The Book Nerd

It's high time for a new feature for your blog on BookLikes! We've received many requests concerning editing your posts and tags, and following your suggestions we're happy to introduce a smart looking table of content of your blog and new editing options. Let's start!

When you go to the Blog view (choose Blog from the upper menu), you'll notice a new button, called Mass edit posts and tags. 

Click it to see the table of content of your blog's posts that can be sorted and filtered according to your preferences, and edited. 

The Post mass editor page presents all your posts (published, drafts, to publish) that can be sorted according to the post type (text, photo, url, video, quote, review), viewed on blog and edited anytime (click edit on the right). 

If you want to find posts from a given time period enter the dates and click show. You can also add various search options, e.g.: text posts published between April 1 and April 16 with a BookLikes tag.

When you select all parameters, in the example above: post type, post status, dates, tag, click Show - the post mass editor page will show you the posts which correspond to your parameters.

You can also select posts (mark checkboxes on the left) and mass delete posts and edit your tags in these posts (add new tags OR remove tags). 

If you want to reset the search options, change all parameters to "0" and click Show. The page will present all your posts and tags. 

Have a look at the Mass editor know-how poster with a short characteristic of all options. Click the image to enlarge. 

Click to enlarge the view of the know-how guidelines.

Jenny Trout posted a Pet Peeves blog, and while initially I was going to comment with my peeves, I figured I'd do it in my own space (here) instead.

Yes, I have pet peeves, the kind of things I should just ignore, but can't because of my Angry Pants, or whatever. They're really only micro-annoyances at most ;-) Book-related:

-When authors rate their own books five stars on Goodreads. There's a fine line between self-confidence and arrogance. The Australian culture is not big on arrogance - we have phrases such as "get over yourself", "he's up himself", and Tall Poppy Syndrome. Growing up in a self-deprecating culture, I find that "rate novel I wrote five stars" thing rather "up themselves" ;-)

-When publishers' social media is more about TV/film than books. I follow them because I want BOOK NEWS. Not the various shite they watch that I have no interest in.

-Phrases such as "book boyfriend" and "date a book". THEY'RE BOOKS. THEY'RE CHARACTERS. My role as a reader is a voyeuristic one, where I'm just watching the characters - I'm not self-inserting and getting involved.

-Phrases such as "book nerd" and "book geek". I'M JUST A READER. "Nerd" and "geek" seem to have connotations to them, things that don't match me. So I just want to be known as a reader.

-When supposedly feminist social media such as A Mighty Girl spotlight cishet white men like JG. Hello, this is supposed to be A Mighty GIRL? JG may be "mighty", but I'm pretty sure he doesn't self-identify as female. Is it too much to ask that female-centric media focus on...well, women and girls? (Trans welcome.)

-When publishers seem to promote those books and authors everyone's already heard of, instead of the lesser-known, not-bestselling authors. I know - publicity and promotion is aimed at grabbing the attention of those who are NOT regular book readers, or who only read what promotion and publicity tells them to read. Us long-time regular readers are not publishers' target audience. Kind of a downer.

Amazon has sued four firms that pay people to produce reviews that then appear on the online retailer's site.

The company alleges that the paid opinions "undermine" its review system which customers believe come from unbiased sources.

Amazon is seeking damages from the four sites and wants them to stop producing the reviews.

The four companies named in the legal complaint have not yet responded to Amazon's allegations.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32251698

http://lindahilton.booklikes.com/post/977093/when-arrogance-hypocrisy-and-deceit-all-come-together-in-one-place

Self-publishing author Sandy Nathan, who calls reviewers stupid and tells them how to review, who buys reviews and perhaps Amazon up-votes on fiverr, is a Vine Voice preferred reviewer on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Prayers-Heart-Year-Old/product-reviews/1499632401/ref=cm_cr_pr_btm_link_2?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=recent&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=all_formats&filterByStar=all_stars&pageNumber=

2

"Vine Voice" reviewers are selected by Amazon and invited into the program.  The invitation is based at least in part on the reviewer's ranking, especially on how "helpful" their reviews are.  At least that's what Amazon says; the actual process of selection remains . . . mysterious.

