I snagged not one, not two, but three books in the last couple months from Library Thing woot! Now, if I could only find the time and inclination to read them. The books I got are “Love in 90 Days” by Diana Kirschner, PhD (hell I figure with my non-existent love life it can only help hehe,) “The Way of Ping” by Stuart Avery Gold (which is about taking risks, something I’m not all that fond of,) and “The Sound of Building Coffins” which I requested cuz I liked the title. I don’t normally read much fiction but this one sounded kinda like an historical novel, which I do like sometimes. The latter is an advance copy with that “uncorrected proof” disclaimer though which means scary typo time hehe. But hey the book was free, I guess I can put away my typo pet peeve (and who knows, maybe it’s typo-free, although I’ve never had that happen before with a proof copy.) Anyway, it’s a rainy weekend, maybe I’ll make some progress reading them.

I snagged another Early Reviewer book from Library Thing. Yay! And this one is timely, what with all the “parent in nursing home” and “getting to that age” stuff I’ve been going through lately. So, the timing couldn’t be more perfect. I dunno what kinda algorithms they use at Library Thing but they’ve pretty much nailed it for me. Oh! I did get one fiction book that was one of the bonus books, which I haven’t read yet, but that was the exception, all the others have been eerily appropriate to my tastes and “needs.”

Aaaah I snagged another Library Thing early reviewer book. I still haven’t finished reading the last two I got (one of which is very short but it’s about religion and I gotta be “in the mood” for that.) The other one I’m reading at work though. So I should have that one read and reviewed within a week or so. I think it’s been about a month since I got it, ugh, bad me. I think I might have to stop requesting books for a bit though until I get caught up (I also have two library books out that I haven’t even started to read yet. And one I just returned that I didn’t start either.) Anyway, it’s cool I get picked every freakin’ month though (and for what it’s worth, I pretty much only pick books I think I’ll actually read and like, not every single book that’s remotely interesting which is what I did at first and didn’t get a review copy out of the deal.)

Oh, and totally off-topic but I filled up with gas today, and it actually cost less than the last time I bought it … only $4.43/gal hehe. Ouch. But hey, it cost less than $50 to fill my tank this time!

I got another one of those Library Thing Early Reviewer books (and I’m not even done reading that last one they sent me, eek gotta get busy) and this one is REALLY a preview copy, it’s more like a galley proof, it’s not even bound. The good news is this one is nice and short, good for reading on a hot summer holiday weekend.

Hey, whoever it was who bought a copy of Bernadette Peters’ book “Broadway Barks” from a link on my page, thanks! I earned a whopping forty-nine cents from Amazon.com’s affiliate program. Now all I need is another $633 worth of sales and I’ll actually get paid. Hehe. Gotta love Amazon and their $25 minimum payment rule. If I ever hit that $25, I’ll donate it to Broadway Barks. I promise. Unless Amazon goes outta business. Or I die first.

I got my second Early Reviewer book today:

This one is non-fiction and is an advance copy, which probably means it’ll be full of typos if it’s anything like previous advance copies I’ve gotten before from publishers. So I will have to put my typo-detector to “off” mode while I read it. I like non-fiction though, and this is an anthology which means quick and easy reading (hopefully) which means it’s a good one to take to work and read during lunchtime. If I had a job. Haha. Did I mention I don’t have a job? That one I had last week didn’t last cuz it was phones all day and well phones + me = bang head against wall. Oh well, I earned enough to fill my tank up with gas. Did I mention it cost me $30 to top off a half a tank of gas? In a small compact car? Yeah. And that was when the price was only $4.39/gal. I can’t believe I just said “only $4.39/gal.” I remember back in the good old days when I could go an entire work week on $1 worth of gas. God help us if McCain gets elected …. Time to invest in oil stocks and water-powered flying cars.

I snagged another Early Reviewer book from Library Thing. I was kinda hoping to snag the Neal Stephenson book Anathem because he is one of the few fiction writers whose work I generally like (I read “Snow Crash” years ago, when I first got interested in virtual worlds and cyberspace.) But the one I am getting is probably my second choice, since I much prefer non-fiction to fiction. Plus it’s an anthology which is great for my short attention span.

Also exciting is we have weather here in L.A. today! Rain, lightning, a tornado (well OK that one wasn’t really that close, it was out in Perris.) Yesterday, windy, today rain, I don’t know if I can survive all this excitement!

Oh, and uhm … what’s her name was on the Today Show this morning, nothing really new, she was just promoting her book and dragging her dog along with her, and singing that song thing again. Yawn. Oh, she did at least talk a tiny bit about something that didn’t sound over-rehearsed though, she answered a question from the audience … except she rejected the first couple questions (one was what was her worst date and the other was what was her hidden talent – I’ll have to add those two to my “to ask” list just to annoy her if I get to meet her. I wanna hear about her worst date, but knowing her inability to say anything bad about anyone, she’ll probably say something self-deprecating instead.) The one she did answer was pet peeve, but that answer was taken pretty much outta previous interviews she’d done before so it wasn’t anything fresh either. I think Bernadette really, really hates talking about herself unless it’s just “work stuff” or “Broadway Barks” stuff. Ooops, dammit, I said her name. I shall now go spank myself silly.

I just popped by Amazon and while I was there I checked out the ranking for Bernadette’s book, and it was up to 11,990 in the ranking list! Woot! It was at something like 43,000 the other day, so maybe her plugging it at the concert helped. Not exactly the top ten, but hey not bad.

BTW, if you wanna buy this book, feel free to get it from my Amazon aStore and yes that was a shameless plug haha.

One of those odd little websites I found awhile back, has this nifty thing I just recently discovered where you can request advance copies of books to read, and the only string is you gotta write a review of it once ya read it. Wow, reading and writing, two of my favorite things to do! And for free! Unfortunately so far I haven’t been one of the lucky few to get chosen, but they have a rather interesting mix of books up for grabs.