I have a large pile.   The publishers always seem to put out a lot of books before Xmas.  

I just finished "Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture and the Culture Business Can Fight Back", by Robert Levine.  I even started a thread on the topic, based on the book review in The New York Times (under Political, called "Is the Internet too good to be true?").   I didn't get much response, none sympathetic to the author.

I also just finished reading "The Banned List: A Manifesto Against Jargon and Cliche", by John Rentoul.  Very amusing. 

On a humorous note, here are two lists of "Books I won't be reading in 2012"

http://hurryupharry.org/2012/01/01/books-not-to-be-read-in-2012/

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2012/01/reading-intentions-for-the-...

Let me check my pile and come back.

I have a Kobo, and have been reading some of the classics that came with it. I have most recently been reading Sherlock Holmes.

I was given The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon for Christmas and have been reading that.

I have loaded two new books onto my Kobo. One is Six Metres of Pavement by a former colleague, Farzana Doctor http://www.openbooktoronto.com/books/six_metres_pavement_0 The other is The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. I read another of his books, Middlesex, and am looking forward to reading it.

Since I am teaching a course for UNBC, I will also be reading books about Family and Child Welfare........

I have not heard of "Kobo".  A book reader?  I have not gone to e-books yet, but I am fast running out of space...

It's an e-Reader maker and e-book store that was started by Indigo/Chapters and Borders. Now that Borders has bit the dust state-side, Indigo has sold their stake in Kobo to a Japanese e-book company, deciding to focus on retail rather than on developing tech.

Currently Kobo makes 2 e-readers (1 with a control pad, 1 with a touch screen) and a simple Android tablet wth e-Reading heavily integrated into the interface. In addition, they have e-Reader software for PCs, Blackberries, iPhone/iPad, and Android. Your library is stored in Kobo's cloud so you can synch books that you buy from them (including their free e-texts) to any Kobo-enabled device that you own (e.g. I have our library on two Kobos, two PCs, and my BB).

They use the ePub and PDF formats from Adobe (vs. Kindle's proprietary formate) so you can use books from a variety of sources, including Kobo's own store, Project Gutenberg (for free copies of public domain texts), Overdrive (provider of e-book services to many public libraries), and Google Books.

I have 1 of each of the e-Readers and quite like them.  Easier to handle than a book IMHO, esp. when reading heavy-duty stuff like George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series (I have the first four books in a bundle on my Kobo).

Mendalla

My "hit list" for 2012 is currently to read all of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire to date (he's written 5 of a planned 7 books). This is the fantasy series that the HBO TV series A Game of Thrones in based on. I'm also just finishing up Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst and will likely read some more of his books. He writes spy  thrillers set in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s (i.e. WW2 and the lead up to it).

I saw the Swedish film of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo about a year ago and liked it so may tackle that trilogy at some point (or see the rest of the Swedish movies, at least).

Mendalla

I love my Kobo. It is easier to read outside on it, so is a perfect thing to bring camping. I have the version that has a toggle button, just before the touch version. The battery lasts forever because there really isn't much in there but words. I also like that when you fall asleep reading and drop it, you do not lose your place. In fact, it will go to sleep and wait for you.

I find I need a real book for the times when the battery decides to go dead on  me and I need to recharge for 4-6hrs.

Has anyone read "War and Peace"?

My partner is the reader in our family - I have started reading late last year as I got an IPAD and I love it for ebooks.

Our current reading list (he gives me a list from Amazon for Christmas)

Stephen Kings - 2011

Larry Mcmurtry - Movin' On and Horesman, Pass By

Judi Dench - Further More

Robert Altman

Michael Connelly - The Fifth Witness

Emma Donoghue - Room

This is our start for Jan & Feb.

Mendalla--thanks for the info.  I just got an iPad, which apparently has apps for various e-Book readers like Kindle.   I already have several boxes of books in storage, so I think I need to get acquainted with e-books.  I often can't find a particular book when I am looking for it.

Trishcuit, re "War and Peace".  I am planning to.  Maybe when I retire!  I understand it is very long.

I just finished Stephen King's "11/23/63."  I really enjoyed it.  

One great thing having retired school teachers live with us was my exposure to the classics. I read War and Peace as a pre-teen.