Amazon Vine invites the most trusted reviewers on Amazon to post opinions about new and pre-release items to help their fellow customers make informed purchase decisions. Amazon invites customers to become Vine Voices based on their reviewer rank, which is a reflection of the quality and helpfulness of their reviews as judged by other Amazon customers.  (http://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help)

Since it's very possible Sandy Nathan was buying "helpful" votes from fiverr sellers, was she essentially buying her way into the Vine program?  (Nathan has, apparently, been a Vine Voice reviewer since 2012, so it's not likely she used fiverr votes to get into the program, but it's possible.)

That "Vine Voice" label, along with other marks of Amazon reviewer status such as numerical ranking, implies a certain stamp of approval by Amazon that the review and the reviewer are somehow a little more credible than the average "Kindle Customer" or other screen name chosen by the reviewer.  After all, "Vine Voice" reviewers are chosen by Amazon,  One can't apply to be a Vine Voice reviewer; there are no auditions.

Even if the review written isn't of a Vine product, the review still shows the reviewer's tag of "Vine Voice."

I found Sandy Nathan's above review quite by accident last night.  After the news of Amazon's lawsuit against a supplier of fake product reviews was announced a few days ago, I went to check on some of the fiverr reviewers I'd tagged months ago.  Many had been removed from Goodreads, but none, not a single one, had ever been removed from Amazon.  I wasn't the only person reporting them, but still, nothing happened.

So last night I just went to the Amazon.com page and keyed in the name of an author I knew had been buying fiverr reviews and who was himself a fiverr reviewer, Michael Beas.  You can see my Booklikes report on Mr. Beas's relationship with fiverr here.

The first of Mr. Beas's books to come up on Amazon was Reflections: Prayers from the heart of a 14 year old boy.  As I skimmed down through the reviews written for this book last summer and fall, I recognized a lot of the old familiar fiverr account names:  Chloe H, R. Coker, Stan Law (who bought lots and lots and lots of fiverr reviews).  I wasn't shocked to see Sandy Nathan's name, because I already knew she was affiliated with fiverr as a buyer of reviews and other stuff, and because I knew she wrote in a shall we say spiritual vein. 

What did surprise me, however, was that "Vine Voice" seal of Amazon approval attached to her name.

In the wake of the recent lawsuit filed by Amazon against a company that sold "fake" product reviews, there's been additional attention given to Amazon's own policies on reviewing.

Two specific policies appear to apply to the Sandy Nathan "Vine Voice" situation.  I'll address the second one first, since it's more relative to what I've already posted.

Paid Reviews – We do not permit reviews or votes on the helpfulness of reviews that are posted in exchange for compensation of any kind, including payment (whether in the form of money or gift certificates), bonus content, entry to a contest or sweepstakes, discounts on future purchases, extra product, or other gifts.

The sole exception to this rule is when a free or discounted copy of a physical product is provided to a customer up front. In this case, if you offer a free or discounted product in exchange for a review, you must clearly state that you welcome both positive and negative feedback. If you receive a free or discounted product in exchange for your review, you must clearly and conspicuously disclose that fact. Reviews from the Amazon Vine program are already labeled, so additional disclosure is not necessary.

 

Reviews from the Amazon Vine program are designated by a green line (which I can't personally verify because I didn't take the time to go looking for a verified Vine Voice green lined review), but all reviews by a Vine Voicer receive that tag.  How many Amazon review readers are aware of the distinction?

Furthermore, however, if Amazon does not permit helpful votes to be purchased, what is their mechanism for verifying that?  How is anyone supposed to know that any given reviewer -- Vine Voice or not -- has achieved their ranking via legitimate votes or via purchased votes?

