December's books are up!

The list of available books page says the December batch is up, although the books are not listed, as of yet. Beat you to it, abby!

Ah, but that means they're only half up... (give me an hour)!

Now! December's books are up.

the list of books

the blog post

This time around, we have an Israeli publisher contributing, so all the books from Gefen are available only to residents of Israel and the continental United States. Make sure to check the flags to see which country the books can be sent to!

I'm going to try very hard not to be greedy, but I'm tempted by nearly all of Gefen's books! I shall struggle to restrain myself.

4: Define greedy =)

I heard a good bit from the LinkedIn guy. He said that all successful websites were about violating one or more of the seven deadly sins. We hit all of them:

Lust (for books); gluttony (for obscure triva); greed (for free books); sloth (we get the data for you!); wrath (the pro and con group; excoriation of people who combine wrongly); envy (library-size lists); pride (profile pages)

We got it all, baby. /offtopic

Requesting more than two books.

I must say that what's really tempting is to ask for both the books on the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews, as that would make an interesting comparison. But there are others I want more, and I don't want to bite off more than I can chew!

I'm going to try very hard not to be greedy, but I'm tempted by nearly all of Gefen's books! I shall struggle to restrain myself.

Seriously!!! This is the most interesting batch so far, I think (not just the Gefen titles, either). Honestly, I have never been so impressed with LT and the places you guys have taken it--you have gotten a bunch of publishing houses to give us a bunch of free books, just because they can see how serious we are about reading and reviewing. Thank you!

I had a slight problem requesting books this time around. I had clicked Request It for a couple of books -- and it showed Requested -- and then I clicked the link for Publisher Info and when I returned, all my requests were gone!

This happened to me twice so the moral of this story is either a) don't check Publisher Info, or b) double check what you've requested.

Maybe there's a C and Tim & Co. could take a look at this?

Here's my definition of greedy: Requesting books you have no real interest in.

That leaves me free to pick two (or more) and not feel greedy.

;o)

Great selection, people!

*passes Tim a bottle of The 7 Deadly Zins*

9 > did you refresh the page or just hit the back button?

I requested 8 this time, I'm feeling good about getting one this month!

I'm not seeing anything of interest so I will not be requesting anything. I hope there is a bonus batch for December, but if not, that's ok. I am still waiting on the other books to arrive so I can review them.

I picked 6 that I am quite interested in, two of which, Wagner and Hitler and the Galilee boat I would really like to read and think about.

Oh my gosh. I am drooling over this month's offerings!

am i being thick or are there no books for us UK users?

ive only just joined early reviewers so is this normal?

>16 maxsumillion: doesn't look like any UK books this time maxsumillion. :o( I think November was the first time they offered any to UK LTers.

# 11 -- I clicked the Publisher Info button, was redirected to that page, then hit the browser's back button to return to the Early Reviewer list. In my experience, that shouldn't have changed what I'd already accomplished.

Or am I missing something really elementary here?

No UK books this month, sorry. But hopefully we'll have more again soon!

>life in general

grrrrrrrr

maybe a bonus book will be UK?... how do bonus books work?

18 > More than likely it didn't change your selections just what your viewing, it happens a lot with javascript stuff. You can see it all the time on the Common Knowledge pages, add something, follow a link, go back and visually it's all gone, refresh shows it all back. The browser puts it back to the cached copy on your computer with out the changes.

Next time refresh the page and see if it shows up correctly.

> 13

I am still waiting on the other books to arrive so I can review them.

That's part of my reluctance to ask for much this time. I'm still waiting for October and November's books, and I have visions of everything landing on my doorstep at once, right next to a package from Amazon's Vine program!

Greed = request any book I'm willing to read and review in a month.

Gluttony = 593 cookbooks.

Nothing of interest to me this month. Oh well, maybe next time.

2 this time.

I always forget about the Amazon Vine program. It is oddly amusing. I can still get into the Amazon profile page that lists me as ranking 3,182, but I do not have access to that email any longer. I have no idea how the Vine program is set up, but I assume having a method for Amazon to contact you would be helpful. :)

Maybe I'll get one of the Jewish books I requested. So far I've gotten an Irish, a Mormon, and an Indian (as in India) book through this program. I enjoy exploring through reading. :)

All I can say is Boo no UK books. :-( Last month really got my hopes up.

