Major giveaway from the Bibliofreak

Bibliofreak from Bibliofreakblog is giving away 21 books! Among them are:

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (paperback)
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (paperback)
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (paperback)
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (paperback)
Nibble & Kuhn by David Schmahmann (ARC)
Flight by Sherman Alexie (paperback)
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (paperback)
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos (paperback)
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño (paperback)
Seal Intestine Raincoat by Rosie Chard (paperback)
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (paperback)
Everything Sucks by Hannah Friedman (paperback)

Contest is open worldwide and ends on April 30, 2010. Go over to the blog for further details.

Don't you love book giveaways??

Brizmus Blogs Books is giving away a copy of Ondine by Ebony McKenna. Open worldwide. Ends March 25.

Reggie from The Undercover Book Lover is giving away a cool set of 12 books to one lucky winner. Titles include The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson, The Sight by Judy Blundell, Voices of Dragons by Carrie Vaughn and Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready. It is open internationally and ends on her birthday, March 10, 2010. Wait no more! Go over there and enter! :D

In another contest held by In Which a Girl Reads, one winner gets the chance to choose any book he/she wants from The Book Depository. The giveaway is held to celebrate Choco's blog reaching 400++ followers! Don't miss your chance to enter. It's open worldwide and ends on March 06, 2010.

In My Mailbox (Feb 22, 2010)

Won: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Editorial review from Amazon:

Ethan Wate is struggling to hide his apathy for his high school "in" crowd in small town Gatlin, South Carolina, until he meets the determinedly "out" Lena Duchannes, the girl of his dreams (literally - she has been in his nightmares for months).

What follows is a smart, modern fantasy - a tale of star-crossed lovers and a dark, dangerous secret. Beautiful Creatures is a delicious southern Gothic that charms you from the first page, drawing you into a dark world of magic and mystery until you emerge gasping and blinking, wondering what happened to the last few hours (and how many more you're willing to give up).

To tell too much of the plot would spoil the thrill of discovery, and believe me, you will want to uncover the secrets of this richly imagined dark fantasy on your own. ~Daphne Durham

This book came last Thursday. Finally, it's here! Yay! I won this book from a contest held by The Eclectic Reader. Thanks again, Teddyree!!!

So, what books did you guys get? :)

In My Mailbox is a weekly event hosted by The Story Siren.

Bliss (Happy 101) Award

Wow, I won this award from Morgan of Smitten With Books. Thanks, Morgan!

The rules for the Bliss (Happy 101) Award are that I list out 10 things (only 10???) that make me happy, then pass it along to 10 other bloggers.

1. Making my nephew and nieces laugh and smile.
2. Laughing and having fun conversations with family and friends.
3. Fridays!  The last day for classes and the beginning to a weekend with time for myself.
4. Losing myself in a good book.
5. Trips to the cinema.
6. Watching a brilliant movie on DVD with English subtitles.  I love movies that come with English subtitles even if they're in English.  Why?  Cos I want to know everything that's been said so that I follow the storyline thoroughly.
7. Receiving books in the mail.
8. Christmas!
9. Relishing the scrumptious taste of my favourite hamburger after a long time of not eating it.  The same goes for pizza.
10. Stepping into bookstores like Borders, Popular (local bookstore) and MPH (local bookstore).  If only I can add in Kinokuniya (one of the biggest bookstores in Malaysia), which is in Kuala Lumpur but unfortunately I don't go there often.
11. Receiving comments from my blogger friends!
12. When my favourite songs play on the radio.
13. Accomplishing a difficult task well.
14. Receiving compliments.
15. Knowing that I'm appreciated.

....and the list goes on.....!!!  Okay, so that's an extra 5 things that make me happy.  I couldn't stop at 10.  :)

Now to pass on to 10 blogger friends:

1. StephanieD of Misfit Salon
2. nylusmilk of The Literary Pursuit
3. Nishita of Nishita's Rants and Reviews
4. Alice of Hello, My Name is Alice
5. nymeth of Things Mean a Lot
6. Robby of Once Upon a Book Blog/Fourteen Years
7. KittyCat of Right Reads
8. Diane of The Book Resort
9. Krista of Tower of Books
10. Kris of Not Enough Books

49 Followers Contest at Storywings!

Just stumbled over this blog, Storywings who's giving away a cool bunch of books to some lucky winners! Click on the link to find out more about her book giveaway. Don't miss it - there are tons of cool YA books to be won! I'm gonna try my luck now. :D

Goodreads or LibraryThing?

OR

I've been a member of a free account at LibraryThing since 2007. I'm not sure if I'd want to upgrade to a lifetime membership at a fee of $25. That will be around RM84.70 (Malaysian Ringgit). Lots of book bloggers have been steadfastly using LibraryThing but what's all the hype around Goodreads???

Now I'm confused. Which one is better? Okay, Goodreads earns one point as it's free to use whereas LibraryThing only allows us to catalogue up to 200 books for free. After that, it's $10/year or $25 for life.

BUT, from some of the reviews and analyses I've found through Google regarding these two book cataloging sites, some users prefer LibraryThing as it provides detailed information on a book. It also enables book searches from more sources than Goodreads. Let's say you want to catalog a rare book, then chances are that it'll be 'found' via LibraryThing.

If social networking is what you're looking for, then Goodreads will be the better choice as its focus is more on making friends. LibraryThing, it seems, attracts serious readers who don't give one-word reviews like those, supposedly, in Goodreads.

Therefore, I decided to do a search on Google for user reviews of these online library sites! :) These were some of the sites and blogs that I came upon:

1. Felicity from Faerye.net delved into the pros and cons of the two sites. Do read the comments on her post too. Pretty interesting feedback she's got there.

2. For a quick comparison, then check out DearMYRTLE's post.

3. Matt from Spudart lists out the effectiveness of available features from LibraryThing and Goodreads.

4. Ryan Burrell not only reviews two but THREE popular online libraries, which are LibraryThing, Goodreads and Shelfari. I haven't used Shelfari and don't intend to create an account there anyway.

5. And finally, hop on over to Kristie (J)'s post, Book Cataloguing - An analysis of online sites where she compares LibraryThing, Shelfari and Goodreads. She has even included snapshots of her excel spreadsheet that she's been using for over 10 years! Now, that's cataloging for you.

Well, I guess it all boils down to what you need. Each online library caters to different target groups who'll know how to make the most out of it. If one site ain't enough for you, there's no harm in creating accounts in other sites too. :) Though it'll definitely take more time to maintain all those accounts.