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Friday, December 10, 2010

Sonakshi Sinha — Maxim India December 2010

Sonakshi Sinha Photoshoot For Maxim India (December 2010). Sonakshi Sinha is the cover girl for Maxim India Magazine for the month of December 2010. According to Maxim, Sonakshi on the cover to heat this winter, but unfortunately after looking at photoshoot it fails. Sonakshi is new face in bollywood and defiantly has good features in her. More images after the break...

The Most Expensive Book in the World

A rare copy of "the most expensive book in the world" Fah Franco-American ornithologist John James Audubon and goes back to the nineteenth century recorded on Tuesday evening in London, a new record price, Which sold more than eight million euros, on the auction house said, "Sotheby's". More images after the break...

Eva Longoria

Photoshoot Shayninga Stewart (Stewart Shining), 08 more images after the break...

World’s Largest Solar-Powered Boat

The TURANOR PlanetSolar, the world’s largest solar-powered boat, has just completed the first stage of its journey around the world – a trans-Atlantic journey from Monaco to Miami. The Swiss-designed solar-powered catamaran left Monaco on the 27th of September and docked in Miami just a few days ago, on the 28th of November. More after the break...

Traditional masks — Iranian Women

Ostovar - 55 years, 8 children, housewife. Wear a mask for religious reasons and to protect the skin from the sun.

Despite the fact that many eastern women say they wear their hats with masks because of religious concepts, this tradition came long before the rise of Islam. Rural populations in the southern part of Iran said that this tradition of referring the Koran, but its origins seem to go far in the nomadic period in this region, where both men and women wore hats and masks to protect people from sun and strong desert winds. More after the break...

Serendipity Market by Penny Blubaugh

Serendipity Market by Penny Blubaugh is not a new release. It came out in early 2009. However, it will be released in paperback in March 2011, the same time as her second book, Blood and Flowers (which has a beautiful cover, one that should appeal more to the YA market than the one for Serendipity Market). I debated waiting to post about it until then since I only recently learned about it, but this one intrigues me and has been added to my personal neverending reading list. I would have snuck it onto the Book Club voting list, too, if I'd seen it before then. Perhaps for April after the paperback has been released? And we have a little over a week of voting left on the January SurLaLune Book Club Pick. Be sure to vote at the bottom of the blog's main page; for now Sisters Red is ahead.

Back to Serendipity Market, here's the book description from publisher:

When Toby breathes on Mama Inez's bird-shaped invitations, giving them the power to fly, plans for the Serendipity Market begin. Soon, eleven honored guests travel from afar and make their way to the storytellers' tent to share their stories. Each tale proves what Mama Inez knows—that magic is everywhere. Sometimes it shows itself subtly—a ray of sun glinting on a gold coin, or a girl picking a rose without getting pricked by the thorn—and sometimes it makes itself known with trumpets and fireworks. But when real magic is combined with the magic of storytelling, it can change the world.

Review from Booklist

Stories make the world go around in Blubaugh’s debut novel. Sometimes, when the world tilts off its axis, only the magical power of story can put things back to right. That’s where Mama Inez steps in. Using her gift of entering people’s lives in subtle yet mysterious ways, she gathers an eclectic group together for a night of storytelling. Each invited guest provides a talisman and a story, and together they set the world back to its rightful state. Weaving together unique variants of traditional tales, such as The Princess and the Pea, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, and Cinderella, this beautiful novel will be a delight to those who enjoy spin-offs of fairy tales and folktales. Readers will find themselves flipping back and forth to figure out how all the different stories hidden in the fold come together to form the greater whole of this charming book. Grades 6-10. --Melanie Koss

I admit I am most curious as to how Princess and the Pea is used. I'm also a sucker for anything with Serendipity in the title. I've not discussed it much, but a few years ago I did extensive reading on serendipty and its source story, The Three Princes of Serendip, one of its titles. I even worked on my own retelling quite extensively. So I love when the word is used with a greater understanding of its nuances...

Fairy Tales, Romance and EBooks

Since the New York Times had a great article about ebook reading and category romance yesterday--Lusty Tales and Hot Sales: Romance E-Books Thrive by Julie Bosman--I was inspired to once again look up recent fairy tale connected category romance novels. There is a list on SurLaLune, but I haven't updated it in a year or more. It's too time consuming.

And I have to admit my admiration for the romance publishers who have embraced the ebook format. They are also reasonable about their marketing and pricing and it shows in their sales growth. For example, I never really see category romance ebooks priced higher than the paperback editions. When I see ebooks priced higher than paperbacks I am irked to the point that I am not interested in the book anymore, I admit. I know the author isn't seeing more money from that pricing and that the publisher is trying to fight the inevitable by trying to force paperback sales over ebooks.

I'm way oversimplifying, but there are several reasons the genre is thriving and I see their wise exploitation of ebook readers (any readers, not just my beloved Kindle) as good business. The less respected genres--romance and fantasy--are doing much better in the ebook field because their publishers are using the new format wisely. Have I mentioned how much I adored buying the hardcover of Lois McMaster Bujold's Cryoburn (The Vorkosigan Saga) and receiving a CD-ROM with the entire Miles Vorkosigan library on it? I had already bought most of them for my Kindle but I was thrilled for the readers who would have them all generously provided. I don't expect that kind of generosity, but I wish some publishers were embracing ebooks better. And, in the end, I love building my library without having to find shelf space which I simply have run out of and find a burden. My library and used book store usage is way down, too. I buy the book instead because I can be reading it in minutes. I am spoiled rotten in my reading.

And I'm waiting for the slew of articles in a few years about the plight of used bookstores thanks to ebooks. I'm not happy about that, but isn't it better for publishers to sell an ebook than have a used book circulate several times? I'm all for making money for your work, really I am. I wish I made more than 50 cents an hour myself. (Yes, that's what I've figured my hourly work wage is for my SurLaLune work. So thank you for using the affiliate links. Every bit counts. Really. Thanks again.)

But back to fairy tales and romance...

I limited my search to the past two years--2009 and 2010 publication dates--and came up with this preliminary list which is not comprehensive by any means. It is comprised only of books using Cinderella in the title, not ones that play with the theme a little more subtly. Then there is Beauty and the Beast titles which are harder to identify so I didn't even make the attempt in my limited time. But look at this list! It's long....