seen it once, but it was funny and was good brain candy.
Okay, it might just be me, but I don’t read books about courtesans for their honesty. :) I’ll look forward to your review to see what you think.
LH – Hee hee hee! Very true, although I’ll make an exception for this particular courtesan.
If you haven’t seen Dangerous Beauty (the movie based on the book), and like period movies, I highly recommend it – it’s a fun costume romance, perfect for a lazy rainy weekend afternoon.
Oh, how I love a good trip to Borders. I miss shopping there, lost my job a few months ago. But I enjoyed hearing about your little shopping spree. And, my goodness, I own Clueless, love it!