This year my reading will be mostly scholastic, but for entertainment I am reading My Long Trip Home: A Family Memoir by Mark Whitaker (it came highly recommended) and Unbroken: A WWII Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand and A Dog Named Slugger by Leigh Brill (I highly recommended this one having started it)

I just read a review on "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness - sounds like something I'd like to read & I just sent the title to my daughter too - it's in a genre she enjoys. 

I looked for Mary Jo Leddy's book, "The Other Face of God" recently, but it was out of stock at Chapters ... it's one I'd like to read this winter.

Other than that, I'm reading about pensions, RRSPs, TFSAs etc. etc. - need to become more knowlegeable about my financial situation!!

Kobo is available for iOS (iPad and iPhone). You might also want to check into iBooks. That's Apple's own iTunes-based foray into selling eBooks.

Mendalla

So far…

• Alanna Mitchell, Seasick (Emblem, 2009)

• Peter Silverton, Filthy English (Portobello, 2009)

• Rob Dunn, The Wild Life of our Bodies (Harper, 2011)
• Ted Danson & Michael D’Orso, Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans (Rodale, 2011)

• S. A. Kapadia, The Teachings of Zoroaster and the Philosophy of the Parsi Religion (John Murray, 1905)

• Desmond Tutu, God is Not a Christian and other provocations (Harper One, 2011)

• David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe 570-1215 (Norton, 2008)

• John Ralston Saul, Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin (Penguin, 2010)

• Tom Leonard, Outside the Narrative (Word Power/Etruscan Books. 2010)

— and, if I can get it:

• Peter Wells, The Hungry Heart: Journeys with William Colenso  (Vintage, 2011) — a New Zealand book.

Mike

May I ask what Filthy English is about?

Reading a Zen book right now.  I have no idea where that will take me next but have noticed that I put out  "Momandes" in the next to read place on my bedside table, followed by a quick read through a Judas literature book.  I have just finished a stint of science fiction and have plans to move on to some form of classic oh yes, rereading some Virginia Woolfe  after this next stuff.

I'm loving the classics on the Kobo I must say.

I've started to read Huckleberry Finn again since I have that same free classics bookshelf and an ereader on my phone. It's ok for odd moments -- waiting for appointments etc., but the phone is too small to be taken seriously as a book. It's great to revisit Mark Twain though. He always cheers me up. I understand that it's been removed from reading lists in many schools, but taken in context, it's clear SLC was a passionate abolishonist.

Also, I tried to read The Prince, by Machiavelli. Kind of boring, but not the evil tome I expected. It's just a teacher teaching a prince how princes in history dealt with their practical problems. A history lesson, basically, with the emphasis on building and preserving your hypothetical kingdom.

I have The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery in print form -- just started it. It's a very enjoyable (so far) story.

EO: Filthy English is about swearing, what gives it its shock value and how that has shifted around the paddock since the Middle Ages. It's about shock words as a reading of society. I have just finished reading it (a library book) and returned it last night. It's a good read.

Here's a link: http://www.amazon.ca/Filthy-English-When-Everyday-Swearing/dp/184627169X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325586882&sr=1-1

Amazon.ca had 1 copy left when I looked.

I've been loving them too. I read the children's books: Alice in Wonderland, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and then the Sherlock Holmes. Have you read Phantom of the Opera? It was really good, though I have to read it again now that I have the whole picture. I had a bit of trouble following it at some points.

The problem with Phantom is that it's originally French, so you're at the mercy of the translator. I read it years ago (well before ereading was even an issue) because I was a big fan of Lloyd-Webber's musical when it first came out (though, when push come to shove, my preferred version of the story is the 1925 silent film). The English of that translation was pretty good and it could well have been an English novel. Not sure about the translation that Kobo uses (which is likely from Project Gutenberg) since I haven't bothered to read it, preferring to focus on ones I haven't read before. Of the classics they offer, I'm currently about 60% through Wuthering Heights and also read Conan Doyle's The Lost World and Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent as well as some of the poetry.

Mendalla

My wife thought the Kobo Touch came with a bunch of pre-loaded books, classics, already on it. It apparently does not. I can however, it seems, download them for free.

