Hanukkah oh Hanukkah, you’re early as what the hell now this year! Which means… it’s fun and games time here at the Hot Pink Palace of Bitchery!
Tonight begins the festival of Hanukkah, wherein Jewish folks light the menorah, consume fried things, and celebrate for eight nights. And since the Jewish folks are known as The People of the Book, I figured, let’s celebrate reading, eh? I’ve been saving up items all year for the festive merriment to celebrate reading, both paper and digital. Are you ready to rumble? I hope so!
These contests are super easy. All you have to do to win is leave a comment, and I’ll select a winner each day. These contests are open to international winners, and I will do my best to ship this week, provided people send me their addresses promptly.
Standard disclaimers: I’m not being compensated for this giveaway. If anything, my gift is exceptional support of the United States Postal Service (Happy Hanukkah, US Mail Carriers!). Despite popular wisdom, Jewish folks don’t traditionally dance the hora on Hanukkah. Your mileage may vary. Slippery when wet. Bon Jovi was not harmed in the making of this giveaway. Hanukkah candles never fit in the menorahs, no matter what you do. A latke a day is probably not good for your cardiovascular health.
Ahoy! Contest the first!
On the First Night of Hanukkah, Smart Bitches Gave to Me: A brand spanking new Sony!
From the fine people at Sony, I have here a PRS-650, better known as the new Sony Touch. It’s red. It’s very sexy. And it can be yours as part of the Smart Bitches Hanukkah Festival.
Just leave a comment below, and tell me what book you’d buy or borrow first, and you’re entered to win. Comments close in 24 hours, but fear not, there’s another book – paper or digital – giveaway coming soon. Because Hanukkah lasts for eight crazy nights, and I have lost my ever lovin’ mind.
Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Reading!
I’d load it with my reading security blanket, “Northern Lights”. It’s my go to re-read when I can’t get into anything else.
Hmm, I’d probably grab Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy. I got a chance to read the first one and now I’m waiting antsily to have money to buy the rest.
That’s a really pretty reader and I really want an e-reader for Christmas. I would probably download as much of MelJean Brook’s backlist because The Iron Duke was incredibly awesome. And Ken Follet’s book ‘World Without End’ because I wouldn’t have to lug around a 1000 page doorstopper.
I’d load it with Hannah Howell’s Murray Family Highlander Series, starting with Highland Protector!
I would buy the Songs of Love & Death anthology—a lot of my fav authors are featured but I don’t want to spend that much for a hardcover…
Thanks for the giveaway … the Iron Duke.
I would buy Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels because it isn’t in my library branch and library loan is shut down for budgetary reasons. The paper book isn’t in any of my local bookstores, either. And after hearing about it for so long here on the Bitchery and reading all other Chase I can find, I’m *dying* to read it!
The “new” Jennifer Crusie book, definitely, have been meaning to head to a bookstore for it, but this would eliminate that need!
I keep hearing good things about Julia Quinn. I’d go for one of hers first.
My to-read list is extensive, but I’d probably go with an old favorite for the first download. Maybe Stephen King’s “The Stand”, or Richard Adams’s “Watership Down”.
Great contest! Happy Hanukkah!
That’s a hard choice. I’d probably get several in reality but… first one would have to be Persuasion by Austen.
By the way, The Iron Duke rocked my socks. I cannot say enough good things about this book.
I think it’d have to be the Amanda Quick book—I’ve never read any of hers but I’m excited to read it for the discussion!
I have a Kindle 2, but I so want a Sony – they’re simply elegant. And, because an elegant reader deserves an elegant book, I’d get Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. or Georgette Heyer. Patricia Veryan, alas, isn’t available in eformat.
year58: this year I’ll buy at least 58 books
The Outlander series, definitely. I have the first 3 on audio but I’ve discovered that I prefer to read them more than listen to them.
The first book I would load would be the latest Kitty Norville from my library. It would be really exciting to borrow DRM books from the library.
Holy moley! Happy Hanukkah!!
I’ve been longing to read Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal, but I’ve been waiting for PB because I almost never buy hardback books.
And crank up the Klezmatics for the holiday!
old34?! Good grief. Not EVEN.
I would love to have an e-reader, if only because I do lug around Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth or World without End every time I go on a business trip and since his latest novel isn’t available in paperback in my local bookstore yet, I foresee major back problems in my near future. The first book I would have to get though is something in the sphere of ‘E-readers for dummies’ as I am totally helpless with anything even remotely technical. If I were to make ‘joining the digital age’ my (Jewish) New Year resolution, do I get the Sony e-reader as a reward/incentive :-)? Happy Holidays!
Spamword: Business 22 – I wouldn’t mind going on 22 business trips a year if I had a very cool e-reader with lots of great romances to take with me!