It should be noted, also, that fiverr.com has apparently cracked down somewhat on Gigs(r) openly offering such votes for sale, whether they are "like" votes on Facebook or Twitter or other sites, as they violate the Terms of Service on those sites.  No one has any way of knowing, of course, how many such votes anyone has already purchased.  Again, it is possible that Sandy Nathan purchased the votes that put her into the Vine Program and gave her reviews the added weight of credibility.

But there is another part of the Amazon review guidelines that applies to this situation.

• Promotional Reviews – In order to preserve the integrity of Customer Reviews, we do not permit artists, authors, developers, manufacturers, publishers, sellers or vendors to write Customer Reviews for their own products or services, to post negative reviews on competing products or services, or to vote on the helpfulness of reviews. For the same reason, family members or close friends of the person, group, or company selling on Amazon may not write Customer Reviews for those particular items.

As an author, Sandy Nathan is not permitted by Amazon to post a negative review of a competing product.  Although Amazon used to specify that authors could not post negative reviews of other books in their own genre, the parameters were never spelled out.  Could an author of historical romances write negative reviews of contemporary romances?  Could an author of academic non-fiction write negative reviews of popular fiction? 

As a Vine Voice reviewer, however, Nathan is supposed to be scrupulously honest.  Well, we should all be at least reasonably honest, but for those bearing the Vine Voice tag, you would think a higher level of honesty on reviews was in order.  Of course it is quite possible that Sandy Nathan reviewed Michael Beas's because it's in the same sortof spiritual category that she writes in, but she's required by the Amazon guideline posted above to give a positive review . . . or none at all.  She can't, if she wants to abide by the review guidelines, be honest.  And yet honesty is required of Vine Voicers.

Amazon has filed suit against a supplier of paid, fake reviews.  It looks like maybe Amazon should either stop throwing stones from their own glass house, or sue themselves.

And I think it's important.

Please, vote for BookLikes in this this survey and share our message.

We created BookLikes and gave you a platform where you can read, write and share all reading experiences with people of similar interests. Now we need your votes to help us get on the stage at TNWEurope and present this story to people who share the same passion for innovation and technology as we do.

At the end of April we are going to be at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam. BookLikes was shortlisted to take part in the Boost programme which is dedicated to most promising startups in the new technologies industry. We are calling for your votes to get us selected for the final 75 that will be allowed to pitch in front of jury! The time is precious as the poll will only last for 3 days. Voting will start today Wednesday April 8, at 14:00 CET and will end on Friday April 10 at 17:00 CET.

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This is could be once in a lifetime opportunity to expose our ideas to experts feedback and funding we are counting on your votes!

Just joined an elite club over on Amazon, not because I intended to, wanted to, or rvn dreamed about such an honor, but simply because I wrote a short one-star review on a book which was nowhere near ready for public consumption. Within an hour, the wonderful trio of Kevin Weinberg, Maggie Spence, and Anne Rice jumped me, and all three doxxed me.

My Amazon name is The Just About Average Ms. M, which I've used for some time to avoid the slings and arrows of the unhinged.  But they reached back into the archives for old forum posts, found an academic book I wrote in 2001, and put it all out here, including a lively Weinberg Facebook page where he said what he was going to do. Here's the FB link. http://i.imgur.com/lJxF2XE.jpg

While I sincerely hope Ammy will deal with this, I am not counting on it.  n the meantime, I will continue to review as I see dit.

Thanks for listening.

MaggieC70

We were delighted to learn that Book Clubs are becoming a new big thing on BookLikes! This is why we’ve spent some time brainstorming how to enhance its settings so that your heated discussions can run smoother!

Deciding what your next big Book Club discussion is going to be about is crucial, but there is so many options out there that, at the time, its seems impossible to choose. This is why we are introducing a new voting tool that will help you to discover the preferences of your club members.

Now, if you are the Book Club Administrator, you'll be able to start a public voting for the next book and this is how you set it all up:

Go to your Club tab and choose edit

Scroll down and at the bottom of the page you will see Public voting for next book option. Select Yes if you’d like to start a voting. Remember to save any changes.

