Postasy

Hello again,

I want to post my received postcards regularly, so I decided to give this category of posts a name: Postasy! (The end of the is intended to derive from fantasy... Just for notice ;-))

So, here we go with 10 new postcards:

Postcards from the Netherlands and Finland

The postcards at the top are from the Netherlands. The first one showing a famous shoe from the Netherlands (Here they are called Clogs...). The second shows some pictures of Rotterdam.
The ones at the bottom are both from Finland. I especially like the one on the left. The pictures of the nature in Finland (with the motto: Four seasons) are so beautiful. The seasons are from the top to the bottom: spring, summer, autumn and winter. The second shows a woman with the ability for multi-tasking. The text on the back in Finnish is suppossed to say: "Have to answer..."

Postcards from Russia, Belarus, Taiwan, France and Spain

On the second picture the postcards at the top are from Russia. The left one shows a painted picture with a bridge in winter. Also a really beautiful postcard. The right one shows the city of Ekaterinenburg. I like postcards with city views. :-)
The left postcard in the middle is another painted picture, this one showing the capital of Belarus: Minsk. Again very beautiful! The right one is a postcard from Taiwan. It shows an old Fort and was designed by a friend of the sender.
The card at left side of the bottom is from France. It was a tough one, because it was written in French. I had 4 1/2 years French in school, but well... I didn't practice much vocabulary... But I (think that I) was able to understand most of it. The card itself shows a beautiful view of the L'île Saint-Cado (Isle of Saint-Cado). The last one is from Barcelona, Spain. It's a typical street view of a spanish street. I've been in a town near to Barcelona about 10 years ago. It was a beautiful and relaxing holiday... *dreaming* Especially the weather was fine. :-)

So that's it for today. Happy postcrossing everyone!
 

Some new books

Hello hello,

this post will be about the books that I got in the last two weeks. Amazon.de had an offer "3 books for 15 Euro" and I couldn't resist. I also read some good reviews on other blogs about some of these books and they all didn't cost much (I bought 5 on Amazon.de and 1 on bookdepository.com). There's one cozy mystery and some more chick-lit-ish books (I'm curious if I like these).

I'm not in the mood to write what each book is about and don't want to copy&paste the synopsis, so I linked each of the books to their page on goodreads.com. If you want to read what the books are about, take a look at their synopsis on this site (or whatever site you prefer). ;-)

• Sophia Kinsella: Twenties Girl
  I liked the cover and the synopsis sounded like fun, so I bought this one. I haven't read any books from the author.

• Hazel Osmond: Who's Afraid of Mr. Wolfe?
  I read that some blogs received an ARC from author from her next novel and that's the first time I heard about her. The bloggers really liked her first novel, so I read what the book is about and it intrigued me, so I bought it for a fair price on bookdepository.com. I love the cover of the book. It's so beautiful and it sparkles! :-)

• Jojo Moyes: Me Before You:
  This book was a suggestion by amazon.de based on the books I bought. I liked the synopsis and the reviews sounded good, so I just wanted to have it.

• Lauren Conrad: L.A. Candy Sweet Little Lies
  This is the second book in a series. I'm still considering if I buy the first book before I read this one... In general I like to start with the first book in series and go book by book.

• Josie Belle: 50% Off Murder
  I read a review on a blog about it and I already read other cozy mysteries from the author published under a different name. She also writes the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries as Jenn McKinlay and also the Library Lover's Mysteries (haven't read those).

• Candace Bushnell: Sex and the City
  It's a sequel to the Carrie Diaries when Carrie was young and experienced her first years in New York City. I have the "Sex and the City" series on DVD and I watched those in the last year. 

So, that's it for now. Have a nice day/night. :-)

Reasons you buy a book

It doesn't matter if you buy your books online or in a real bookstore. There's always the problem (a good problem ;-)) that there are so many books they offer... We don't have the money to buy or the space to store all this books or even the time to read them all, so we have to choose. And don't forget that we don't want to read all of these books... ;-)

So I thought about the reasons for me to decide if I want to buy a book or not. And here are some of the aspects I consider for my decision...

Things that are important for me to consider buying a book:

• Cover:
  It's the first thing you see of a book. It doesn't matter if you look at it in a local bookstore or online. The first impression counts. A nice cover animates me to pick a book or click on a link to the book and read the synopsis. A cover that looks cheap or ugly in my eyes is a reason for me to not look at the book twice.
• Synopsis:
  I want to know in short what the book is about. I saw so many books that have a bad written synopsis. After reading those you sometimes still don't know what the book is about or even which genre this book is in and that's definitely a reason to not buy a book. Some books try to be intendly secret about the content, but that's a turn-off for me.
  What I also don't like or what I don't look at are quotes from other authors (and newspapers) who recommend a book on the book itself. I wouldn't say that those people aren't thruthful about what they say, but of course authors want to sell their books so they will write those positive comments on the book, but they give absolutely zero information to me as a reader, because they will certainly not write bad things on it. 
• Formats:
  I absolutely don't like hardcover bindings. They are expensive (especially in Germany, because the sellers are not allowed to sell it cheaper), they are heavy and they often don't fit on my shelf.
  I prefer in general paperback versions or because I have a kindle the e-book version. I mostly prefer waiting for the release of the paperback versions to buying the hardcover version. 

So, those are the main factors for my decision. What are your reasons to buy a book? Recommendations? Cover?...

My Interests in Books

Before I start writing about books I want to do a blog post about the kind of books, authors and genres I like.
I mostly read cozy mysteries. I usually don't like books with violence (one of the reasons why I like to read cozy mysteries). I read several cozy mystery series: The Donut Shop Mysteries by Jessica Beck (my first contact with the genre of cozy mysteries, I loved the cover of the books), The Coffeehouse Mysteries by Cleo Coyle (coooofffffeeeeee...), The Cupcake Bakery Mysteries by Jenn McKinlay (yummy) and many many more (I'm always open for new series, but there are so many that I can't read them all).... You can see some of those on the picture below.

Some of my cozy mysteries (sorry for the bad picture)

I also have a collection of Agatha Christie books (She wrote absolutely great books), the number of her books that I own is around 80 (from the German Hachette collection). I don't wanna count how much money I spent for these (each book 7.95 Euro). There's only one book from the collection I haven't bought, because I already had another copy of it. I regret it a little bit... You can see all my books on the picture below, also the one that's different ;-)

My collection of Agatha Christie books

So I like crime books in general, also thrillers (depends on my mood and the book).
Besides Agatha Christie one of my favourite authors is Bill Bryson who writes travel books (beside others of course). His books are so great, they always make me laugh. :-)

I recently discovered my interest in erotic romances which I read a lot in the last weeks. I bought myself a kindle in April and most of the books I read on it are these kind of books. But I prefer reading real books in general.


I already said that I don't like violence in books, but there's always an exception to the rule, so my exception are paranormal romances... Those are in some way acceptable... I love the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward. Vampires tend to drink blood and fights between demons are bloody, so I can live with those books.