While doing my early morning Facebook page stroll, I stumbled upon one too many posts about Kindle, particularly, the new Kindle Fire.

As an avid reader, you take every book-related article very seriously so there I was, googling every article I could find about Kindle Fire! lol.

I must say, I’m really impressed with Kindle Fire. FYI, Kindle has made the leap and got on with tablet computer badwagon however it is cheaper than most tablets in the market today. Priced at $199, it has all the capabilities of a tablet computer – okay maybe not all but if you already own a mobile phone and a laptop, you won’t be needing much from a tablet right? Price not bad ey? Me thinks so.

Kindle Fire features are:

• Colored, touchscreen
• E-magazine support
• Intuitive interface
• Movie and TV show streaming
• Dual-core processor
• Apps and Games support
• Cloud accelerated browser
• eBook reader (of course!)
• Cloud storage
• supports eBook Illustrations
• Compact and very light
• Music streaming. Supports MP3 files
• Durable display. Scratch and bump resistant
• Built-in Email apps
• Amazon Whispersync
• Amazon Prime member benefits
• Document reader. Can read your documents, PDFs, etc

Whoa, that’s a whole lot more than what your old, trusty Kindle ereader have, and indeed new, exciting features too!

Kindle price cuts are worth checking out too. Your regular Kindle3 WIFI is now selling at $99, 3G at $139. Awesome!!

Googling further, I have read that the Kindle Fire will have a 7″ screen, clearly smaller than iPad’s almost 10″. Definitely perfect on the go as it will fit a medium-sized bag. No camera and mic though, so Blackberry Playbook wins this side of the match – that means Skype is out too, sorry. WIFI only, no 3G for this baby. I heard that it will also be running on Android so your apps will come from Android market. I say, for $199, fair enough.

I just wish Amazon won’t take Kindle3 off the market and sell them at these super low prices forever, as i have noticed the Fire doesn’t mention any e-ink which, I believe, made the Kindle line really popular.I bet people will still consider Kindle3 when looking for a good ereader, one that is built specifically for the job.

I’m considering of getting the $99 myself, lol

Kindle Fire’s release date will be November 2011 but pre-orders are accepted as early as now.

Cheers!

Get your Kindle Fire, Full Color 7″ Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi here!

I’m terribly, terribly feeling guilty these days as I haven’t been throwing my blogs enough love this month. If you care to look at the number of posts for September – which is somewhat giving me the dagger-evil eyes everytime I go visit – I only made it up to 4 and it is real close to the end  of the month – last week of the month to be exact. Not really a good sign, yeah?

Note that I have been reading quite a number of books these days and I’m ready to spew a good 3 book reviews even now. I just don’t have much time to sit down and do them all at the same time. Shame on me, I know.

Add to that the fact that I haven’t been doing any socializing these days too. I haven’t been to http://bookblogs.ning.com/ to check on my notifications and/or chats. I feel really bad about it.

So I’m off to posting reviews and answering book review requests. Chat soon!

Let me just share this to you very quickly (as I just came home from a vacation and have loads to do. lol)

For the past few weeks, I have been debating with myself whether I should get a Kindle or go for Nook. My considerations are:

1. Kindle’s size and make. Even from afar, you could see that its matte black casing is a win. However, its screen is black and white and I would need a light if I would like to read in the dark which I frequently do.
2. Nook’s colored screen, meaning I won’t have to buy attachable light for it anymore however, I  don’t really dig its body/casing make.
3. 70% of my friends use Kindle and have been raving about it while 30% of them are using Nook and surprise, surprise! raving about them too since you can do more on a Nook than Kindle.
4. Price-wise, Kindle is half the price of a Nook however, I really need that light so I am a little more convinced to buy Nook.

Despite these considerations and maybe because my husband was already showing signs of an ear infection just by hearing my self-debate every single day, he decided that this self-debate thing needs to stop. He bought me a Blackberry Playbook.

I must admit, I was thrilled. Who wouldn’t? It’s a Blackberry for mom’s sake!

iPad vs Playbook

So here’s a piece of my mind, having owned both babies, I can personally tell you what it’s like reading on these two:

iPad

Reading in an iPad is a breeze. Even importing your files into your iPad doesn’t need a genius. I’m a lazy bum, don’t expect me to exert too much effort of linking the iPad to my desktop or lappy, I just email them to myself and open/save files directly on my iPad. I’m using iBooks which is free and very reliable. Since iPad’s screen is big, I’m not having any problems with reading my ebooks and since iBook accepts PDF and ePub, basically my preferred formats, I’m not having problems with converting files as well so that’s two thumbs up for me. However, my problem lies on its size as reading in it for a couple of hours really takes toll on my wrist. It’s big and it is heavy thus my “hunting” for the perfect ereader continued..

Playbook 

Its size is perfect, just the same size as Samsung tab which is pretty small. Like I said I was thrilled as I thought I finally found the one, to much dismay, the Playbook only has Kobo as free ereader app which FYI doesn’t import/read any other files. Kobo only reads and supports ebooks bought from them. Period. End of Story. Sad me.