The results will appear once you move to Next Book tab. Club members can add and remove their votes by clicking the right button.

Conveniently, all the Club members will find a search box at the bottom of the page, books can be tracked by Title, Author, ISBN, ASIN and tag.

This isn’t the only new arrival today though. Now, you will be also able to decide which notifications, if any at all, you’d like to receive about the new club members.

This option will appear in the Club tab and you may decide to receive notifications:

    all = e-mail and notification on BookLikes

    notifications only = only notifications on BookLikes

    none = no e-mails, no notifications

Enjoy your Book Clubs and if you do not belong to any, why not joining our BookLikes flagship Books to Movie one? We're discussing Gone Girl at the moment.

We’re deciding between Forest Gump and Solaris next, what do you say? If it's none of these, why not adding a choice of your own, share your ideas for the next read with our Book Club.

As BookLikes continuous to grow, naturally so does our staff. Please meet Dominika, our new Marketing Manager who will help us expand BookLikes' reach and discover new literary lands! :-)

Please help us welcome Dominika :-) 

Hello Booklikers!

As today is my first day in our booklikes hub I was pleased to meet the lovely team here and now I am looking forward to get to know all of you. Oh and… this isn’t an April Fools joke, I’m planing on hanging around for a while!

You know the rest of our team, Daniel and Paweł in the background are BookLikes' software engineers who make all those awesome things for Thursday releases, you can mail Kate who is our community manager with any question, and David, who recently is a photography freak, created BookLikes with his wife, Joanna.  

Have a wonderful day! :-)

Several on the thread are irate that voluntarily holding a giveaway for their book doesn't win them anything.   (Author in comment 13 is also apparently, if I am reading it correctly, not sending  out giveaway books because won by unsuitable to him goodreads members.) 

Some author quotes that caught my eye (yes, I realize that many authors hope for reviews and sales as a result of goodreads giveaways in addition to the book discoverability and the relatively low-cost promotion/marketing/ad-space they do get [plus goodreads wording is usually unclear]).  And I'm not marking them or their books as anything because not attacking reviewers or stalking anyone:

None [winners] are likely to understand the book's content or even read it. And the likelihood of any reviews resulting is next to zero

 

None are in a suitable demographic.

 

At the end of the day, to be a good site for readers, it also needs to be a good site for authors. The way it works today, it is set up to scam authors, defrauding them of their books with no reciprocal exchange of value (reviews or ratings). An author should be able to directly specify what types of reader demographics are suitable

DISCLAIMER: All my notes here are based on what was said on that particular thread. NOT based on anything said anywhere else by anyone else.

Did you see THAT The Passive Voice blog post by an anonymous author? And the numerous anonymous commenters on that post who shared their thoughts? I don't have a problem with their opinions as such, but I do find some of their word-choices somewhat misleading. A wise author once said something along the lines of words are an author's job, so they're experts in using words to push their point. And not just for fiction, but in everything they post - including social media. And, in this case, anonymous comments on an anonymous blog post.

(No links because the specific, inflammatory words came up more than once each. Also, that would be seen as targeting specific people, rather than concentrate on the general impression.)

The original post and MOST (not all) of the comments give the impression of grudges being held, or axes to grind. That may not be TRUE, but that's how they words COME ACROSS. And because these are anonymous, I have no other context than their words to go on - I don't know if they're authors who've been reviewed perhaps unfavourably by Jane Litte or Dear Author. I don't know who the anonymous people are, so I don't know their histories, or how they came about feeling how they feel.

INFLAMMATORY LANGUAGE USED BY THE ANONYMOUS AUTHOR & ANONYMOUS COMMENTERS

"Safe place": They refer to their authors-only loops as "safe places". But a more accurate term would be "secret/hidden place". Judging by the comments, these loops are where authors confess all their author-related thoughts. Someone reviewed your book, and they weren't "kind" about it? Complain to the loop, where your fellow authors may feel the same. Had a bad experience with a blogger? Complain to the loop about them. Want to talk about non-authors behind their back? Take it to the loop...

