What’s on Your Bedside Table in January 2011?

13 Jan

Happy New Year!  I hope Santa was kind to you all and that your festivities were filled with love and laughter.

2011 has not started well for many Australians.  I obviously refer to the tragedy that is the Queensland floods and I sincerely offer my thoughts and prayers to all those who have been, and are still being, effected.  It is difficult to watch the events unfold and not be filled with empathy.  I hope all readers who may be effected find comfort in their families, friends and each other and know that they have a whole country supporting them.

I thought we could kick off the new year with a note of sharing…sharing with everyone What’s on Your Bedside Table for January 2011?  This is a new addition to the Book Karma blog (and one which I hope will be a monthly post) that simply gives us all the chance to share the books we are reading, have read or simply want to read for the month.  Feel free to pass on your thoughts on any of the books you see here that you may have already read.

A Change In Altitude Anita Shreve

Anita Shreve has always been a bit of a hit and miss with me.  Some of her previous novels, I have loved.  Some – not so much.  This is proving to be a little slow at the moment (admittedly I am only on page 81 of 289), however, I will continue to persevere!

 

Snow Falling on Cedars David Guterson

This is another one that has taken me a little to get into.  At first I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, but now I am around the half way mark, I am starting to get said fuss!  Absolutely loving this novel and will have it listed on Book Karma for swapping as soon as I manage to finish it.

 

After the Fall Kylie Ladd

After mentioning in my post on 2 December 2010 that I wanted to get my hands on this one, I was incredibly excited to see it staring at me on the shelf of my local library on Christmas Eve.  Thank you Santa!  I really loved this book.  Told from the point of view of four individuals, After the Fall is a story of infidelity and the effect it has on not only the guilty parties, but their spouses once the affair is revealed.  A hard one to put down once you start…and even better that Kylie is an Aussie author!

So, what’s on your bedside table for the month?  What have you been reading and what it on you to-read lists?

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter (if you aren’t already) to be kept up to date with new books up for swapping at Book Karma as they are listed!

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Merry Christmas

24 Dec

On this day, the eve of Christmas, I want to wish you all a wonderful, happy day!

I have been terribly slack with the blog side of things, so I really appreciate that people are continuing to pop back in and check up.

In the new year, I plan on sticking to my promise of doing a weekly post regarding all things books and have some plans to ramp up the marketing side of Book Karma in order to get more members – more members mean more books up for swapping for all.

We have been trading now for around six weeks and the messages of support I have received regarding the concept of Book Karma has truly been wonderful!

I have a busy couple of weeks ahead with Christmas, New Year and moving house (eeek!), but once things have settled, I am really looking forward to taking this side of Book Karma a bit more seriously.

Wishing you lots of happiness, laughter and love over the festive season!

xx

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (if you aren’t already) to be kept up to date with new books up for swapping at Book Karma as they are listed!

I have been very slack today!

3 Dec

I know, I know!  I haven’t done a blog post today.

Between reading, family, Christmas and the online marketing of the Book Karma website, I am pressed for time!

I have decided to do a blog post each week, either a Sunday night or early Monday morning, with a roundup of the week’s book news.

I hope you will all continue to check in on a weekly basis to get up to speed with the happenings of the book world.  If there is anything particular you want to know about, be sure to let me know.

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (if you aren’t already) to be kept up to date with new books up for swapping at Book Karma as they are listed!

Books for the Kids at Christmas, Sarah Palin, Ghostwriting & More

2 Dec

News & Bits ‘n’ Pieces

The New York Times has released the Top 10 Books of 2010

The Telegraph gives us the run down on the Christmas books for the most important ones of all…the kids!  From picture books for the littlies to the teens, this has got all the bases covered

The LA Times reviews Sarah Palin’s second book ”America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag”

We found an interesting article at The  Age giving us an insight into the profession of Ghostwriting.

On Our To Read List


After the Fall by Kylie Ladd

Had never heard of this before until we read about it over at Mamamia yesterday while the lovely ladies (and men!) were discussing Christmas book gifts.  It got us intrigued and we will be hunting down our own copy!

See here for overview together with some information on the Australian author

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (if you aren’t already) to be kept up to date with new books up for swapping at Book Karma as they are listed!

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.”  Emilie Buchwald

 

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The New Scarpetta Novel, Life in Prison, Gift Guide & More

1 Dec

So we today hit the first day of the last month of 2010!

News, Bits ‘n’ Pieces


Jeff Ayers reviews Patricia Cornwell’s new Kay Scarpetta novel “Port Mortuary” here

Angela Bennie speaks with Cate Kennedy, Editor of Best Australian Stories, who gives us her top short story picks with the Best Australian Stories for 2010

John Shore talks book publishing

Booktopia’s very own Book Guru provides us with a humorous Christmas Gift Guide

Kenneth Hartman, incarcerated for more than 30 years, tells us his top 8 books that accurately depict life in prison

Some previously unpublished emails by the late Stieg Larsson gives us a small insight into the processes he used when writing his thrilling, best selling crime novels, The Millenium Trilogy

Little Big gives us a round up on some of the wonderful iPhone app’s out there for readers!

