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The E-Book Files
MaineWriter:
Thanks, Bel!
I got my Kindle around the time of the raid of the YFZ (Yearning for Zion) ranch in in Texas. That news event got me started on reading FLDS memoirs and I buzzed through three in a row:
Escape by Laura Palmer
Shattered Dreams by Irene Spencer
Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall (with Lisa Pulitzer)
They each had a unique twist. By reading all three, I did have a good sense of the FLDS and what is going on on the ranch!
Irene Spencer (Shattered Dreams) was married--or "placed" to use their terminology--in 1953. Her story covers the period from 1953-1980. In the last part of the book, she was trying to leave the cult and her husband when he was killed in an auto accident. Her husband and his brothers sounded like a bunch of dreadful guys. I wish she had written more about the brothers but I decided at the end that she probably didn't know much--that was the whole strategy. Keep the women in the dark.
Laura Palmer (Escape) was married to Merril Jessop in 1986. He's the man who is running the YFZ ranch at present. She escaped from the cult with her children in 2003. Her "claim to fame" is to be the first woman who successfully sued for custody of her children. Most women who manage to get away from the FLDS are forced to leave their children behind.
Lissa Wall (Stolen Innocence) was "placed" with her husband when she was 14. She also managed to escape just recently. She brought a suit against Warren Jeffs (the "prophet") as an accomplice to rape and that's the reason he is now in jail. Her former husband is going to be tried on rape charges soon.
All in all, an interesting group of books. They are all available in print and Kindle versions at Amazon.
MaineWriter:
After all the Mormon stuff, I needed something light....LOL
All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, DC by Craig Seymour
This is one of those books that has a really great title to catch your attention. The book was good--not great--but very easy and fast reading. The author became a journalist and there was a long tedious section about how he interviewed a bunch of famous rock stars. I felt like I was supposed to be impressed that he had met Janet Jackson. Okay, so...
The strip club part was interesting although I would have liked a little more background and history. He skimmed over that. The clubs are all gone now; they were torn down when they built the new baseball field (for the Senators).
I'd give this 2.5 stars (out of 4).
L
louisev:
--- Quote from: BelAir on July 15, 2008, 09:01:15 pm ---Leslie, I am so glad you started this thread! Much easier for me to keep track of things here than trying to keep up with a zillion little pieces of paper where I scribble your recommendations.
PS - I also loved The Erotic Etudes!
--- End quote ---
oooh! a positive review! Can I talk you into writing an Amazon.com review? I only have a few reviews there and there are no recent ones. I would love to have a new review!
http://www.amazon.com/Erotic-Etudes-E-L-van-Hine/dp/1411652746/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216321600&sr=8-1
MaineWriter:
And if you write one, Bel, can you post it on the Kindle page, too? In the amazon catalog, the two entries (print and ebook) don't connect to each other.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Erotic-%C3%89tudes-Opus-VI/dp/B0019R0YK4
Thanks in advance,
Leslie
MaineWriter:
from Time Magazine:
Wednesday, Jul. 09, 2008
Amazon Kindle Sales on the Rise?
By Josh Quittner
Is the Kindle starting to catch fire with consumers? From the Department of Inscrutable Data Points comes word that e-book sales for Amazon's Kindle — its digital reading device-have doubled during the past two months. Kind of, sort of, maybe.
According to a source at Amazon, "on a title-by-title basis, of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form, Kindle sales now make up over 12% of sales for those titles." Amazon is notoriously tight lipped about sales data, and the new line of business that the Kindle represents for the online retail powerhouse has been especially frustrating for analysts and media to parse. At a technology trade conference in May, CEO Jeff Bezos said that Kindle sales accounted for 6% of book titles sold for the Kindle and in print. So Amazon appears to be selling more e-books.
Since we're dealing with percentages rather than unit sales, it's impossible to say whether we're talking about a ton of books, or a modest number. But it's fairly certain that, given the enormous number of new books that Amazon sells, and the fact that many if not most are also simultaneously released as Kindle e-books, we're talking about a good sign for Amazon.
A couple of things could explain the uptick. The Kindle quickly sold out shortly after it was unveiled on Amazon at the end of 2007. However, the company recently cranked up supply to meet demand, and cut the price at the end of May from $399 to $359. Some analysts estimate Kindle sales at around 55,000 a month. At the same time, the Kindle is quirkier than your average gadget, and consumers are learning how to use it. It's possible that as Kindle owners warm up to the gadget — and as the library of titles rapidly grows — they increase the rate of their purchases. We now return you to more scrutable data points...
* Find this article at:
* http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1821451,00.html
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