I simply admit, I am a cyber shopaholic, I love the hassle-free checkouts, the fact that I'm making purchases lying on my bed wearing my PJs, the online only discounts, I could go on and on.....but I won't.
I think anyone who hasn't tried it before, should really give it a go cos there are many bargains galore waiting for the right person to snap it up. A bookaholic like me can get great deals from Barnes & Noble for instance. I recently registered with them and since then they have sent me emails on their fantastic store, brick-and-mortar and online, promos (not such a good thing if you dislike being inundated by emails on a weekly basis, to their credit, they are very inobtrusive). I finally bit at the bait when I got a 50% off deal on one title out of their leather-bound book collection. Always wanted to own a leather bound book and here is Barnes & Noble offering me that opportunity for a mere USD9.98 after discount.
The difficult part was choosing which book I wanted. There were a few selections in there that I had my heart set on but since I was receiving the discount on only one title and since I am using the balance of my L.A.M.B. fragrance purchase, I could only spring for one book (surprise, surprise, I do have some modicum of self-control). I narrowed it down to 3 choices, Jane Austen : Seven Novels, The Iliad & The Odyssey and Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales.
First dismissed was Jane Austen's Jane Austen : Seven Novels. Out of the seven tales bounded (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan), I already owned 3. Granted, none were leather-bound but the Penguin paperbacks served its function, the stories were read and enjoyed. So, no Jane Austen for me, I'll just have to get the remaining four individually.
So now it's down to Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales and Homer's epic tales The Iliad & The Odyssey. My English upbringing means I grew up on a steady diet of fairy tales (with a liberal sprinkling of the 'Jane & Peter, Peter & Jane' books) and the volume offered by Barnes & Noble had a collection of over 200 tales ranging from the popular; The Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel & Gretel and Snow White to the obscure; The Juniper Tree, Clever Gretel, King Thrushbeard, and The Singing, Soaring Lark. And this is not the watered down version adapted by Disney. This volume contains the tales in its true gritty, dark form. What better way to revisit childhood tales as an adult right? The point is, reading the original, twisted version should leave me less disturbed now then it would have when I was a wee lass of six shouldn't it?
Then we have two epics of the ancient world, The Iliad & The Odyssey, written between the eighth and ninth century B.C. This edition employs Samuel Butler's classic translations of both texts. As it should be since I am not well-versed in ancient Greek, nor any Greek for that matter. For me, this would be a coup. I have always wanted to read Homer and to have both tales bound in one book, is simply magnifico. They are both on my '100 Must Reads Before I Die' list. Well, it's more like I pilfered the list of books from somewhere online. But I digress, Homer in a leather-bound volume would be more inspirational than Homer in paperback. Leather-bound sets the mood for tales of ancient past (is this an oxymoron?), of nations at war and of the courage and compassion of heroic soldiers, of voyages of self- and otherwise discoveries. This is a book that will sit proudly on my shelf till I receive the call to read it.
Lol, at least I'm honest. I have a few classic reads that I've bought eons ago and am only getting round to them. Sometimes, you need the wisdon of age (read: experience) to better understand a tale. I'm in the midst of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and if I had read it a few years earlier, I don't believe I would have made the connections I discovered reading the tale now. There are many parallels we can draw from that story, written in 1939, that mirrors what we are facing today, it is unbelievable. Anyways, my point is, it's nice if the Homer tales were already on my bookshelf should I finally be decreed ready to read them.
Which to choose? I put both in the shopping cart but only one will leave the Barnes & Noble warehouse to be delivered to moi. Both volumes are classics which I would be honoured to own, both would serve to entertain and educate but which will be triumphant? I picked Homer, it was the thicker of the two :D
I think anyone who hasn't tried it before, should really give it a go cos there are many bargains galore waiting for the right person to snap it up. A bookaholic like me can get great deals from Barnes & Noble for instance. I recently registered with them and since then they have sent me emails on their fantastic store, brick-and-mortar and online, promos (not such a good thing if you dislike being inundated by emails on a weekly basis, to their credit, they are very inobtrusive). I finally bit at the bait when I got a 50% off deal on one title out of their leather-bound book collection. Always wanted to own a leather bound book and here is Barnes & Noble offering me that opportunity for a mere USD9.98 after discount.
The difficult part was choosing which book I wanted. There were a few selections in there that I had my heart set on but since I was receiving the discount on only one title and since I am using the balance of my L.A.M.B. fragrance purchase, I could only spring for one book (surprise, surprise, I do have some modicum of self-control). I narrowed it down to 3 choices, Jane Austen : Seven Novels, The Iliad & The Odyssey and Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales.
First dismissed was Jane Austen's Jane Austen : Seven Novels. Out of the seven tales bounded (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan), I already owned 3. Granted, none were leather-bound but the Penguin paperbacks served its function, the stories were read and enjoyed. So, no Jane Austen for me, I'll just have to get the remaining four individually.
So now it's down to Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales and Homer's epic tales The Iliad & The Odyssey. My English upbringing means I grew up on a steady diet of fairy tales (with a liberal sprinkling of the 'Jane & Peter, Peter & Jane' books) and the volume offered by Barnes & Noble had a collection of over 200 tales ranging from the popular; The Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel & Gretel and Snow White to the obscure; The Juniper Tree, Clever Gretel, King Thrushbeard, and The Singing, Soaring Lark. And this is not the watered down version adapted by Disney. This volume contains the tales in its true gritty, dark form. What better way to revisit childhood tales as an adult right? The point is, reading the original, twisted version should leave me less disturbed now then it would have when I was a wee lass of six shouldn't it?
Then we have two epics of the ancient world, The Iliad & The Odyssey, written between the eighth and ninth century B.C. This edition employs Samuel Butler's classic translations of both texts. As it should be since I am not well-versed in ancient Greek, nor any Greek for that matter. For me, this would be a coup. I have always wanted to read Homer and to have both tales bound in one book, is simply magnifico. They are both on my '100 Must Reads Before I Die' list. Well, it's more like I pilfered the list of books from somewhere online. But I digress, Homer in a leather-bound volume would be more inspirational than Homer in paperback. Leather-bound sets the mood for tales of ancient past (is this an oxymoron?), of nations at war and of the courage and compassion of heroic soldiers, of voyages of self- and otherwise discoveries. This is a book that will sit proudly on my shelf till I receive the call to read it.
Lol, at least I'm honest. I have a few classic reads that I've bought eons ago and am only getting round to them. Sometimes, you need the wisdon of age (read: experience) to better understand a tale. I'm in the midst of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and if I had read it a few years earlier, I don't believe I would have made the connections I discovered reading the tale now. There are many parallels we can draw from that story, written in 1939, that mirrors what we are facing today, it is unbelievable. Anyways, my point is, it's nice if the Homer tales were already on my bookshelf should I finally be decreed ready to read them.
Which to choose? I put both in the shopping cart but only one will leave the Barnes & Noble warehouse to be delivered to moi. Both volumes are classics which I would be honoured to own, both would serve to entertain and educate but which will be triumphant? I picked Homer, it was the thicker of the two :D
