Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Loading Penguin's FirstToRead Galleys on a Kindle Fire

If you're anything like me, you were a bit dismayed to discover that the Penguin FirstToRead program doesn't offer Kindle formatted e-galleys.  You probably also couldn't get anywhere with the instructions provided on how to get the books to work on a third-party app.  Relax.  I'm going to tell you exactly what you need to do to get your book up and running on your Fire, without any confusion.

1.  First of all, as the program tells you, you will need the Aldiko app.  It's not available as of this posting through Amazon's app store, but you can change the settings on your Kindle Fire to allow you to load outside apps just long enough to download it from their site and install it (they have instructions, I'll skip ahead presuming you're already at that point to tell you how to get over the final hurdle they don't.)

2. You need to have Aldiko authorized for Adobe Digital Editions with an Adobe ID.  If you're an Overdrive user through your public library, you already use ADE so all you need is your current Adobe ID and password to set up in Aldiko.  If you're not, you need to get an Adobe ID, but it's really easy (and free!) to do.

3.  Here's the important part, that none of the other directions I've found make clear.  Everyone else says, "open ADE on your computer, load your .acsm file, and then copy that PDF to your device".  DON'T DO THAT.  I tried it countless times, and it doesn't work.  Here's what does.  What you want to transfer onto your device is the original .acsm file downloadable from FirstToRead.  It won't want to work using the browser on your device (on mine it tries to open the file using Overdrive, which doesn't support PDFs), so you'll need to download it onto your computer first, then hook your Fire up to your computer using the USB cable and transfer the .acsm into the Digital Editions folder.  Once that's done, go into Files on Aldiko's main screen, open the Digital Editions folder, click the file and choose Import.  The book itself should now appear on your bookshelf.

Now you're ready to read!  This should also work with any other DRM protected PDF books you may download.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Texas Book Festival - Authors announced!

The Texas Book Festival is one of my favorite annual activities, and they've just recently released a full list of the authors who will be in attendance this year. Mark your calendars for the final weekend in October! The festival has created a handy list of every author separated by genre in a downloadable, printable PDF here. Stay tuned for news on the full schedule release. As you may or may not know, they have also released the festival poster for this year!

Texas Book Festival 2013
(image via Texas Book Festival Facebook)
From the Texas Book Festival Facebook page:
"The 2013 Texas Book Festival poster art is by Randal Ford of Randal Ford Photography, a photograph that he shot for "The Amazing Faith of Texas," a book featuring images of people and churches all over Texas. This photo was taken on Highway 67 near Ruidosa, Texas (population 43)."

Giving this another go...

It's been a while since I attempted this, and I didn't do such a great job.  Whoops!  Anyway, here I am, back to give this book blogging thing another go.  In the meantime, while I haven't been so great at keeping my resolution to post here, I have been very active on goodreads, my current favorite review platform.  You can catch up on what I've been reading over there, and in the meantime I'm working on some new exciting stuff!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2011

To really get my year in books off the ground, I've decided to take part in some of the reading challenges out there on some book blogs.  The first one I've decided to join should be a breeze for me, since historical fiction is my favorite kind of fiction.  So I'm very excited to throw my hat in the ring for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2011!



I've decided to sign up at the "Severe Bookaholic" level, which means completing 20 books between now and December 31.  I'm confident I can do that many (possibly more!), and I've even got started on my to-read list.  So, in no particular order (links go to each book's page on goodreads):

  1. The Bookman by Lavie Tidhar ✓
  2. The Pirate Devlin by Mark Keating ✓
  3. The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig ✓
  4. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
  5. Queen Hereafter by Susan Fraser King
  6. Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran
  7. The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor
  8. The Wake of the Lorelei Lee by L.A. Meyer
  9. The Spanish Bride by Georgette Heyer
  10. The Wrong Blood by Manuel de Lope
  11. Juliet by Anne Fortier ✓
  12. Poison by Sara Poole ✓
  13. Prophecy by S. J. Parris
  14. The Lady's Slipper by Deborah Swift






... and that's all for now, just going off my current library stack and the books on my shelf.  Others will be added in time but half the list chosen this early in the year is a pretty good start.

Fresh blog, fresh start!

Here I am in a new location, ready to start my reading year in a new place.  I might try to migrate old posts from the livejournal I used to keep as a reading log, but for now I'm just focusing on getting this new one off the ground.  If you're reading this, welcome and thank you very much for visiting!