Aussie Readers discussion

★ Jessica ★ wrote: "I went yesterdya to spend my last voucher at A&R.
After I brought two books, I had $7 left on my card. The nice man at the counter said 'go choose another book. We'll pay for it on your gift card,..."

That was wonderful of him, and yes I think maybe you should spend Dymocks vouchers too...perhaps ask for cash as gifts instead of bookstore vouchers in the future? ;)

Michael wrote: "Laura wrote: "Haha...Did you purchase any books Michael?"

Yes i did its you ladys fault for telling us about the great sale lol.

Got these 2

Love You More[book:Sing You Hom..."

Ha, I have both those on reserve at my library Michael!! :)

Michael wrote: "I havnt been to my local library in years."

I love my library, I read such different sorts of books since I joined...I have joined the book club there too, so that gives me totally different books that I would normally not pick up. Plus the recommendations from the library staff, as they now know what I like to read..lol So since the library entered my life, I probably read 3 or 4 times more books than I used to...:)

Carmel wrote: "Wow you guys will be reading Sing you Home before I even get it in my hot little hands, you'll have to let me know what you think. I was so good today I stayed away from Big W when I did my grocery..."

Well done Carmel..did you reserve a copy from the library? :)

Michael wrote: "Self control whats that? XD"

HA!! :D

Michael- Those books sounds interesting!

Carmel- Congrats on the self control....I've yet to have that skill.

I shall go to bed..Uh-hu early. But I took some dream stuff..sounds odd i know but pffff :P

Enjoy the evening you guys!

Yep, Im pretty tired as well. I might go to bed early too. Ive got a day off school to represent the school in some athletics carnival. Wish me luck in my 100m hurdles everyone :)

Laura wrote: "@Brenda- Haha, no washing and thankfully no rain :P But lots of cleaning rooms and throwing out junk!

@Jessica- Nice work :)"

My congrats to the bright *Jessica* also.

Laura, if you like throwing out junk, come to my place. I have lots of it. Hmm, maybe not, you might chuck some decrepit old books I'm fond of and half the contents of my wardrobe and kitchen cupboards.

And NO ONE disturbs my husband's huge shed full of stuff without risk to life and limb. He swears every time he throws something away a day arrives when he needs it.

Looks like it'll be the kids' job when we've shuffled off this mortal coil, as they say! But I should get rid of the clothes that are too big for me. Then again, hubby won't get rid of the ones in his wardrobe that are too skinny for him. Says he never knows when he'll lose weight.

Thank goodness it's not a big house. Can't fit in another thing!

Monya (aka Mary)

Ian wrote: "I keep looking at the SMH website and the headline starts "Coalition Pounds..." and I think it's going to say "Keneally", but then it says "Gadaffi".
Maybe tomorrow, they'll just change the one word."

Hahaha

★ Jessica ★ wrote: "Yep, Im pretty tired as well. I might go to bed early too. Ive got a day off school to represent the school in some athletics carnival. Wish me luck in my 100m hurdles everyone :)"

How did you go Jessica? I bet you romped it in!!! Hope you had a good day anyway...:)

Carmel wrote: "Brenda I haven't reserved it but I will!
Yes I am getting a bit better with my self conterol in some things. I haven't brought a bottle of red for 2 weeks, now that's amazing!! Haven't brought a c..."

Well done!! It's hard sometimes, isn't it!! lol

@Monya- Hehehe, i love thowing out junk..Something about it lifts my mood. Then it reminds me how much I've kept it and never used it or how little I used it..lol

@Michael- Yaaay! Love it when the postie comes and delievers books :D


Speaking of packages..I missed one! Gotta go collect it noooow. I suspect I know what this package will be.

Some awesome news from my household!! Another set of twins have just arrived..boys this time, and not identical!! Harrison Sam, and Jai Lucas. So, two sets of twins in my family....oh sooooooo excited!!!!!

Mum and babies are doing well, (Dad too lol) 2.99kg & 2.94kg respectively! One dark haired, spitting image of his big brother (2yo) the other blonde! Can't wait to see them, but it'll be awhile, as they live way over in Adelaide:(

So we now have 10 grandchildren....:)

Michael wrote: "A package from the Book depository just arrived YAY. :D"

Fantastic Michael!

Thanks Michael:D

@Brenda- Awwwwweeeee~! Congrats. That is fantastic news indeed :D

Maybe in Adelaide but you can get them to send you photos!! :)

:p

Carmel wrote: "Brenda wrote: "Some awesome news from my household!! Another set of twins have just arrived..boys this time, and not identical!! Harrison Sam, and Jai Lucas. So, two sets of twins in my family....o..."