So why call it "safe", simply because no-reviewers-allowed? Are reviewers therefore "unsafe" or "dangerous"? Why?

"Competitor": They seem to call Jen Frederick/Jane Litte (I'm unsure which persona they were accusing) a "competitor". Because Jen Frederick is an author? Uh, you're in a loop with ONLY OTHER AUTHORS. If JF is your competitor, so is each and every member of the loop. Unless you're calling Jane Litte a "competitor" because she's a reviewer? How do bloggers/reviewers "compete" with authors? They're totally different things: authors write the text, while reviewers READ the text. If you're "competing", what's the "prize"? How is it determined who "wins"?

"Infiltrate": Jane Litte "infiltrated" the author loops! I'm sorry; I can't say that with a straight face, can't take it seriously. Since they say "infiltrate", does that mean they imagine JL was thinking...?

Damn, I gotta get me into those author loops. But I'm not an author, so they won't let me in. How can I get around that? I probably can't just PRETEND to be an author; they'll want some kind of credentials. Oh fuck, this means I'll actually have to write and publish my own books until I'm successful enough to be considered a legitimate author, and thus allowed into the loops. This'll be a lot of work, but it'll be worth it since my main objective is to INFILTRATE THE AUTHOR LOOPS...

Yeah, I can't take that seriously. Maybe I'd take you more seriously if you weren't anonymous. Your choice. Out of all the inflammatory language used, "infiltrate" comes across as the most ridiculous.

"Pro-reader": The anonymous folk use this as if it means "anti-author". These are two totally different things. "Pro-reader" does NOT automatically mean "anti-author". Just like being a feminist doesn't necessarily mean you're a misandrist. Authors, you are most welcome to be pro-reader. We'd love to hear you speak up for readers' rights, for reviewers to review as they see fit, to discuss the issues they want to discuss.

"Influential": They claim Dear Author is an "influential" blog. The more accurate term is "popular". DA gets a lot of page views, thus it is popular. Does it "influence" me? No. I usually only read the daily news, and sometimes the opinion pieces, depending on what's being discussed. Have I ever bought a book simply because someone on DA liked it? No. Have I ever "noped" a book simply because someone on DA didn't like it? No. DA is definitely popular, but I'm not sure about "influential". That word seems to suggest that DA readers don't have independent thought, that we just blindly agree with whatever the DA contributors say.

"Sock-puppet": This was spoken in the same way as "infiltrate" - as if Jen Frederick was created simply to get into the author loops. No. Jen Frederick was created simply to write and publish books; she could do that with or without the loops. Jen Frederick is not a "sock-puppet", used to uprate certain books and downrate others. She is a pseudonym. And considering many/most authors publish under names that aren't their legal names, this should not be an issue.

OVERALL IMPRESSION OF THE ANONYMOUS POSTERS' WORDS

I repeat, these are just the impressions the anonymous people's words give; they may not be true. Without context, without knowing their identities, I can only judge their words on that thread.

And basically the impression seems to be anti-reviewer. Or at least anti-JL, or anti-DA. These anonymous people seem to suggest that websites like DA - created to share HONEST (rather than all-positivity all-the-time) views on specific books, genres, reading, and publishing - are therefore evil, wrong, or mean.

And the anonymous people? They come across as holding a grudge because maybe they received an unfavourable review on DA.

Again, THIS MAY NOT BE TRUE. If it's not, these anonymous people need to work on their writing skills, to get their points across more effectively. And if the impression IS true, then these authors need to get out of their high school mindset. You were caught talking about stuff that otherwise you wouldn't have talked about. Maybe this isn't about Jane Litte or Jen Frederick as much as it is about people who want to keep their elitist VIP club elitist, rather than welcoming.

