Wednesday, June 13, 2007

It's Getting REAL Bad...And Disappointments

Chris did a bad, bad thing...not really. I went to Barnes and Noble. I did good though. I only bought three books and didn't spend a lot of money at all. The sign that it's getting bad though is that I'm buying books that I've already read and own! I bought another copy of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys because this one just looked so cool and it has a built in blue silk bookmark and it was only $5.98! I had to have it :p

I picked up Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy off the bargain table as well. I've been wanting to read this one for awhile too. It is an investigation into the murder of Humpty Dumpty and is the first book in his Nursery Crimes series. I know a lot of people who were disappointed by this book, but I had a friend who loved it, so I'll give it a try.

Finally, I picked up Stephen King's new book, Blaze which is written by his "alter-ego" Richard Bachman. Should be interesting. Sounds like typical King. I usually enjoy his books. Plus I had a coupon from B&N in my email for this one, so it was pretty cheap as well.

Now, the reason for me going to Barnes and Noble to begin with was because Amazon told me that today was the day when the new, hardcover, Charles Vess illustrated version of Neil Gaiman's Stardust was going to come out. So of course, I hardly got any sleep last night. It was like Christmas eve to me. Did it come out today...NO! I had this big post plan where there was going to be pictures of the book with poppets looking up and Handel's Messiah playing in the background while your computer radiated a yellow glow and Yvaine would fall from the sky and plant a kiss on you (or for you ladies, Tristran would stumble through the door and fall into your lap and plant a kiss on you) and all would be well in the world. But I'm sorry kind readers, none of that can happen, because the book is not available today.

I leave you with two other things that upset me. Darla D. wrote a post yesterday about the banning of a summer library program for children that sounded amazing. Read about it here. Made me very upset. Stephanie wrote a post today about this horrible article that once again visited the debate of book bloggers vs. "professional" book reviewers. Read that one here. Also upset me.

Good day to all of you!

And right as I was about to hit "Publish Post", all these came in the mail :D This was the under $30 pile I mentioned last week!

14 comments:

DesLily said...

Lord have Mercy upon this young man!

good thing you didn't have this posted before I emailed you!
(going to read the article links now)

chrisa511 said...

Lol...I told you it may be awhile...Just kidding. I'm throwing your stuff in the mix, Deslily. I think you'd like that book Flights alot (the one on the bottom of the stack) It's a bunch of short stories on Dragons!

DesLily said...

... and what is it that makes you think I like dragons? (duh)

btw: that article on bloggers vs literary reviews...no contest! Would you listen to one literary review saying a book is not all that great.... or several bloggers absolutely loving it? Nuff said.

chrisa511 said...

Gee...what would ever give me that impression :p I'd listen to bloggers any day over "literary reviews". How pretentious!

Chris said...

Yeah, I'm mad about the pros dissing the bloggers too. LOL! What an un-literary phrase.

chrisa511 said...

Nice name Chris ;) Don't they just fire you up! I tend to use "un-literary phrases" all the time. One more thing for the "pros" to complain about :p

Bookfool said...

Looks like you had a fun day, Chris!

Those links were interesting, thanks. So sad about the library program. Deslily hit the nail on the head; I have far more faith in my fellow bloggers' opinions of a book than a professional critic's. Methinks the man wrote a hostile assessment because he feels threatened. Personally, I think there's room for both. But, I do value the opinions of fellow bloggers much more than the critique of a paid reviewer.

chrisa511 said...

Agreed Bookfool! I think that he feels threatened as well...why else would he have such a hostile tone? So rude! I think there's room for both as well and I think there's value in both. Though I must admit that I put more weight on what fellow bloggers say about a book. What a silly argument to begin with, huh?

Carl V. Anderson said...

Great new stuff!!! I do the same thing, I frequently buy multiple copies of the same book if I like the covers. I have several versions of several Gaiman books.

I don't think the Stardust book comes out until July...closer to the August movie release date. That whole marketing thing, you know. It will be well worth the wait.

chrisa511 said...

Carl, I can't wait til it finally comes out! First it was May...then June...now HOPEFULLY July. Oh, the humanity! It'll just be that much better when I do get my hands on it!

Stephanie said...

Great pile of books ya got there!! I've got to get out and get Blaze for sure this week. Those B&N coupons are worth the price of admission! But I'm not ever going to venture to Bookcloseouts. I'm afraid of what will happen!!

Thanks for the link. Got lots of great responses from that one!

Carl V. Anderson said...

I am only guessing, but I imagine the book release date has changed because of the many times the movie release date changed before they finally settled on the August date. It would be foolish on their part to release it too soon before the film if they want to cash in on movie merchandising dollars.

It still sucks though.

DesLily said...

good to see others agree about literary reviews.. it's not that they get paid for it.. but our fellow bloggers already have one thing going for them that the reviewer may not..he/she already is invested in the book (no not just money) but that I mean they chose it because they like that type of writing.. whereas the literary person may not even enjoy the type of book he/she is reading! So they review on something they know nothing about.

ok off the soapbox... (again)

about multiple books.. sigh.. does having both the paperback and hardback count? (gulp)
I'd give anything (but the bucks I don't have) to have two books I own already but the Australian version ..and you guessed it... for the cover artwork! (that would be Eddings, The Belgariad with the artist, Geoff Taylor (check his art out at: http://www.geofftaylor.btinternet.co.uk/galleryeddingsd.html)

chrisa511 said...

Stephanie, Bookcloseouts is indeed a dangerous thing...but it tastes oh so evil-ly good! No prob on the link, great post you did there! Thanks for sticking up for us bloggers ;)

Carl, That's my best guess too...I just want the damn book :p Like complaining helps...

Deslily, uh huh, there you go with the "Lord have Mercy" on me and there you are with 2 copies of the same book too :p I'm a sucker for cover art too. I'll buy a book based solely on cool cover art...but then again, I'll buy a book for any ole reason!