Bookish Rants or Raves: Drawing The Line! What’s Ur Limit?

I was reading a post about Train Wreck Books at Mama Kitty Reviews blog and I started thinking about my limits when it comes to subject matters in the books I choose to read or that are offered to me for review.

I have to admit that I pretty flexible, I usually am open for mostly anything. I love reading M/M Romance, have read a lot of Paranormal Erotica and have no qualms about delving into a book with BDSM elements.

That being said, there are some subjects out there where I simply feel the need to draw the line. I haven’t read any books with them, but I have read about them in blogs and on twitter.

I remember reading on twitter and subsequently on a blog about a book where the woman has sex with a tree… *a moment of silence, please* …

Bookish Rants or Raves: Book Snobs!

I have to confess that even though I’ve read my share of Brazilian Literary Classics when I was a kid and that I have also read some English and American Literary classics laster on when I was in college, I have always preferred spending my time with my Agatha Christie collection.

Nowadays, I don’t hide my YA, UF and PNR obsession and I am far from being embarrassed by it, but that doesn’t stop people from turning their noses when i mention the types of book I read.

To be quite honest, I don’t give a damn and it’s none of their business which kind of book I have a predilection for. However, I find ridiculous this sort of snobbish behavior.

I was wondering if any of you guys out there have ever been in a situation where you suffered prejudice for the type of book you like …

Bookish Rants or Raves: Standalone Novels X Series!

Time and time again I ask myself why do I favor Book series so much more than standalone novels. I mean, cliffhangers are a killer for me, so standalone books should always be my drug of choice, right?

Hell no! I think I might be a masochist for reading a great book and willingly suffering for months until the next installment comes out. If it’s a successful series? Then i am really screwed, because then I will be waiting years until I get all my answers and a conclusion to the story.

Why do i do that? Why do I keep adding series to my already full roster? The answer is simple, I can’t help it!
Book series give you so much more than a standalone novel. You get more of your favorite characters, more action or romance and more everything else.

I know series can be annoying …

Bookish Rants or Raves: Reader / Author Relationships – The Good, The Bad and The Weird

It still amazes me the array of possibilities that the internet has opened up when it comes to the relationship between us, the readers, and the authors we love so much.

However, as with anything else in life, there is the good and there is the bad side of it and I decided to talk about both today.

Personally I love that, us, book bloggers that live in countries that don’t have English as their native tongue and therefore much less access to books, signings and conventions, are able to connect with our favorite authors through Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and so on. I feel really lucky to be able to talk to them, share stories and really get to know them in a level that was not possible not so long ago.

But, as I said before, there is also the bad side …

Bookish Rants or Raves: To Each Their Own – Say NO! to Plagiarism

I’ve seen a lot being said on regards to plagiarism on the blogverse and personally, I find the act of taking someone’s hard work and claiming it as your own, despicable.

We, the Book Lovers, had a recent email talk about the issue, because we all have our individual blogs besides BLI and cross posting does happen, so we were trying to come up with ways to make it clear that we are simply using our own texts a second time.

When I started thinking about what to write here, I realized something about myself. I actually don’t read reviews  of books I haven’t read or reviewed yet because I don’t want to be influenced by someone else’s opinion and writing style in any way, shape or form.

I work hard on my reviews and opinion posts and I know a lot of bloggers do that as …

Bookish Rants or Raves: The Price of Our Addiction

Amazing to think how much us, book lovers in general, spend on books on a regular basis. We book bloggers do receive some books for review and its a great way to get to know new and established authors. However, if you are as addicted as I am in series, there are too many of them that you follow and  unless you have contacts and/or live in the US, you rarely get a chance to receive the newest installments of the series you love so much.

Besides, we bookaholics can’t stand to not look around a bookstore and/or an online bookstore and buy some books that just catch out eyes.

I’ve lived in two different countries and neither of them is an English speaking country. I have to make do with really small areas in the local bookstores that have books in …

Bookish Rants or Raves: From Page to Screen

How many times have we heard the phrase: “Based on…” when referring to movies or TV shows? The tradition of transforming a novel into a movie or a TV series has been going on for the longest time and it makes complete sense, doesn’t it? There are so many books out there and  tons of them just scream to be adapted to a screen, any screen.

How many time have you read a book and thought about which actor or actress would represent your favorite character better? To be honest, I don’t, ever. You might want to cast stones, but I hate movie of TV show adaptations of books I’ve read. They never match, let alone surpass whatever expectations I have for them and they always turn out to be a disappointment for me.

I have to say that I do find myself enjoying a few …

Bookish Rants or Raves: eBook Publishing Fail

I have a bone to pick with publishers about eBook publishing. Something happened recently that really pissed me off. I am sure that I am not alone in being upset about the different release dates when it comes to releasing a book in electronic format verses release dates for hardcover or paperback.

The newest book in Kim Harrison’s Rachel Morgan series was released February 23rd and I had pre-ordered it about a week before. On release day I found out that it had been pushed back a week and I was only going to be able to get it on March 2nd. When I went to the eBook online store where I bought it, I had the surprise of finding out that it had been pushed back once again to April 9th. WTF!?!?

That is so disrespectful to readers! I understand that publishers …

On Our Bookish Minds: Lets Talk About Book Covers

The old saying of never judge a book by its cover is true most of the time. However, there have been instances when there is a bad cover or even those which do not illustrate the characters realistically, such as the recent controversy about the whitewashing of protagonists in several YA books.

Often these are still good books, just bad cover choices.

I don’t usually let bad covers put me off to a book, but there are times for each of us I am sure it happens for better or worse. Beautiful covers can be misleading sometimes though and I have been burnt several times when I picked up a book that I thought would be good just because of …