ADDRESSING THE MISCONCEPTION

They seem to think that reviews on Dear Author are "mean" or "snarky", or "anti-author". The more accurate term is "honest" - and being honest often means talking about the cons, not just the pros. What does "critical" mean? Some people say it as if it's a bad thing, but I think it's good. It's healthy AND helpful to talk about various aspects of a book - not just the things it did well. Pointing out places for improvement could lead to better writing in the future.

Dear Author has a whole section dedicated to the books they recommend: http://dearauthor.com/category/need-a-rec/ But why would that exist if DA hates authors, and is mean, or whatever? Reviews on DA are organised into categories, so at the click of a button you can see the books they rated the highest: http://dearauthor.com/category/book-reviews/overall-a-reviews/ But why would the A category exist there if DA hates authors?

"PRO-READER" DOES NOT MEAN "ANTI-AUTHOR". These are two totally different things, and if you think they're the same... Well, you have more research to do.

So many activities, so little time. There are times when you don’t have time or possibility to blog and stay active on all your platforms and social media. Your preferences also matters, for example you love your BookLikes webpage but you have a second blog on other platform you got used to and don’t want to get rid of it. Now you can connect your two blogs and publish on both. Don’t forget you can take advantage of other synchronization on BookLikes: with your social media, your Goodreads account and Kindle e-reader.

If you have a Blogger blog and would like to share your posts on BookLikes and Blogger this new synchronization feature is for you! To make it easier we’ve prepared a special option which allows you to synchronize your blogs and post to your BookLikes and Blogger with one click. Here’s how.

7 Steps to Synchronize your Blogger blog with your BookLikes webpage

(BookLikes -> Blogger)

1. Go to your Blogger blog’s Settings. Choose Mobile and e-mail tab.

2. Fill up the blogger e-mail address. Add secret/unique words in this address and choose Publish immediately if you wish to publish a blog post online.

3. Save Settings in your Blogger blog’s Settings.

4. Go to your BookLikes Settings/Blog and add the blogger address. This is really crucial as the ability to cross post depends on it. Make sure to add the same e-mail address as the one in your Blogger’s settings. Thanks to this secret e-mail you’ll be able to post from BookLikes to your Blogger blog.

5. Save Settings in your BookLikes Settings.

6. Write a post and mark Blogger icon (green = active) to publish the post and review on both of your blogs.

7. Post your text, it will be published on BookLikes and Blogger.

On BookLikes

On Blogger

Your BookLikes blog post title will be your post's title on the Blogger blog. The text will be cross posted including the images and links. Some basic formatting should be also applied to your Blogger post automatically, including rating stars. Bare in mind, however, that some differences in the post’s look can happen because of different blog themes and synchronization restrictions. Some minor delays may also occur.

Synchronizations with other platforms are in progress.

Do you remember about other synchronizations on BookLikes?

BookLikes and Your Social Media (Facebook, Twitter)

You can cross post links to your texts to your Facebook and Twitter profiles by connecting your social media profiles in Settings and activating social icons in the writing box (green = active).

BookLikes and Your Goodreads

You can also synchronize your Goodreads and BookLikes accounts. The sync can be switched on in Settings/Import -- when connecting open your Goodreads page in the second tab and authorize the app, only then the synchronization will be switched on.

BookLikes -> Goodreads synchronization allows you to update your shelf, post reviews, add ratings and shelves. The synchronization works one way from BookLikes TO Goodreads, this means that when you add a book to your BookLikes shelf, post a reviews on your BL blog, add/edit rating starts or add a new shelf all those activities will be mirrored on your Goodreads account.

The BookLikes -> Goodreads synchronization works only one way and cannot be performed for your past activities.

Goodreads synchronization is a different mechanism than book import of a csv file from Goodreads. We recommend switching on the BookLikes -> Goodreads synchronization after the book import is completed.

