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Showing posts from June, 2015

"Free" Books on Readers: Not Such a Deal for Me

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Recently, I managed to wrack up a $30 Kindle book bill one month buying books priced at $3 or less. Now, $30 isn't huge in the grand scheme of things — I can spend that on a single printed book (sans latte) at a full-price bookstore. However, I am always looking for a great deal, so I reviewed my Kindle and Amazon reading and borrowing privileges. I noticed some of my recent inexpensive buys were Kindle Unlimited or Kindle Prime books, which meant I could read them for free (with some restrictions). Kindle Prime members are Kindle owners who may borrow a single book each month from a select list. Kindle Unlimited permitted readers to borrow, for a fee, an unlimited number of books each month from a select list. Between the two, I could read for three months on what I spent in a single month. But was it really a deal? Were the books I wanted to read Unlimited to me? The short answer: no. The long answer: none of the 130 books on my Amazon book wish list are Unlimited.

Review: Station Eleven

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It comes out of nowhere and takes the world by surprise, a new virus with a near-total mortality rate. What it does to humanity is devastating. What humanity does in its aftermath is fascinating. In Station Eleven , watch the world through the eyes of people with connection to a single person: the world-famous Arthur Leland. Each has experiences that, when woven together, tell a fascinating, riveting story about hope and loss, love and fear. This isn't a "science fiction" book beyond the idea that it's futuristic and involves the end of the world as we know it. It's the story of people trying to live in a world that is strange, cruel and beautiful. Emily St. John Mandel chooses an interesting, comprehensive cast of characters through which to see this new world, and it was amazing to watch the threads slowly create one of the most interesting, gorgeous designs I've seen in a while. Much like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale , Mandel doesn’t t