I don’t want to disappoint my husband because I know he bought the Playbook to make me happy so I’m going to find a way around it, I just didn’t expect it to be like that, considering that Blackberry is such a big name in the industry, they should have their own pre-installed ereader, me thinks (didn’t they know that ebooks are the “in” thing now? I mean seriously people, have you been living under a rock?). I was quite surprised I am forced to find a way to make it work (and pay for an app which I read on a forum doesn’t really work as it is supposed to). I know I didn’t encounter such problem with iPad. I should have gone with a Nook, or even a Kindle then I wouldn’t have been writing this instead I would have been happily tucked in bed, reading away the hours.

I was doing my usual book spotting earlier today when I remembered Pittacus Lore’s The Power of Six is due this month, that the Lorien Legacies Book 2 should be released this month of August. You know I have been patiently waiting for it since that faithful day I finished reading I Am Number Four (Lorien Legacies Book 1) and almost cried as the book is such a cliffhanger!

Now I am going to finally read its book 2 as it is now released and available in most online book stores! yey!

Good thing too, I am almost finished with Gregg Olsen’s Abandoned Prayers and Paulo Coelho’s Eleven Minutes. Don’t expect a good rave about Eleven Minutes though however I still have 20-something pages left so we will see, maybe those few pages left will be able to turn me around and see it worthy of a solid 5

Cheers!

Lately I’ve noticed that the books I read don’t satisfy me. I’m a little worried that maybe my love for books is fading for some reason. Like I told you, I wasn’t born with it. So maybe my love affair with books is not permanent. Perhaps it comes and it goes. Maybe my time is up.

I don’t want to think of it that way as books became my friends, my way to escape this so called life. I experienced 6 friendless-months and had no problem with it but I don’t think I can last a week without a book. Now I am trying to come up with a plausible reason for this and you can throw in your own two cents worth:

1. I have recently bid my ereader goodbye. My ever clumsy daughter accidentally stepped on my ereader and broke the screen. I cried over this and was angry as a bull but what’s there to do but mourn the death of a good friend? Now, I have to settle for sharing my husband’s iPad and read my ebooks from there. This I find a little uncomfortable since iPad is a little heavier than my dead ereader and it is causing me sprained wrist. (now you have an idea how long it takes for me to read a book in one sitting) Oh dear dead friend, I miss you tremendously
2. I am under pressure. In order to maintain a book review site like this, I need to be always updated, i.e be able to read bestsellers before everybody else. In doing so, I find myself always adjusting titles to read (I read in batches of 6), putting bestsellers on top of my handpicked ones and with much regret, place the ones I find interesting a little further down the list, even the authors I love best! Funny thing is, these bestsellers don’t really tickle my fancy but I’m giving them a shot anyway.
3. Books  today are not what they used to be. I don’t know, even the most-talked about authors of this generation didn’t manage to keep me glued to the pages of their books which I find really disturbing and quite frustrating.

Just to test if it’s me or the books nowadays, I bought Abandoned Prayers by Gregg Olsen in paperback. It’s true-crime and just what I needed to rev me up. Guess what? It’s now tucked under my pillow, dog-eared from constant flipping of pages to and fro. So, maybe it’s not really me? Maybe I should be more selective on my books and not depend on anybody’s bestsellers list?

..or it can be the reader as I am more comfortable with paperback than the gigantic size of iPad?

Anyway, books today suck. Well, that’s just me. I’m still waiting for some author to bring back my belief on this generation’s book and writings.

Totally not book related but I would like to share my joy with everyone who happen to pass by my site:  we are now officially PR4! yey!

Two weeks ago, after two consecutive rejections, I was soooo disappointed that I nearly dropped the whole idea of book blogging. I even stopped posting a couple of days just because I was branded as spam blogger. ouch.

Then I thought of all those sleepless nights spent trying to make everything look good and nice. I thought to myself, if a spam blogger exerts this kind of effort then they too deserve a chance in the blogoshpere right?

I’m not a weakling. Nobody can push me around so I say, “so long guys..”

After that bump on the road, I promised myself that I’ll make my one-year domain subscription worth it even if it means several rejections more. There will be others and I would like to see my rejectors cry over my getting ahead. lol.

One week worth of postings forward and here we are, checked PR this morning and was amazed when I saw the ever magical number! It’s a 4, y’all!

I know it’s not a number everybody would like  to have, it’s not even half the battle but after those rejections, a 4 is better than a zero plus it boosts my morale

So thanks everybody for making us a PR4

Oh and, happy weekend!

yep, they do get me down

..and getting rejected by Google Adsense does too.