I would get Jingo, by Terry Pratchett. Because.
Happy Hanukkah.
First book would have to be the new Mark Twain memior—can’t wait to read that one.
Your clever plan to draw people out of lurkerdom has worked!
First thing I’d put on an e-reader would be backissues of Apex and Clarkesworlde that I just haven’t had time to read in full yet.
First thing I’d buy new? Marjorie Liu’s Hunter Kiss series, which my friend has been reccing to me for months but each time I get them from the library, time runs out before I get around to reading them.
Without a doubt I’d want ‘Daddy Long Legs’ by Jean Webster. The first romance I ever read and still as charming today as it was when it was written over a century ago. I make all my friends read it and they always love it too. No sex, not even a kiss, but it’s a wonderful book with a heroine you want to be and a hero you’d want to marry. I’d highly recommend it.
Oooh, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny.
Either the new Crusie, the new Westerfeld, or the new Jenny Davidson, as I am behind in acquiring all three.
Great gift – is it really red!
First book, first book . . . hmmm . . . so many choices, but I would have to go with a keeper and one of Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Chicago series.
Reading through the comments and there are so many books I would love to read BUT then I realised that my first purchases would be books that I reread so much that i have to keep replacing the paperbacks as they are in rotten condition regularly…. lol. Umming and Ahhing between Elizabeth Lowells 3 medievals or David Eddings Belgariad series….. I cant decide and now I have a headache from thinking about it
The next (last?) Fae book by Karen Marie Moning, which comes out in January! I can’t WAIT! I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for this book.
Thx for generosity. A new book is expected out any second , by Juliette marlier. “Seer of sevenwaters”. Or if not that, would that Zoe archer book “scoundrel” do? Or how about that A-review Clare Lofty book?
Really67: how would it be if there were really 67 days of hannukkah!
I’ve been on a Laura Griffin glom lately – I love the way she writes dialogue. So it would be her latest, “Unforgivable.” Happy Hanukkah!
I would purchase The Poison Throne by Caitlyn Kiernan. It looks very interesting to me.
Thanks!
Call Me Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber
Hmmm. Probably Stephen Kings new book of short stories: Full Dark, No Stars. I’ve loved all his books of short stories (The Body, The Man in the Black Suit)! Whether they are stories about courage and what it means to be friends, or creeping horror, I always enjoy them. Probably more than anything else Mr. King writes.
I’d start with Carol Berg’s Son of Avonar. But then? Who knows!
If one is available, I’d probably buy one of those erotica books you folks are always going on about – provided I could be guaranteed there’s no anal involved – because it would be easier to hide on an e-reader from my uptight dad who thinks I’m a 34 year old virgin who never reads about sex.
I would definitely get Jayne Ann Krentz’ In too Deep!
Happy Hanukkah! If I had the dough to buy myself Hanukkah presents this year, I would immediately buy the delicious novel The Oracle Glass by the late and great Judith Merkle Riley. It’s one of my favorite romantic-type novels ever! The heroine is a smart, not-conventionally-attractive, very young PWD who falls in with Paris’s society of witches and sorceresses (totally real historical figures!) out of necessity and manages to convince Louis XIV’s court and the fashionable public that she’s a 150-year-old seeress who can tell fortunes by looking into water. She and the sexy, intelligent Provencal hero are both radical Enlightenment thinkers, and the contradiction between her very-real-in-the-story prognostication powers and her intellectual bent is one of my favorite things about the book. My other favorite things are the humor with which it’s written and the simply awesome cast of supporting characters. I have to go and see if it’s in the library now!
(Fans herself, tries to calm down.)
Eek! I was actually thinking of getting one of those for myself for the holidays 🙂
I’d probably download a classic first. Perhaps Sense and Sensibility?
Probably something off my TBR pile—like Sebastian by J Carey, so it can stop taunting me from my bookcase while I play with blocks on the floor with my daughter. I can read holding a device (like the kindle app on my phone) while she’s drifting off to sleep at night…can’t do that with a book.
I’d probably read Stephen King’s The Stand because I read it every couple of years and it’s time.
The first thing I would buy are the digital editions of my favorite authors like Lori Foster, Jayne Ann Krentz and Diana Palmer. 🙂
*hyperventilates at the prospect* I would probably go nuts over at All Romance ebooks. There are masses of books there that I’d love to buy but I don’t like reading books at the computer. Don’t know why! Then I’d go after some of the many, many books on my wishlist that I have no space for on my shelves! Not that that stops me from buying more … and despite new bookshelves and major efforts to donate books I won’t read again, I still don’t have enough space!
Do I need to find a new hobby?
P.S. Er, nobody answer yes to that, please?
Happy Hanukkah! 🙂 I’d probably buy Lie With Me by Stephanie Tyler first.