Not available as an ebook.   I simply must not bring books into the house!   I gave up on library books years ago because I so disorganized that would I always be late, or lose them and have to pay for them.  So it seemed simpler to just buy them.  But I am running out of space.  I might get it yet though, it looks like it might be interesting.

The Wi-fi came with 150 of them preloaded, but the Touch doesn't. However, their online library of free books is actually much bigger.

Mendalla

I've been able to download more free books from Kobo with my WiFi version of the Kobo. I think they are accessible for any Kobo.

Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz was a wierd read. I'm thinking the author was maybe into the same stuff as the guy who wrote Alice in Wonderland. Huck Finn was the first one my husband read when he got the reader.  I did just read Phantom.  I found it 'meh'. 

Mendella,

I read the Lost World too and really liked it. Around the World in 80 Days wasn't half bad either. Another I really enjoyed was Jack London's "The Sea Wolf".

I think the free ebooks on the Kobo are free in general anywhere because they are that old. Not sure. Check  that out.

I read two Dorothy stories I think. Now I understand where Gregory Maguire got his stuff for the Wicked series.

Actually, Kobo gets their free etexts from Project Gutenberg, who have been creating etexts of books that are out of copyright since the 80s (the founder died last year, IIRC). They are at www.gutenberg.org. They started creating the etexts as text and HTML files but have now converted many (if not most) of them to ePub and even Kindle formats for eReaders. I grabbed some of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books (basis for the movie John Carter of Mars coming out in March) from them. There is a Project Gutenberg Canada but their collection isn't great and their site sucks for finding anything.

Mendalla

Thanks for the tip, Mendalla.

We thought they were pre-loaded, our mistake since they were on previous models. I know I can access them and download them, but it may require me going to a hotspot to do it. Being on a stick for internet I have to really be careful about downloads. My wife decided to watch a television show she missed and watched a few episodes and man oh man when the bill came in....

Some of my 2012 projects:

- "Whale Song; Journeys into the Secret Lives of the North Atlantic Humpbacks" by Andrew Stevenson.  The pics are stunning.  Met the author in Nova Scotia last summer.

- "Seasick" by Alanna Mitchell

- "Water Into Wine" by Tom Harpur

- "The Art of the Commonplace" by Wendell Berry

- "The First Christmas" by Marcus Borg

I received a Kobo reader for Christmas but am having difficulty downloading files for it.  I don't have high speed internet, so after about 15 minutes my connection times out.

Will have to try downloading at a WiFi terminal and see if I have success.  Kind of frustrating....was looking forward to using it.

It took me a little while to figure out how to download things onto my Kobo, even though it was dead easy. I think the best way is using the desktop app on my computer, and syncing the Kobo that way. I have also downloaded books using the WiFi on the device quite successfully. Good luck. It will work.

The current release of Kobo Desktop is extremely easy to use and I do sometimes use it in place of the Wi-fi even though I have (somewhat) high speed Internet and a Wi-fi access point. However I can where using it over dialup would cause problems. Unfortunately, this is a technology is very predicated on the existence/use of high speed Internet even if you're not using the Wi-fi. One thing that I think Amazon got right with the Kindle (at least in the US, not sure if this is available in Canada) is that they offer a model with a 3G radio (i.e. cellular data) and they pay for the data plan on it so you can sync your Amazon library pretty much anywhere you can get a cell phone signal.

Mendalla

My internet provider tells me I can now get high speed in my area.  Should have it upgraded by middle of next week.  Hopefully that will enable me to use the Kobo reader.

The other bonus is that the streaming for youtube videos will be much improved.

Just got a new Kindle for Christmas, so I'm sure I'll be having all kinds of fun reading adventures this year.

I don't really make reading lists.  I tend to find that good books find their way to me.  Friends will reccomend things or my husband will haul a book home or I'll trip over someting nifty in the used book shop or a staff member will point me towards something at the Indigo.

There are a few authors whose books I do keep an eye out for.  Jim Butcher (he reaaly ought to hurry up with the next Dresden novel), P.N. Elrod, Mercedes Lackey, Laurie R King.

I bought the four book bundle of George R. R. Martin's books for my Kobo, but I am finding them really heavy going.  Too much POV character hopping for my taste, I find it makes the over all story really hard to follow.  I had the same issue with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books.