Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[jgaiser]

Life and work have taken a large bite out of my reading time. Already falling behind on my 100 books for 2011.

Finished the first book in Joe Abercrombie's First Law series, "The Blade Itself" this morning. After a slow start the action picked up and the book ended with a bang. I've already picked up the second in the series, "Before They Are Hanged" and hope things quiet down enough to get into it.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

No, they don't have rights in the UK. A mistake in the info provided to the distributor, apparently.

Will Waterstones and WH Smith remove the ebook from their websites?

It's possible no one in the UK has the digital rights. At least you have the public library.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Will Waterstones and WH Smith remove the ebook from their websites?

It's possible no one in the UK has the digital rights. At least you have the public library.

I think the metadata changes will eventually catch up with the digital sales. It does look like my best bet is the Mobileread copy. (If the copyright holder isn't going to make anything from the sale, I don't see why anyone else should when there's a good free alternative.)

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Mr Forster died in 1970 age 91 so his works aren't public domain in the UK, Australia or Canada. This book written in 1908 won't be PD in UK until 2041 or 133 years after publication. Madness. Especially considering he had no children or close relatives being an only child. Some very distant relative probably controls the copyright.

Oh - oops. I guess I should delete my copy then. Shouldn't have been so trusting when I downloaded. Although I must admit I'm not feeling terribly guilty of depriving the author of money in this case.

I actually just finished reading A Room with a View this morning. I gave it 3 stars, but it feels a bit more like a 2.75 stars to me.

I enjoyed it - and have to admit reveling in the ending a little. However, I'm not going "off the deep end" in rapture over it.

Just about to start Under the Amoral Bridge by Gary Ballard.

Regards
Caleb

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think the metadata changes will eventually catch up with the digital sales. It does look like my best bet is the Mobileread copy. (If the copyright holder isn't going to make anything from the sale, I don't see why anyone else should when there's a good free alternative.)

Do you wish to involve MR in this ebook download?

Originally Posted by caleb72

Oh - oops. I guess I should delete my copy then. Shouldn't have been so trusting when I downloaded. Although I must admit I'm not feeling terribly guilty of depriving the author of money in this case.

Yeah, it's really up to the downloader to determine whether the material is in PD in their country of residence.

One would expect a book published in 1908 to be in PD everywhere.

[caleb72]

It makes the whole notion of taking advantage of PD books a bit of a nightmare really. You have this big store saying "Get your (legal) Public Domain books here" not really noticing the small print that you have to research before you touch anything.

I mean you can get anything you want on the internet if you look hard enough. But illegal distributions are usually a bit more clear than in Gutenberg/MobileRead etc...

Quite frustrating really and I'm not sure how much I'm going to be bothered to be honest.

Regards
Caleb

[ATDrake]

Personally, if the author's been dead for longer than I've been alive, and/or the book was published before my grandparents were born, I'm not overly concerned if I happen to pick up a PD title that turns out to not quite fall under Canada's Life+50 rules.

At that point, I figure the estate has made its money off the original books, and I'll happily allocate mine to something else where at least some of the creators are still alive to benefit.

Case in point, my current book is a graphic novel edition of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, adaptation and art done by Ian Edgington and I.N.J. Culbard. It's very cartoony in a gritty way (think Mike Avon Oeming on Powers) and an awesome and surprisingly cute take on Holmes' adventures.

I love it and plan on finding the rest at the library and buying the entire series (this one came with a preview of A Study in Scarlet and apparently there are more planned) when the local comic shops have their sales.

[GraceKrispy]

Originally Posted by bert501

I'm adding this to my TBR list--looks really interesting and fun. Thanks for the recommendation!!

I just finished this book yesterday- I reviewed it on my blog and gave it 3/5 stars.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by caleb72

It makes the whole notion of taking advantage of PD books a bit of a nightmare really. You have this big store saying "Get your (legal) Public Domain books here" not really noticing the small print that you have to research before you touch anything.

Worse than that — you have commercial ebook stores (Kindle, B&N, Waterstones, W H Smith) saying "Get your legal ebooks here", and they're not all legal.

George Orwell died in 1950. E. M. Forster died in 1970. There was a big fuss about an illegal copy of "1984", but no-one worries about "A Room With A View"?

Perhaps it just goes to show how bad a life+70 copyright law is.

[phenomshel]

I just started The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime. But - I just bought Mary Stanton's Angel's Verdict, and am jones'ing to read it (hers is one of the few series I can't "hoard" I have to read them, they're like crack to me). So I may put Victoriana on hold and read that first.

[Fbone]

Finished Earth Abides today and I did find some of it thought provoking. Especially the mental conflicts Ish experienced. While it is not everyone's cup of tea I am glad to have read it. It is essential to remember that it was written in 1949 and takes place during the 40s.

I requested Ringworld by Niven from the library but it hasnt arrived yet. So I'm currently book-less until then.

[s1mp13m4n]

I am reading the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

[fantasyfan]

At the moment I'm going through Andre Norton's Witch World series and exploring H.Beam Piper. Most of Piper's work is available free from the Gutenberg Science-fiction bookshelf.

[ATDrake]

Received in the mail and read the new hardcover of Barbara Hambly's Blood Maidens, the latest in her Asher & Ysidro series which started with Those Who Hunt the Night, which in my opinion, is one of the best period vampire stories ever.

Although it's a bit annoying that publisher Severn House seems to be windowing UK and North American releases with a delay of roughly 6 months (I hope they stop this practice soon and start sending out the books at the same time), I'm very pleased that they've been picking up long-running series by authors with a following which the original publishers have since dropped and printing new tales.

This installment continues the Edwardian-era vampire/Oxford don/medical doctor team-up murder mystery/spy thriller focus of the series, with a trip to St. Petersburg and the obligatory guest appearance by the guy-most-likely-to-spot-vampires-who-happens-to-be-living-in-Russia which I think is pretty much de rigueur for anything vaguely occultish in that time period.

It's very referential to the 2nd book in the series, dealing with a certain amount of fallout for that. Very spoilery for exactly what happens there, and the mentions seemed a bit on the unnecessarily heavy-handed side. However, Travelling with the Dead is now very out of print and I'm not sure if a totally new reader would welcome knowing what exactly happened last time around, or prefer to have it more vaguely alluded to so it can be more of a surprise should they manage to read the rest.

Overall, it was a very fun and entertaining adventure, with a few twists and turns and an interesting motivation, not to mention a few more details about the past lives of our regular characters.

I'm unsure how to take one particular character revelation, which seems somewhat ungrounded and slightly out of nowhere. This was apparently a longstanding and deeply-held personal grief that wasn't even vaguely hinted at in the earlier books and thus it comes across as perhaps mildly inconsistent with previous established characterization.

That had the decided feel of having been shoehorned in in order to give that character a "moment" where they can be astounded by the unexpected mystic insight of one of the guest stars. But it's not totally out of line, though frankly, I'd have been perfectly happy without it, as would that character, I suspect.

Otherwise very enjoyable and highly recommended for people who like eccentric Oxford dons, Edwardian-era female doctors, Continental travel adventures, and spy thrillers, with or without vampirism as seen from a medical perspective involved. Though if you can lay hands on copies of the preceding two books, you really should read those first.

[Iridal]

Originally Posted by s1mp13m4n

I am reading the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

I just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it was much better than I remembered! Although I would still like to know (spoiler-alert, don't read this if you don't want to know the ending!):

Spoiler:

What does Harry do for a living when he's all grown-up ???

I'm not completely sure what to read next. It's a close call between The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch) and Avempartha (Michael J. Sullivan).