Top Ten Tuesday: Random books from my (virtual) shelves

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf, with the prompt:

Stand in front of your book collection, close your eyes, point to a title, and write it down. If you have shelves, point to your physical books. If you have a digital library, use a random number generator and write down the title of the book that corresponds with the number you generated. You get bonus points if you tell us whether or not you’ve read the book, and what you thought of it if you did!

I do have lots and lots of books on my physical shelves… but I also know exactly where each book is, so I don’t think closing my eyes and pointing will help me be particularly random! So, I’m going with the virtual option. I have a spreadsheet (Excel nerd alert!) with all the books in my Kindle library, and I used a random number generator to help me pick books.

Here are the ten books that I landed on:

The Sky Vault (The Comet Cycle, #3) by Benjamin Percy

Read? No

Thoughts: The first two books in this trilogy were great… but I think by the time I got a copy of the 3rd, my interest had waned. I do still want to read this (eventually).


The Book of Hidden Things by Francesco Dimitri

Read? No

Thoughts: Honestly, I’d completely forgotten about this book! I picked up a copy over five years ago, after seeing positive reviews. Now that I’ve been reminded of it, I may still want to read it!


The Baker’s Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan

Read? No

Thoughts: I’ve read two other books by this author, and thought they were great. This is yet another “someday, maybe” book.


Feed (Newsflesh, #1) by Mira Grant

Read? YES!

Thoughts: I loved it! This series is amazing… I’d love to reread it at some point. (Check out my review of the trilogy, here)


Kilmeny of the Orchard by L. M. Montgomery

Read? Yes

Thoughts: Not the best of this author’s works (by a long shot!), but for those who want to explore beyond Anne and Emily, it’s an interesting stand-alone to check out. (review)


And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Read? No

Thoughts: I absolutely want to read this novella! Funnily enough, I’ve only read novellas by this author (although I have a few of his novels on my TBR too). The ones I’ve read have been excellent, so I look forward to checking this out.


The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Read? No

Thoughts: I think I grabbed a copy when there was a Kindle price break… but given that I’m not much of a non-fiction reader, I doubt I’ll ever get to this book (even though I’ve heard great things about it).


Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby

Read? No

Thoughts: Another one I’d forgotten! I remember hearing good things about it, so this is a helpful reminder that I should give it a try.


The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

Read? Yes

Thoughts: Now that the 3rd book is out, this trilogy has been on my mind. I’m leaning toward reading #3 (The Rose Field), but I’ll need a major refresher on the previous book first. (Here’s my review of La Belle Sauvage)


Crazy Rich Asians trilogy by Kevin Kwan

Read? 1 of 3 books

Thoughts: This last item that came up randomly for me is a 3-in-1 edition of the Crazy Rich Asians books. I read the first book earlier this year (review), and I do want to read the rest!


Have you read any of my books? Any that you’d particularly recommend?

I’d love to see other people’s random book selections! If you wrote a TTT post, please share your link!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection

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Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Most Recent Additions to My Book Collection. I did buy a LOT of books at the end of 2021 — but I think I’ve share most of those already.

Usually, I build these posts around my physical books purchases, but to switch things up, here are my 10 most recent additions to my Kindle library:

Have you read any of these? Which ones do you think should be my priorities to read?

If you posted a TTT list this week, please share your link!

Resources for e-book price breaks

E-books can be awfully expensive, amiright?

So what’s a book-buying-obsessed reader to do? Well, for one thing, sign up for email alerts! There are loads of sites that feature e-book markdowns. Here are a bunch I rely on for stocking my Kindle on the cheap.

Kindle Daily Deal: Amazon’s daily featured price breaks. Sign up on your Amazon account’s subscription page.

 

Bookperk: From HarperCollins, a daily dose of reduced price e-books and special deals. Sign up for daily emails at http://www.bookperk.com/

 

Riffle: Also sends daily deals via email. Sign up at https://www.rifflebooks.com/users/sign_up

 

Early Bird Books: From Open Road Media, daily emails on price breaks, usually on books that have been out a few years. Info here: https://earlybirdbooks.com/

 

The Portalist: A sci-fi focused site also from Open Road Media, which has email alerts of sci-fi/fantasy price breaks as well. Info here: https://theportalist.com/

 

Kindle Price Break forum via Amazon: In Amazon Customer Discussions, a forum dedicated to price breaks. You can subscribe to the discussion to get an alert every time someone posts, and you can share your finds as well. Be warned — this group only allows posts with price breaks, and if you go off-topic in your posts, you will be shamed for it! There are some regular contributors who come up with an amazing assortment of books being marked down. Check it out and subscribe here.

 

eReaderIQ: This is a one-stop shop for price breaks, where you can search for deals and subscribe to email alerts. The site is here. The coolest thing about EreaderIQ is that you can set up your price break wishlist, where you can add the books you want to follow and specify when you want to be notified about a price break (for example, if the price drops by a certain increment or if it falls below a certain amount.)

 

Goodreads deals: You can sign up (here) to receive daily emails about deals tailored to you — so if a book on your to-read list has a price drop, you’ll see it here — as well as other deals related to your book recommendations. You can also explore deals on the Goodreads site by clicking Browse, then Deals. More info here.

 

Also worth noting is Amazon’s Kindle Matchbook program, which lets you buy Kindle versions of physical books you’ve already purchased from Amazon, for $2.99 or less. Not every single book is available, but for people like me who like to be able to access ALL their books, all the time, it’s a pretty cool option to check out. Start here, and then click Find Your Kindle Matchbook Titles to see your eligible books.

 

 

My local library branch. I love it so.

Of course, the cheapest way to read e-books is by borrowing them from your friendly local library! I adore my library, and I’m always checking out their newest e-book offerings. The only downside is the 3-week limit on borrowing with no renewal option, so if I get distracted mid-read and run out of time, I’m also out of luck. My library has Overdrive and Hoopla available, as well as some other e-reader options, and I love being able to put in my requests and download to my devices whenever my hold requests come in.

What other resources do you use for tracking e-book price breaks? Please share in the comments, and I’ll update this list with any new finds! (Plus, you’ll have my eternal gratitude… priceless!)