RIASS stuff:
Enter our latest giveaways!'< last day to enter our NM Browne giveaway! Show us some love!
Book review: Lord of the Vampires'by Gena Showalter. ''(Rating: 
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Book review: Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Rating: )
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Hey bloggers, Happy Haul-idays is back! Win $500 of books for you, a friend & your favorite charity:'ow.ly/7lwQg
Interview with Steve Hely (see our review of How to Be a Famous Novelist)
The Iron Fey'webpage is live:'bit.ly/rRYra1
How well do you know Moby-Dick?'pen.gy/tvKMjC
Robert Downey Jr. and director Guy Ritchie talk about the 'Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows' movie fb.me/14Ob6Lnde
Google launches Australian eBookstore; Booktopia and Dymocks to sell Google eBooks:'bit.ly/tieOk3
Fictional Books by TV Characters:'bit.ly/uVv7d9
Dickens' Christmas Carol (in the original Klingon) Live in Chicago? fb.me/1p1e1wx4H
Prime Books Sells Magazines Lightspeed and Fantasy to Editor John Joseph Adams'j.mp/txGZ80
The Art of Pixar'how 25 years of beloved animation went from sketchbook to screen'ow.ly/7kiA1
Check out the 1930s train station set for Hugo, the 3D Scorsese-directed film based on the book:'lat.ms/uLVbE9
Karen Russell discusses character development in Swamplandia'ow.ly/7lG6A
What is the great book you have never'but should have'read?'ow.ly/7lxB6
Neil MacGregor discusses his book A History of the World in 100 Objects 'n.pr/sqIGly
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Having a quick browse of the booktopia ebook store, Ive got to say its on the expensive side. How do they expect to compete with kindle and epubs? Do you have any idea what format Google ebooks are in?
A very valid question, Mo. I think the format for the Google eBooks is EPUB, and perhaps PDF, but Im not entirely sure.
Booktopia seems to be thriving, and for a few reasons other than price, I think. Their social media team is very strong, they write great content that keeps people coming back, and they seem to offer a strongly curated selection of books with a heavy Aussie emphasis. Although a lot of o/s books can definitely be purchased more cheaply through sites such as Amazon or Book Depository, it can be hard to find local releases through such sites.
I had high expectations of Swamplandia! based on the buzz; Im a lover of southern gothic and thought this would be right up my alley. Its the story of the Bigtree family, a tribe who runs the alligator-wrestling park Swamplandia! in an island chain off of Florida. Having the island to themselves except for the tourists, the Bigtrees inhabit a very different sort of world; they have a museum filled with family artifacts, children who are homeschooled and rarely set foot on the mainland, and a mother who wrestles alligators. Things hum along nicely until their mother, Hilola Bigtree, succumbs to cancer, throwing the entire family into a tailspin.
The writing is very descriptive and quite lovely, but at times it almost feels like too muchor perhaps just feels misplaced, as sometimes it felt like you had to wade through a great deal of description to get to the plot. The switching of chapters between Ava and Kiwis perspective also felt a bit jarring at times; it felt youd just gotten into one storyline when you were yanked back into another. The novel itself has a very original feel while also recalling some other great works of literature; Avas character is sometimes reminiscent of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. Unfortunately while there were moments I couldnt put the book down, there were also moments I wanted to walk away from it forever, which made for a disjointed reading experience. Overall this scores major points for originality, but the originality is compromised by the uneven character and pace of the novel. It was worth the read, but didnt quite live up to the hype for me.