Thanks Carmel...very happy and excited!!!

package from booktopia arrived :D and seeing as its raining im just gonna snuggle with the beagle and read :D

Melanie wrote: "package from booktopia arrived :D and seeing as its raining im just gonna snuggle with the beagle and read :D"

That's the way Melanie..lol

Did the athletics competition today. I qualified because I won on sports day, and was competing against seven other schools.
My school won the whole day :)
In my hurdles race, I got off to a really bad start, but equalized with the pack leader at the final hurdle. We were sprinting side by side for the last ten meters, and they needed to use the photo-finish to see the winner. I came second. By like, a centimeter.
But Im happy with that :)

So if I go to training on Wednesday morning, I get into the SASA team (which is like, almost state level) and if I win that I go state :D
Im pretty happy.

★ Jessica ★ wrote: "Did the athletics competition today. I qualified because I won on sports day, and was competing against seven other schools.
My school won the whole day :)
In my hurdles race, I got off to a re..."

Congratulations Jessica!!! You've done very well again!!

nice work Jessica
i hope you get to states I'm pretty sure they give you cool uniforms haha well our one did anyway :D
My brother is a hurdler or was before he finished school and got lazy its a damn hard sport and it freaks me out haha so well done!

Melanie, nicccee a package! woohoo!

Great work Jessica :) I remember hurdle races were always so much fun.

I wish book retailers would lower the prices of books because it's unrealistic and unaffordable. At work today I looked up a book I've got coming through the Book Depository. On BD it's $28.86. Through A&R it's $85!! I appreciate customers get annoyed, but staff are equally as irritated.

Wishful wrote: "I wish book retailers would lower the prices of books because it's unrealistic and unaffordable. At work today I looked up a book I've got coming through the Book Depository. On BD it's $28.86. Thr..."

Wow! That's a massive difference!! How were your customers today Wishful?

And in someways this is why bookstores will get beaten hard if they don't realise online shopping. I mean $86 vs $28, which would the majority pick?

I think book shops are getting an eye opener...I mean even if they were say $20 more it's much better than like $60+ over.

Brenda wrote: "Wishful wrote: "I wish book retailers would lower the prices of books because it's unrealistic and unaffordable. At work today I looked up a book I've got coming through the Book Depository. On BD ..."

Brenda wrote: "Wishful wrote: "I wish book retailers would lower the prices of books because it's unrealistic and unaffordable. At work today I looked up a book I've got coming through the Book Depository. On BD ..."

I'm surprised you didn't hear my jaw hit the floor when I saw the $85 price on screen :-) Actually, we hardly had any customers today (thanks for asking, by the way lol). It was really quiet - open for 8.5 hours, and we barely made it to $500... Only had one person complain today, but that was because she didn't like my hairstyle!!

Laura wrote: "And in someways this is why bookstores will get beaten hard if they don't realise online shopping. I mean $86 vs $28, which would the majority pick?

I think book shops are getting an eye opener......"

Absolutely. The price of books through book retailers is incredibly high; sometimes we have to do mark-ups at work, and they're only supposed to be $1, $2 higher at most; yet some of them go up by $5, $8 a time! Eyes are definitely opening now, I think...

Wishful wrote: "Brenda wrote: "Wishful wrote: "I wish book retailers would lower the prices of books because it's unrealistic and unaffordable. At work today I looked up a book I've got coming through the Book Dep..."

Didn't like your hairstyle?? What!!

Wishful, you should give people a free book. Or at least discount it for them. Thats what the nice man at my A&R store did for me, and I appreciated it very much :)

Brenda wrote: "Wishful wrote: "Brenda wrote: "Wishful wrote: "I wish book retailers would lower the prices of books because it's unrealistic and unaffordable. At work today I looked up a book I've got coming thro..."

Yeah, weird. I had it curly-ish today, just something different. And a woman came in and said she had to tell me she didn't like my hair - it made my face look too wide and she didn't like curls anyway...weird, hey?

★ Jessica ★ wrote: "Wishful, you should give people a free book. Or at least discount it for them. Thats what the nice man at my A&R store did for me, and I appreciated it very much :)"

That was pretty cool of him :-) that would be awesome if we could do that for people. You're a lucky lady Jessica :-)

Wishful wrote: "Absolutely. The price of books through book retailers is incredibly high; sometimes we have to do mark-ups at work, and they're only supposed to be $1, $2 higher at most; yet some of them go up by $5, $8 a time! Eyes are definitely opening now, I think... "

Sometimes I wonder if it's down to greed with a sort of mark up like that ($5/$8) which is quite a bit higher, something the public will notice, especially in this day and age.

