Blogging for Books
I’m a book whore. I’ll do pretty much anything for a free book. Well, not that, but nearly anything else.
Surely I’m not the only one who gets slightly giddy at the thought of a book, and downright titillated when someone mentions it’s free??
So imagine how engorged and tingling I was when I found Blogging for Books. Over 2 million books, of all types, just begging to be read, for FREE!! Okay, not totally free, but for the mere price of a review, so practically free. Pick your book, read it, review it on your blog and link it up, and get another book. A book whore’s delight!
Not so delightful was my first free title, My Life in Middlemarch.
I must admit to being a reader who is first enticed by the cover of a book, and this one was no exception.
The cover is the best thing about it.
I believe it was P.T. Barnum that said a sucker is born every minute, and I was definitely sucked into this one by that cover. More specifically I was sucked into a world of quotation marks.
The description seems now to be nothing but a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
“In this wise and revealing work of biography, reporting, and memoir, Rebecca Mead leads us into the life that the book made for her, as well as the many lives the novel has led since it was written.”
Of the 10% of the book I read, which I would liken to slogging through a hasty pudding of English literature, I don’t believe even 1% of that was memoir. The majority of it was merely quotes from other books, or bits of research, that jumped hither and yon.
This book left a bad taste in my mouth for this author, and the extremely homely “George Eliot”. I couldn’t swallow another bite and had to walk away.
However, it shall not deter me from diving into more titles due to my extremely book whorish tendencies!!
And remember my fat bottom stalkers, life is entirely too short to read bad books!!
Fat Bottom Girl Said What 
I agree – that’s a fantastic cover. But the use of “Middlemarch” in the title is enough to make me pass on even attempting to read it. It’s been since college since I was forced to digest George Elliot, and I still avoid all things remotely alluding to her or her works. Gah! I’ll stick needles in my eyes before I read her again.
Rant complete.
I am so going to check this out. Ohmy! Ohmy! Ohmy! Free books! For a review? Sign me up. For goodness sakes, I devour books like chocolate while PMSing. Bring it!
English literature generally leaves me wondering why I bothered, but I always feel like there must be something wrong with me, as masses of people adore Jane Austen and the like. So, it’s good to know I’m not the only one!
Book whores unite!! I’m currently perusing what I’m going to check out next. They also have craft/hobby books, gardening, and cookbooks!!
Oh me too. Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, George Eliot…thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather watch c-span for 24 hours. I think masses of people adore English lit because no one wants to admit they don’t. I think if we’d all just admit that we think more than one of them suck a big one, there’d be a collective gasp of “oh I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
So it starts here, as we’ve both admitted an extreme dislike for it! lol
I’ve been checking out the Bloggers for Books site. It looks pretty cool. I was going to wait until after the kids went back to their dad’s at the end of the summer, but they give you 90 days to post your review, so I think I’ll start now.
Very cool! Have fun perusing!
OMG the heavens have opened up and swallowed me whole!! I was just thinking about doing more book reviews and how I really enjoy blogging about them Ya know..giving the newbie authors a shoutout…..like I did my recent post on How to lose a girl in 10 ways!!
I headed on over to that site now!!
The problem only lies in what to read next! lol
Being an Englishman you might expect me to jump to the defence of some of the classic English titles pilloried in other comments! Not so, what I would say though is that an historical context is all important when consuming the likes of Emily Bronte and George Eliot – their tedium was borne out of a tedious Victorian life. Other classic novelists such as Dickens though should be given a chance – Dickens on the whole was a fine dramatist, observer and political commentator through his fiction. Back to the point of your blog post – free books for free reviews sounds quite an incentive – many of us would likely have been duped by that fancy cover and disingenuous name dropping of “Middlemarch” – good for you for not wasting time finishing a tedious book – something I learned to do when choosing authors to study in college – a quick review of Emily Brontes works were enough to move me quickly on to Somerset Maugham.
Maybe I should specify female English authors of the Victorian era, because I do enjoy Dickens on occasion.
I think when I hit 35 I decided my time was worth more than I thought and stopped letting my guilt complex motivate me to finish bad books. So for the last 10 years I’ve been really enjoying reading.
Thanks so much for reading and commenting and hope you visit again!
WHAT?! Almost free books?! I don’t even mind the dry English literature, because it makes me able to brush up on my Tudor speak. 🙂
I knew you would appreciate this particular kind of whoring around. Lol
Are you still doing this? I didn’t sign up this summer so I could focus on my kids and not reading and writing, but now that they’re leaving I’m thinking of revisiting it. Is it worth it?
If you want a large selection, go check out Edelweiss. Some books only require a quick download, and others require a short written request to the publisher, which of course, are a little more difficult to get. However, since I’m such a book whore, they had me at the “free” part.
I go in and check the newest offerings once a week, Edelweisss sends you an email, and if something strikes my fancy, I will download it, or request it.
Thanks! So the e-book selection is bigger than the paper book selection? I don’t care either way – a book’s a book – so I have no prejudice for one version over the other.
The e-book selection is huge at Edelweiss, and there’s all genres to choose from.