What We Want to Get Our Hands on

Room by Emma Donaghue

See here for overview

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (if you aren’t already) to be kept up to date with new books up for swapping at Book Karma as they are listed!

“Reading is a means of thinking with another person’s mind; it forces you to stretch your own” Charles Scriber Jnr

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Pick of the Day, The Kindle & iPad, What We Want to Get Our Hands On & More

30 Nov

UP FOR THE TAKING

One of our favourite novels up for the taking on Book Karma this week is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  You can read some reviews here from readers all over the world.

Blurb

IT IS 1939. NAZI GERMANY. THE COUNTRY IS HOLDING ITS BREATH. DEATH HAS NEVER BEEN BUSIER, AND WILL BECOME BUSIER STILL.

Liesel Meminger and her brother are being taken by their mother to live with a foster family outside Munich. Liesel’s father was taken away on the breath of a single, unfamiliar word – Kommunist – and Liesel sees the fear of a similar fate in her mother’s eyes. On the journey, Death visits the young boy, and notices Liesel. It will be the first of many nearer encounters. By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is “he Gravedigger’s Handbook”, left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery.

So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up, and closed down.

“The Book Thief” is a story about the power of words to make worlds. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-wining author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

Visit our website to find out how you can get The Book Thief to read for yourself!

News, Bits ‘n’ Pieces

Michael Hiltzik from the LA Times discusses the Kindle and the iPad….just in time for Christmas.  This is one thing we at Book Karma are yet to give into.  There is still no better feeling than opening that first page of a newly acquired book.  That’s not to say that we may not give into technology in the future, but we will put it off – at this stage – for as long as we can (or at least until someone buys us one!)

Vote for your book of the decade on Twitter by using #storyofthedecade or visit here for more details.  This should be an interesting one with so many fantastic books to choose from.

John Boyne, author of the well known Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, speaks of his new book Noah Barleywater Runs Away and his dislike for vampires here with Michelle Pauli of The Guardian

Following on from yesterday’s article on the “Bad Sex Awards”  the winner has now been announced!

New Release We Can’t Wait to Read

Anita Shreve is a bit of a favourite here at Book Karma so we cannot wait to get our hands on her new book Rescue

Blurb

A rookie paramedic pulls a young woman alive from her totaled car, a first rescue that begins a lifelong tangle of love and wreckage. Sheila Arsenault is a gorgeous enigma–streetwise and tough-talking, with haunted eyes, fierce desires, and a never-look-back determination. Peter Webster, as straight an arrow as they come, falls for her instantly and entirely. Soon Sheila and Peter are embroiled in an intense love affair, married, and parents to a baby daughter. Like the crash that brought them together, it all happened so fast. Can you ever really save another person? Eighteen years later, Sheila is long gone and Peter is raising their daughter, Rowan, alone. But Rowan is veering dangerously off track, and for the first time in their ordered existence together, Webster fears for her future. His work shows him daily every danger the world contains, how wrong everything can go in a second. All the love a father can give a daughter is suddenly not enough. Sheila’s sudden return may be a godsend–or it may be exactly the wrong moment for a lifetime of questions and anger and longing to surface anew. What tore a young family apart? Is there even worse damage ahead? The questions lifted up in Anita Shreve’s utterly enthralling new novel are deep and lasting, and this is a novel that could only have been written by a master of the human heart.

You can read Mary Foster’s review here


“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them” Mark Twain

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First Cab Off the Rank!

29 Nov

Welcome to the first entry on Book Karma’s new blog!

This seemed like the next logical step in our new journey.

For those of you who don’t know about us, we are an exciting new community, created out of the necessity to share around the copious amounts of books we had lying around that have been read by us, shared with our nearest and dearest, and are now simply sitting around gathering dust.

All the books we have are fantastic and we just KNEW there would be so many out there who would really appreciate the stories they have to tell.  So why not create a central hub where strangers can share their pre-loved and read novels with others, while updating their own home libraries with books they would like to read?

For more detailed information on how it all works, please visit our website

Andrew Shaffer  of the Huffington Post discusses the “Bad Sex in Fiction” awards, one of the nominees being Australia’s own Christos Tsiolkas for the much discussed and controversial novel The Slap (also up for grabs on Book Karma site for those who are yet to read it!)

Last month, historyofshe reviewed Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson.  This book is next on our list to read and we are really looking forward to it!

Some of the gang at The Telegraph UK let us know their Books of the Year for 2010.  You may even get some ideas what you would like to ask Santa for yourself ;)

We are currently reading The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks

Our pick of the recent New Releases is The Confession by John Grisham…who doesn’t love a Grisham novel?

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter if you aren’t already to be kept up to date with new books up for swapping as they are listed!

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