Oh well I've emailed the ER Letter to some publishers. Maybe that will help.

I requested a few that look interesting, particularly two. I hope I get one this time, but my hopes aren't too high. It would be nice though. =)

I only requested one: Manic: a Memoir. I've had pretty good luck getting memoirs, and it looks interesting.

I started off pretty disappointed with this batch, as most of the fiction looks pretty... well, not to my tastes. The list definitely improved toward the bottom, though. I ended up requesting three - Now You See Him, The Somnambulist (which looks to be the most requested at this point), and Mossad Exodus. There were some other decent-looking books from Gefen, but the Shimron one looked best and I didn't want to ruin my chances of getting it :x

Anyway, nice to see that the lists continue to show more variety!

#30 The Somnambulist does indeed look like it will be the hardest book to snag for December.

>31 VisibleGhost: I suspect that's because it's the first thing to show up that has a decidedly fantastical bent to it. The sci-fi fans and fantasy fans groups on LT are two of the largest.

What an amazing batch of books. I got greedy & requested a bunch. I really like the Israeli publisher's picks.

The only book that particularly appeals to me is The Somnambulist, which already has almost 300 requests after just a couple of hours, so I guess I'm not getting anything this time around.

I requested four, and thought hard about a couple of others. It can't be greedy to request even all of them though, because no matter how many you request, you only get one.

"#30 The Somnambulist does indeed look like it will be the hardest book to snag for December."

Never underestimate the power of Abby.

"#30 The Somnambulist does indeed look like it will be the hardest book to snag for December."

Never underestimate the power of Abby.

So many good sounding books this time around. Like some others I got greedy and requested all the books that appealed to me. I especially liked many of the selection by the Israeli publisher. Was nice to see a new countries flag on list. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed until the annoucements are made. I'll also keep my fingers crossed that more publishers in other countries start to participate in LTs ER program. I sometimes feel a little guilty sometimes that the flag that dominates the list is the US one and that so many LTs can't participate.

Good luck to everyone who requested a book =)

I agree that the December batch is great! There are several that I'm interested in.

Thanks, again, Tim and Abby!

Never underestimate the power of Abby.

I have full faith in and respect for the power of Abby.

I requested several this time, may the power of Abby bestow upon me another free book.

All bow before the power of Abby!

Shall we save it for the blog, Abby?

Yes, because everyone loves suspense. Mwah-haha

Mwah-ha ha HA!

Guys! Not fair!!

I requested three this time. Two that look interesting but don't match my library and The Somnambulist which is the one I really want.

The Somnambulist was probably my most looked for book but it looks like everyone else wants it to.

I'm catching hints Abby has scored some more copies? How many more is the question...

I suspect Abby has found a way to weed out the competition, not to score more books. Look out!

In 24 hours The Somnambulist has become the most requested book in ER history. William Morrow should be pleased. Question: Has this book already been released in the UK by Gollancz?

Just out of curiosity, how many registered Early Reviewers are there?

I would guess around 845 since that is what is registered for the ER group.

#50 According to the groups page, 709.

Hmm, and yet there are 946 so far requesting The Somnambulist. Some of those registered must not be ER group members.

Yeah I'm pretty sure you can be registered for ER without being a member of the group.

Well since I have a hard time believing EVERY ER person requested The Somnambulist I would hazard a guess there are more yet.

That's correct - I didn't. We can probably safely say at least 1,000

I didn't request The Somnabulist either, for whatever that's worth.

I did request a total of six, however, although I may un-request a couple of them. Three of the books I'm most interested in are from the Israeli publisher and although I have a lot of books in my library that fit that category, I don't have many of them cataloged here. I know that's going to seriously hurt my chances of getting one of those but I guess that's what I get for putting off finishing my catalog.

No, there's about 5,000. Registering for the group isn't necessary.

karen_o: That may be true, but signing up for them isn't going to hurt your changes of getting others. If you want them, sign up for them, unless you want something else more and fear that you might get your lesser desire, not your greater.

Holy bookworms, Batman -- 5000!!?? That's impressive! That's a lot of competition! I'd better hone my library!

I didn't request the Somnambulist, either. Then again, I was probably one of the few who was really pretty disappointed in this batch. We REALLY need to get some more Sci-Fi /Fantasy publishers involved.

