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Archive for May, 2010

Travel Books… Favorites? Eyewitness Travel Guides

Monday, May 24th, 2010

Chances are, you and your family are going to be traveling this summer and you do realize you can request 5 to 6 used travel books for the price of one new book, right? What’s your favorite? my favorite… Eyewitness Travel Guides.

There are several ways to find travel books on PBS and I’d like to help you find what you’re looking for.Travel Eyewitness Vegas

1. Book Sliders. The easiest way to stumble upon a travel book is right in front of you. Find the Travel genre on the book slider on the home page and browse book covers easily. If you come back frequently you may want to  select the travel genre as one of your favorites and then every time you login to PaperBackSwap you’ll have a new selection of travel books displayed to you automatically.

2. Book Browser. Of course you could just enter “Travel” in our search box but if you’re looking for something specific you might want to use our “book browser”.  Once on the browser I like to use the “select multiple genres” as it gives a little more control.  Scroll down to find the Travel genre on the bottom right.  This form allows you to select several more-specific sub-genres such as travel > Africa or travel > Europe.  You could drill all the way down to Travel >> Guidebook Series >> Eyewitness. The next filter I would consider using is the Publication Date.  Prices of attractions, hotels, and restaurants do change.  SIDE-NOTE: Please DO NOT do this to your family… My dad had a 30 year old travel guide he kept in the glove box. We would read all the reviews and finally agree on the best place to eat. Then we’d drive an hour or so out of the way (starving at this time) only to find that it was out of business.  However if you’re looking for a great way to torture your teenagers… this works.  So for starters use >= 2000. This link will help get you started: Travel Books. Don’t forget: if you can’t find the specific travel books you’re looking for just change the browser to show “all books” and add them to your wish list!

3. Tags. Find the “Community” drop down menu and go to ” Club Tag Cloud”, next find Travel or just click this link for books fellow members have tagged related to travel. One key to this list is the ReSort button.  Use the ReSort button to sort the books by posted, date, title, author and the default is set to tag usage.

4. Lists. Soon you’ll be able to create a list of all of your favorite travel books. Just a small taste of something to be released soon 🙂

Here are a few links to popular travel guides available on PBS:

A few books available at the time of this posting:

Fodors Puerto RicoFrommers Grand CanyonLonely Planet Europe on a ShoestringTop 10 Toronto EyewitnessRick Steves LondonFrommers BahamasLonely Planet Italy

If you have a favorite travel guide or place to vacation please share with us below… We’ll give away a few credits to randomly chosen comments below just to help you get started on your summer travels. Have a great summer everyone! (giveaway has ended)

Behave Yourself Travel Etiquette

May Member of the Month

Friday, May 21st, 2010

Cathy W. (Firefly)

Cathy is another of our wonderful Tour Guides, whose grateful “newmems” have been writing in to us for ages, singing her praises.  She’s been a PBS member for over four years, and has swapped hundreds of books from her home in Alaska.  Reports from her fans included these comments:

“She has been so helpful and friendly since I joined. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer or more knowledgeable tour guide 🙂

“She helped me with my first year of mishaps, glitches, and misunderstandings. I’m sure that without her help my swap membership might have ended soon after I signed up! Thanks, Cathy!”

“I got totally confused with my first swap but Cathy showed me how easy it really was to figure out.  She’s a cool head in a crisis!  Do you think she’d accept the nomination for President if we submitted her as a write-in?”

Firefly, you are a guiding light at PBS!  You are our Member of the Month for May.  Congratulations!

If you have any nominations for Member of the Month, submit them to us here.  Your nomination will not “expire”–anyone you nominate will have a chance at getting Member of the Month if enough nominations accumulate over time. Each month the person who has the most votes accumulated when the Newsletter goes to press gets to be Member of the Month and gets a newsletter mention and a nifty MoM icon to wear on profile and forum posts with pride.  So go for it! Tell us who’s helped you in the Forums, who’s been a great swapper, who in your opinion is a credit to PBS.  We are keeping a list of all the nominated members.  Who knows–one of them might be YOU!

Local Book Club News

Friday, May 21st, 2010

St. Louis MO Book ClubNew Local Chapter Leaders:

  • Michael  P. – mcp7 – Western CO
  • Angelic S. – chronicreader – St. Louis, MO

If you want to be a Local Chapter Leader for PBS, you just need to have a PBS NIckname, a viewable public profile, and some organizational skills…check the Local Chapter Leaders Forum List of Official Chapters to see if your area already has a local Chapter.  If not, and you want to do this, just contact us.  There are no formal guidelines for being a Chapter Leader.  All of the information is in the Local Chapter Leader Discussion Forum topic.    If you are an official Chapter Leader and want us to include your upcoming meetup in the Newsletter, send in a message to us with the date, at least a week before the end of the preceding month.

Great Books available to trade… The Pilot’s Wife, The Shack & more.

