New Books January 2010

7 Jan
2010

One thing I love about bargain book stores like Book Sale is that they have great titles at low prices allowing me to get the most bang out of my money. So after spending an hour digging around the book bins and rummaging through their shelves I walked out with three books:

New-Books

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant – A novel set in 15th century Florence, Italy about Alessandra Cecchi, a young woman with a passion for the arts and struggles her way through romance and being married off to an older man chosen by her family while the city is gripped by a fundamentalist monk and its streets stalked by a serial killer. Click here to buy this book.

The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav – This was recommended to me by my highschool mentor whom I happen to bumped into while at Book Sale yesterday. It’s about Zukav’s questioning of the Western concept of the soul and posits that the human species is in the middle of a great transformation and the explosion of human perception beyond the five senses. A very heady book isn’t it? You can click here to buy this book.

Perils of Perestroika: Viewpoints of from the Soviet Press, 1989-1991 – It’s a compilation of 33 articles translated into English from the Soviet press chronicling the reactions and viewpoints about the rapid changes the USSR went through during the last years of the Soviet Union. I look forward to reading this book because it gives a first-hand view of what it was like in the USSR during those turbulent times. Most of what I know about this period I read from Western sources so this book is a welcome counter-balance and a good basis for further studies.

The fourth book in the picture I picked up from Rex Bookstore in Dasmariñas, Cavite. It’s the 2003 edition of Justice Isagani Cruz’ book on International Law. It’s a required reading for my Political Science and Law subjects and of course it would be an essential reference once I get into Law school.

Anyone who has read any of the new books I recently acquired? You can share quick reviews but no spoilers please. :P

Buying books: hard copy or its ebook version?

5 Jan
2010

Ever since the Amazon Kindle came out and the popularity of ebooks rose, the dilemma of whether to buy hard copies of books or their ebook equivalent became a more pronounced challenge for me.

The advantages of getting the ebook version of a book I like would be the following:

  • Quicker acquisition – Kindle or other ebooks could easily be downloaded over the web and on to my PC or to my future Amazon Kindle device. ;) It saves up on shipping costs and from the greedy Customs people in my country.
  • Lower price – Naturally, ebooks are almost 50% cheaper compared to their printed counterparts, sometimes ebooks are downloadable for free.
  • Space saver – To date I have approximately 90 books at home and already, I’m starting to see the need to have more space for additional book shelves to place them all. This is a non-issue with eBooks, I could store a thousand in my PC or future Kindle device.
  • Friendlier to trees – Most would say that ebooks are more eco-friendly compared to printed ones because they consume no paper, ink and other packaging materials. However, ebooks are electronic in nature thus requiring electricity to read which in turn burns up fossil fuels so the saved trees could be outweighed by the amount of carbon produced.

On the other hand, a printed book gives you the following goodies:

  • Books are personal – The magical feeling of holding a book is sometimes just indescribable. The smell, texture and weight of a book adds another dimension to the reading experience. You get nothing of this from eBooks even when you’re using a Kindle device.
  • Books are social – Books can shared with your friends, classmates and fellow bibliophiles. Most often, a great amount of books read by someone came to him by borrowing or swapping it with others. You can’t do that with ebooks because of the restrictive digital rights management software/technologies or your friend must have a PC or a ebook reader in order to read it.
  • Books grow in value over time – The older a book the more precious it becomes both in sentimental and monetary values, especially rare and out-of-print books. One dream I have is to leave behind a library of books to my grandchildren and no ebook can replace a printed one in achieving this dream.

At present, and after looking back on what I’ve written so far, it’s kind of obvious that I’m leaning towards getting the printed books over their ebook versions. Though I confess that the price difference is what’s keeping me torn in between.

What’s your take on the matter? Do you face the same dilemma? Share your thoughts on comments below.

Hello world! Welcome to my book blog!

2 Jan
2010

This project has been in the drawing board for the last six months or so. I kept on putting it on the backburner little did I know that 2010 has already dawned upon me. On the other hand though, starting off a new year with a new blog has always been a good thing to do. The excitement and thrill of it is just enough reason to compel me to labor for hours in putting together this blog that would be the home of my love for books and my passion for reading.

As you can read from the About page, this would be my personal book blog, a journal of my reading life, habits, discovery and adventures. A place to meet other book lovers and avid readers alike to share good reads and memorable books (book-swapping *ehem*).

I’d be spending more time in the book blogging niche, visit online book clubs, book blogs and definitely join reading challenges! On top of that, I’d be posting here book reviews which would reflect my personal take on the books I’ve just finished reading. Book authors feat not for I am not an expert book critic, I’m just a humble lover of your words and your work.

I have a lot of big plans in store for this blog and I’d be sharing it as this blog grows and more books are stricken off my reading list.

Hopefully you’d stick around for the ride and together we’re going to have a lot of fun reading books and reading even more books.

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