Well, not all 5,000 request a book each time, obviously. But 5,000 have registered, and they get the announcements.

Okay, enough suspense! How many copies of The Somnambulist are there really? (I'm hoping more than 1000 :P )

I requested a bunch, esp from the Gefen batch. I'm a synagogue librarian and I rillyrilly hope I can snag one! :-)

im just interested in when any UK books are coming in. i requested the somnambulist thinking ooh that looks good. then logged back in a few minutes later and did a double check before i realised none were for the UK!

>63 bostonbibliophile: by synagogue librarian do you literally mean a librarian for the synagogue's library or is synagogue a technical librarian term i dont know?

>62 _Zoe_:

See the blog. There are 60 copies of The Somnambulist. Not quite 1,000, but closer to it than 20 was!

So it seems that there are now 60 copies of The Somnambulist available. Unfortunately I don't think that's enough to help me, but it's still great!

edit: I almost got in there before Abby, but not quite.

My chances just tripled!

#49 and #64

The Somnambulist has been out ages in the UK - the hardcover and large format paperback were published last February. The cheap paperback is out on Jan 10th.

#68 - That's awesome, I'll probably buy it when I go there in a few weeks, if I don't win it here. It looks that good.

I have noticed that a few of the ER books are available in the UK - in fact I own one, The Winter Rose - so if you are in the UK and interested, I'd suggest looking them up because British books often come out sooner over there. For obvious reasons, I guess, and it does go both ways.

For those who don't win and still want to read The Somnambulist now rather than wait until US publication in February I would just like to mention The Book Depository (I have no commercial links with them) as they have free worldwide shipping.

for the people trying to get the somnambulist youve actually got a 1 in 18.1 chance of getting it which isnt that bad actually. although there is still a week left for those 5000 members to put in a bid for it! then your chances go down to a 1 in 83.3.

I have no interest in the 'The Somnambulist', so I did not request it.

So how many people were requesting the book when you asked for more, and do you think it would work to ask again since the numbers keep increasing? ;)

Thanks andyl. I scan a couple of sites for upcoming UK SF&F, Locus and The SF Site, but somehow I missed The Somnambulist. Early Reviewers is the first I remember hearing of it.

I hope I get The Somnambulist! I'm actually writing a Steampunk bibliography for one of my library science classes! It will get added to the bibliography even if I don't get to review it, but it would be nice to actually mark it as "read" on my list.

Dont worry you've still got a 1 in 20.683 chance of getting it so as long as not too many more people request it before saturday you should be fine :D

Well there is 495 books up, and about 5000 reviewers, so chances in general (assuming almost everyone picks something) is approx. 1 in 10.

not bad

does anyone think there is going to be any bonus books for december? maybe then i can get some UK ones!

Always possible but I think unlikely.

anyone know when the december announcements are going to be made?

>81 Irisheyz77:

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=24994#messagehead104
message 104

thanks sqdancer! =)

Apparently announcments were just made as I got a notice that I am not receiving a book this time. That's OK, I was only mildly interested in one of them and still need to finish the Extra Batch book I got a few weeks ago.

I just now got a message, but it's the November message:

This is a note to tell you that you didn't manage to snag an Early Reviewers book from the Random House bonus batch. I'll be putting the December batch up later this week, so look for new books soon!

Best,
Abby

Maybe she just forgot to change the text? Pretty disappointing. As of now, I've requested books every time they've been offered since the program started, and I still haven't been selected. I thought with the large number of books on religion, and even a decent number on Judaism, in my Library, that I'd have a decent chance on some of the books from the Israeli publisher.

*sigh*

Such is life.

Bummer, I didn't get one, either. Oh well, I'll just have to try again next time. :)

> 81

Today.

I got one! Sephardi Entrepreneurs in Jerusalem: the Valero Family 1800-1948 (I have no idea why entering the full title in brackets won't touchstone), by Ruth Kark

I finally got one!! On my third time trying...I got Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah. Keep up the faith guys!! :-)

no notice for me yet....either way...=( guess I'll just have to lurk and see if one shows up. *fingers crossed*

No need to lurk....right after I posted the above I got a message. I too managed to snag Sephardi Entrepreneurs in Jerusalem: The Valero Family 1800-1948 by Ruth Kark. =D

I got Sitting Practice. Yay!

I am getting Firefly Lane as well.