Yup, I applied and was rejected last week. I am not going to hide that fact to you, reader, that I am planning to put ads on this blog. The idea is to come up with a book blog that is both entertaining and useful. I know that it is beyond my capabilities to find all the best deals in town and I am not selling books too so that leaves me with pretty much NOTHING to offer right? what I can do however is to share my reviews and opinions about books before you actually buy them, and, direct you to the places I buy them from. These are handpicked. I personally experienced them before I recommend them to you.

The strangest part of my Google Adsense rejection is that they didn’t really tell what was it that they found funny on my blog so there’s really no room for me to improve in their eyes.

However, there is really no room for me to mourn as there are hundreds of things waiting to get done, except that I unconsciously avoided this blog and now I feel really guilty about it. lol so sorry blog, I know it’s time to move on. I promise to make you better so we’ll not get rejected again.

Then there’s the rainy part when all I want to do is curl up in bed with a nice book, under covers with only my head poking out – with the book of course.

And Mondays. I just hate Mondays. It makes you think of the looooooooooong week ahead. I just don’t want to be reminded of that!

so there..

I have been a bookworm for, more or less, 15 years now which, needless to say, is half my life.

now, now.. don’t go guessing on my age. I won’t hear any of it.

But yes, I was not a born-reader. It came when I was in college and it developed from there. I had no encouragement, it was completely me and to be honest, it also surprised me one time to be looking at 3 humongous box loads of books that needed disposing as the hubby was not finding the whole affair cute anymore. I  have had books hidden under the bed, at the back of the laundry room, up the top of the cabinet perfectly disguising as “bags” – anything to keep them safe from my hubby’s angry eyes. lol.

Anyway, with all these experiences, I only have one rule to live by. That is, you MUST finish what you have started, no matter what. So no matter how bad a book can get, I finish it even if it dragged me to hell. This is also the reason why I steer clear of some types of books as I don’t want to be breaking “the rule”.

I skipped, hopped, skimmed, browsed, fast-read, whatever when such unfortunate chance came upon me so I somehow developed my own what-to-avoid guidelines for books and here it is:

• YA. or young adult. Notice that YAs are the “in” thing nowadays. Good that YAs, in some way, encourage younger readers but if you’re a thirty-something like me who reads books until she’s blue, you’ll find it hard to relate or even understand a YA’s storyline. I just don’t get it. However, don’t get me wrong, there are a couple of YAs that I was able to really enjoy like Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden and Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games. If only those new authors will follow suit then all’s well and happy.
• Books that are 500+ pages long. This goes for authors who, I think, are aiming for The Guinness Book of World Records’ Thickest Book Ever Written rather than trying for a Nobel prize, unless you are Stephen King whose imagination runs wild – think The Dome, never attempt this kind of feat as most likely you’ll never get your second book published! It is really painful to be reading such book and I guess it was as painful for the author to write too so please try not to overdo it. You can try series, we are okay with that, but squeezing 3-books worth of writings in a book? Oh come on.
• Autobiographies. I am okay with biographies. It’s just that autobiographies tend to be onesided and most of the time self-promoting. I just hate that. Get some help and let a professional writer write about your life, that way we, readers, will be able to enjoy your book more. We are making you money, you could have at least give us a good read.

So that’s it. I’m off to another round of ghostwriting. lol

Not counting the book related ones, of course

Hi, I’m Gie. I’m a booklover – a book addict – if you haven’t figured that one out yet. I may have the worst grammar in the world but I assure you I’ll make my book reviews decent enough to be understood.

If you guys are quite annoyed with what you see now on my website, forgive me as I am running a one-woman-show here. I’m trying to build this website, make it look pretty and inviting, while picking the good ones (books, videos, etc) and trying to share the world my own reviews of these handpicked book titles as well as my two cent’s worth about their authors. Tough job, but you know what they say, someone’s gotta do it.

Seriously here, I loooooove books. I like discovering new genres although I enjoy only a couple and tend to stick with them a long time before finally moving on to something – so much for adventurism! I enjoy Stephen King and John Grisham tremendously, so much that I feel really alive and rejuvenated after finishing a book written by these authors. Every now and then, I find myself rooting for a particular author but almost always, the next book written by him/her would come as a disappointment. I just hate that. However, Misters King and Grisham aren’t to be spared.

*sorry guys, you know I will love you forever but this little girl needs to be tough and partial now. lol *

Now you know what types of books I go for but that doesn’t mean I am not open to suggestions. In fact, I invite passersby to contribute their views and opinions here. As long as it is not political and foul, I’m okay with whatever you have! Pretty soon, I’m going to have a “contact me” form somewhere, just don’t spam me, you guys! Interested humans can contact me there.

I’ll have some friends/reviewers come over too and those who are interested in joining us, please feel free to contact me.

Now, I won’t bore you anymore with my nonsense blabbering. I’m off to a good book and my cup of coffee.

bye guys.

PS It’s Ron Jeremy’s The Hardest (Working) Man In Showbiz today. Yes, it’s a memoir of someone from porn industry and most parts are quite X-rated but believe me, it’s good, actually, better than the YA I was supposed to read. lol