Guess it's why giants like HN are trying to have taxes brough in on online shopping, it's got them actually 'scared' actually making them have to think 'Oh, this could be a problem'. And instead of reducing their prices to actually give some type of competition they want to slap us with fees.


And on your hair..WTF! Stupid woman.

Bookshop rang late this afternoon - my copy of The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel is ready to pick up - Whoo Hoo - role on Lunch time tomorrow

Sally906 wrote: "Bookshop rang late this afternoon - my copy of The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel is ready to pick up - Whoo Hoo ..."

Oh awesome!!! You'll devour that one! :)

Brenda wrote: Oh awesome!!! You'll devour that one! :)

Everything will be dropped I promise you :)

Sally906 wrote: "Brenda wrote: Oh awesome!!! You'll devour that one! :)

Everything will be dropped I promise you :)"

:D

Brenda wrote: "Some awesome news from my household!! Another set of twins have just arrived..boys this time, and not identical!! Harrison Sam, and Jai Lucas. So, two sets of twins in my family....oh sooooooo exci..."

Brenda - TWINS! And the second set, no less! Wow!

Being a grandma and great grandma, I really feel for you not being able to see them right away. But at least these days you don't have to wait for photos to come through the post.

Thrilled for you. Grandkids are the best.

Monya (aka Mary)

Tracey wrote: "Congratulations on the top mark Jess - what a fantastic feeling that must be.
@ Wishful I hope you don't have to cop too much flak, it's a tough game in retail because the customer always vents a..."

Tracey, so glad to see you're well enough for an outing. Don't overdo it, but gosh, we all envy you the King Tut show. Do you know if it's only going to Melb or if it's coming up to Brisbane too? (Hope, hope.) It's about 150kms to Brissie from here but I'd find a way.

Have a lovely time and take care of yourself.

Monya (aka Mary)

Michael wrote: "Unfortuently thats how things are going atm. I rekon Dymocks will be the next, lets face it why shop at major retailer's when you can pick up books for half or even less than that of rrp overseas. ..."

Oh Michael, don't say Dymocks are going down as well! I plan to ask them to put some copies of my two books on the shelves this weekend. This one is a franchisee, so maybe they'll be happy to stock a local author. Ah well, one takes the chance.

Fortunately I very seldom buy new books myself, and then it's usually from the BD, or bargain trays.

Monya (aka Mary)

Michael wrote: "Good thing the government rejected that HN nonsense. They need to change laws to allow parity imports they do it with the music retailers and they aint struggeling. "
Oh they did? Yay! Happy that nothing more happened. I actually didn't know anything else happened on it.
Be interesting if they did the same thing for books like they do for music.

Monya wrote: "Brenda wrote: "Some awesome news from my household!! Another set of twins have just arrived..boys this time, and not identical!! Harrison Sam, and Jai Lucas. So, two sets of twins in my family....o..."

Thanks so much Monya! Received our first photos overnight, showing them just born! They are gorgeous! I'll wait till I get some 'modest' (clothed) ones lol, before put any on here!!

I have heard whispers about Dymocks - if you have any vouchers with them I suggest you redeem them as soon as possible - I could be wrong but better to be safe than sorry - Angus and Robertson are already stopping the redeeming of their cards even under the temporary conditions of buying a book of equal value to the card at the same time you redeem the card -you cannot redeem their cards after cob 3rd April

Hi,
I'm back - didn't buy any additional books in KL afterall. Did see Di Morrissey's The Plantation at $21 (AUD)against $29.50 in Oz.
The book store I mentioned before I left is still packed with a huge range of books at around $12 to $14 AUD for the paperback edition (who buys hardback ??). Had a greeat time, but coming down to earth now since arriving back yesterday :-o)

Geoff wrote: "Hi,
I'm back - didn't buy any additional books in KL afterall. Did see Di Morrissey's The Plantation at $21 (AUD)against $29.50 in Oz.
The book store I mentioned before I left is still packed with..."

Welcome back Geoff! Great that you had such a good time while away. It's always hard to 'come back to earth' isn't it, but give it a couple of days, and it'll seem like you were never away...:)

Apparently there is a special 'Jennifer Byrne presents...' on ABC1 tonight @ 10.10pm. I think the guest may be Ken Follet but not sure.

Lesley wrote: "Apparently there is a special 'Jennifer Byrne presents...' on ABC1 tonight @ 10.10pm. I think the guest may be Ken Follet but not sure."

Oh really, thanks heaps Lesley..will keep a look out for that..:)

I just checked ABC website - it is Ken Follett tonight @ 10.00 (not 10.10).

yep. I saw the ads :)