BBAW, and recent purchases

First, thank you to whoever nominated Reading the Past for Best History/Historical Fiction blog for Book Blogger Appreciation Week! It's an honor to be in such great company (I know many of my fellow HF bloggers were also nominated) and also really nice to see that our little corner of the blogosphere has an award to call our own.

I've made a couple semi-large purchases this week and thought I'd spread the word, especially since the sales won't last long. The first is that there's a really good deal on stackable folding bookshelves going on this week at Staples, the US-based office supply store. They're $29.99 apiece in stores, which means you can get a floor-to-ceiling pair of them for $60. I own a couple dozen of these shelves, and this is the cheapest I've ever seen them, so yesterday we went out and ordered four more with free delivery since our local store was out of stock. This means the mini-chateau of books next to my desk will soon be gone (to my cats' dismay).

This is what eight of them look like, stacked and placed side by side. And yes, there is another row of them around the corner to the left...

The second thing is that, for those of you who haven't heard, Book Depository's US site, http://www.bookdepository.com/, is now in business and has enormous discounts (up to 54% off) on some brand new titles and preorders, but you have to be fast and catch them before they disappear. Last week, I found Lindsey Davis's Rebels and Traitors, to be published in two weeks, on sale for $9ish plus free shipping. Of course I put it in my cart. That particular discount doesn't seem to be available any more, but there are others just as good on different books.

I purchased, erm, seven or eight other historical novels at similar prices and will have to wait a few weeks to a few months until some of them come in, but that's OK with me. Browse through their historical novel section and see what else you can find. Some books are as low as $5.24 US. How are they making money on this, especially with the free shipping? I've no idea. They're also selling Gregory's The White Queen for 1/2 off, should you be leaning in that direction. (My book is even on sale with a small discount, with free shipping worldwide. Normally, for some countries, airmail shipping would be more than the book itself costs.)

Anyway, I have no association with either company, but maybe some other book collector will find this info useful.