BookLikes and Your Kindle

The synchronization with your Kindle lets you post your reading progress updated on your BookLikes blog straight from your Kindle. Switch on the connection in Settings/General -- first connect your twitter account and switch on the Kindle synchronization.

To post on BookLikes via the Kindle follow the schemes  "...%"    or    "...% and your comment".

Have a look at the examples:

* If you write and share percent only, e.g.:     10%     on your Twitter from your Kindle, your book progress will be updated on your BookLikes Shelf.

** If you write and share percent and your comment, e.g.:     10% so far I love it!     on your Twitter from your Kindle, your book progress will be updated on your BookLikes Shelf and a post with "Reading progress updated" and your comment will be published on your BookLikes blog.

Today is Tolkien Reading Day!

This special day has been launched by the Tolkien Society in 2003 and is held annually on 25th March. Tolkien Reading Day's mission is to encourage fans to celebrate and promote the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien by reading favorite works.

What will you be reading today?

10 Interesting Facts About J.R.R. Tolkien

1. Full name of J.R.R. Tolkien is John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (pron.: Tol-keen; equal stress on both syllables), Ronald to family and friends. His surname is of German origin and meas foolishly brave, or stupidly clever - sometimes he used the pseudonym Oxymore which refer to the name's  origin.

2. Tolkien was born in South Africa where he was kidnapped. When being a toddler in South Africa Tolkien has been "kidnapped" by one of the African servants. The servant thought Tolkien was a cute and a beautiful child and he wanted to show a toddler to his family. Tolkien was returned to his family next day. Tolkien grew up in England where he, his mother and brother moved when he was four. 

3. One of the vivid memory from South Africa was a huge hairy spider that bit Tolkien when he was a child, this experience could be an inspiration for deadly spiders in his later writing.

Image via Tolkien Gateway

4. Tolkien was talented for languages. He mastered Latin, Greek, Gothic, Welsh, Finnish... It is said he knew over 30 languages and created several of his own.

Image via Tolkien Gateway

5. The character of Gandalf was inspired by "Berggeist" (mountain spirit) created by the German artist Josef Madelener. The postcard with the illustration of an old man in a strange hat was spotted by Tolkien in Switzerland in 1911 during a student trip.

6. In 1920s Tolkien co-founded the Viking Club - the society where he, his professor colleagues and students read old Norse sagas, translate them into Old English and Gothic, entertained and drink beer.

7. Tolkien wrote illustrated letters to his children as if from Santa Clause. This resulted in The Father Christmas Letters published in 1976.

Images via Letters of Note

8. The first sentence of Hobbit was invented by Tolkien while grading student's papers. When he spotted a blank page where and answer to a question should have been provided he wrote "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" as an impulse.

Images via Tolkien Gateway

9. Middle-earth comes from the Old English language middangeard what was an ancient expression for the everyday world between Heaven and Hell.

10. Hobbit was published thanks to a 10 year old boy's review, the publisher's son, who convinced his father that the story was good enough for children aged 5 and 9.

J.R.R. Tolkien - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.

He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford from 1945 to 1959. He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972... more

J.R.R. Tolkien's Books

 

    see all books

 

sources:

http://www.tolkiensociety.org/

http://tolkiengateway.net

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth

Today is Tolkien Reading Day!

This special day has been launched by the Tolkien Society in 2003 and is held annually on 25th March. Tolkien Reading Day's mission is to encourage fans to celebrate and promote the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien by reading favorite works.

What will you be reading today?

10 Interesting Facts About J.R.R. Tolkien

1. Full name of J.R.R. Tolkien is John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (pron.: Tol-keen; equal stress on both syllables), Ronald to family and friends. His surname is of German origin and meas foolishly brave, or stupidly clever - sometimes he used the pseudonym Oxymore which refer to the name's  origin.

2. Tolkien was born in South Africa where he was kidnapped. When being a toddler in South Africa Tolkien has been "kidnapped" by one of the African servants. The servant thought Tolkien was a cute and a beautiful child and he wanted to show a toddler to his family. Tolkien was returned to his family next day. Tolkien grew up in England where he, his mother and brother moved when he was four. 

3. One of the vivid memory from South Africa was a huge hairy spider that bit Tolkien when he was a child, this experience could be an inspiration for deadly spiders in his later writing.

Image via Tolkien Gateway

4. Tolkien was talented for languages. He mastered Latin, Greek, Gothic, Welsh, Finnish... It is said he knew over 30 languages and created several of his own.

Image via Tolkien Gateway

5. The character of Gandalf was inspired by "Berggeist" (mountain spirit) created by the German artist Josef Madelener. The postcard with the illustration of an old man in a strange hat was spotted by Tolkien in Switzerland in 1911 during a student trip.

6. In 1920s Tolkien co-founded the Viking Club - the society where he, his professor colleagues and students read old Norse sagas, translate them into Old English and Gothic, entertained and drink beer.

7. Tolkien wrote illustrated letters to his children as if from Santa Clause. This resulted in The Father Christmas Letters published in 1976.

Images via Letters of Note

8. The first sentence of Hobbit was invented by Tolkien while grading student's papers. When he spotted a blank page where and answer to a question should have been provided he wrote "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" as an impulse.

Images via Tolkien Gateway

9. Middle-earth comes from the Old English language middangeard what was an ancient expression for the everyday world between Heaven and Hell.

10. Hobbit was published thanks to a 10 year old boy's review, the publisher's son, who convinced his father that the story was good enough for children aged 5 and 9.

J.R.R. Tolkien - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.

He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford from 1945 to 1959. He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972... more

J.R.R. Tolkien's Books

 

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sources:

http://www.tolkiensociety.org/

http://tolkiengateway.net

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth

In the past, book bloggers have been likened to the Taliban (screencaps: http://jennytrout.com/?p=8249). Overnight, book bloggers were likened to the Charlie Hebdo murderers (https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/8081281-author-s-letter).

I'm surprised, yet not. There's a history of unscrupulous authors taking the murders of other people, and somehow making it all about themselves. They've done it in the past (hello, D.S., as documented in the first link), and now they've done it again.

I'd be angrier if I weren't so filled with despair that those in the publishing industry are still NOT learning from other people's actions.

We're extremely happy to see that BookLikes community is growing so fast. BookLikes has became a hub for book lovers from all around the world showing that the passion for reading and reviewing bonds and creates close relationships, and is perfect for global community.

We've launched the redesigned BookLikes to public in 2013, introduced nearly 100 Thursday releases since then and gathered tens of thousands members, growing every week. We're blown away with this success (!) but this remarkable achievement couldn't have been done without you: readers, reviewers, bloggers, authors and publishers -- thanks to your engagement we're developing and improving on daily basis making BookLikes the best place for all book lovers. Your satisfaction is the ultimate measure of BookLikes' performance and a sign of fulfilled expectations and trust. This success is also your success!

This incredible growth brought big smiles on the BookLikes Team's faces and was a trigger to perform big changes. For your convenience we're moving to brand new high performance servers which are bigger, faster and will ensure further development and growth of BookLikes. They will also allow us to work better with a growing number of the community -- so hands on keyboards and prepare the invitations -- we're ready to welcome all your friends and family on BookLikes :-)

The server relocation is a complex process which needs time, for this reason BookLikes will be down for maintenance on Thursday. We'll make the process as fast as possible, however, the move can take up to 9 hours as it's a serious undertaking and needs to be performed with the utmost caution and attention.

The maintenance will start at 5:30 am UTC on Thursday 26 March, 2015. Please remember that this time will vary to your time zones.

All your shelves, books, reviews, posts and webpages will be safe and secure, they will be alive on new servers on Thursday afternoon/evening. Thursday will be a special day of dual release: new server's performance and new Thursday feature. We're looking forward to both of these!

Thank you for being with us :-)