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

And check out these great books you may have missed! All of the books below are available to trade right now:

The Pilot's Wife :  Anita Shreve

The Pilot’s Wife : Anita Shreve.  A pilot’s wife is taught to be prepared for the late-night knock at the door. But when Kathryn Lyons receives word that a plane flown by her husband, Jack, has exploded near the coast of Ireland, she confronts the unfathomable –her husband had a secret life, about which she knew nothing…   See other general fiction books currently available for trading.

The Shack  by William P. Young
The Shack by William P. Young. Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, was abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered was found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend…  Browse other Christian Fiction currently available for trading.

Jacob Have I Loved  by Katherine Paterson
Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson.   Louise and Caroline are twins, growing up on a tiny Chesapeake Bay island in the early 1940s.  Louise, feeling brushed aside for her pampered sister, learns the ways of the watermen and the secrets of the island.  A deeply moving, Newbery-winning story of sisters, twinship and the struggle for identity.  See other Young Adult selections currently available for trading.
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin The astonishing, uplifting, true story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school…   See other Memoirs currently available for trading.

Family Tree by Barbara Delinsky
Family Tree by Barbara Delinsky Dana Clarke is married to a man she adores, and has just given birth to their first child. What should be the happiest day of her life becomes the day her world falls apart.  Her daughter is born beautiful and healthy, but no one can help noticing the African-American traits in her appearance. Dana’s husband, to her great shock and dismay, begins to worry that people will think Dana has had an affair.  Dana’s determination to discover the truth about her family background becomes a poignant journey that unearths secrets rooted in prejudice and fear.  See other Women’s Fiction books currently available for trading.

New overstock books available in the PBS Market!

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Remember that you can use a credit to make the discount on these bargain books even greater. Available in The Market right now, these great books:

No Time for Goodbye :: Linwood Barclay

No Time for Goodbye :: Linwood Barclay The house was deathly quiet. That was the first sign that something was terribly wrong. Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge woke that morning to find herself alone. Her family—mother, father, and brother—had vanished without a word, without a note, without a trace. Twenty-five years later, Cynthia is still looking for answers. Now she is about to learn the devastating truth….  See other Thrillers currently available in the Market.

Retail Price: $22.00

Purchase this NEW Hardcover for $6.49 (save 70%) or $3.09+1 credit (save 85%) from PBS Market

On Chesil Beach :: Ian McEwan
On Chesil Beach :: Ian McEwan.  It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart.  A novel of remarkable depth and poignancy from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.. Browse other General Fiction books currently available in the Market.

Retail Price: $22.00

Purchase this NEW Hardcover for $6.49 (save 70%) or $3.09+1 credit (save 85%) from PBS Market

The Amateur Gourmet: How to Shop, Chop, and Table Hop Like a Pro (Almost) The Amateur Gourmet: How to Shop, Chop, and Table Hop Like a Pro (Almost) :: Adam D. Roberts As a self-taught chef and creator of The Amateur Gourmet website, Adam Roberts knows the challenges you face in bringing fresh, creative homemade meals to the table.   As he shows in this exciting new book, the effort is worth it and good eating doesn’t have to be difficult. From how to chop an onion to how to cook a seven-course meal, Roberts shares the skills you need to impress your parents, woo a date, and create sophisticated dishes with everyday ease.  See more books about Cooking, Food and Wine currently available in the Market.

Retail Price: $25.00

Purchase this NEW Hardcover for $6.49 (save 74%) or $3.09+1 credit (save 87%) from PBS Market

Escape by Carolyn Jessop Escape :: Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer.  The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom.  No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children and $20 to her name…   See more Biographies and Memoirs, currently available in the Market.

Retail Price: $24.95

Purchase this NEW Hardcover for $7.49 (save 69%) or $4.09+1 credit (save 83%) from PBS Market

The Penny (Large Print) :: Deborah Bedford, Joyce Meyer The Penny (Large Print) :: Deborah Bedford, Joyce Meyer.  Set in St. Louis in the racial hotbed of the mid-1950s, the story’s protagonist is the abused adolescent, Jenny Blake. “All my life has been shaped by other people’s hands. Daddy slapping me, Mama never hugging me, Jean pointing a finger of criticism at me.” When Jenny picks up a penny in the street, she sets off a chain of events that change her life forever.   See the Large Print selections available in the Market now.

Retail Price: $23.99

Purchase this NEW Hardcover for $6.99 (save 70%) or $3.59+1 credit (save 85%) from PBS Market

PBS News: Story Time with Soldiers, Author Pages, PBS Market,

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

We are really amazed and proud at the response to the  Story Time with Soldiers drive! You all really stepped up to provide books for the United Through Reading military donation program that provides pre-deployment DVDs of soldiers reading storybooks to their children.  We hit our goals for donated money and credits, and we heard the most heartwarming responses from you…

“The idea of deployed service personnel reading to their children warms even the coldest heart. I love these programs. It’s little enough to donate 10 credits to keep the program running. Good job, team. Keep up these outreach programs.” – Betty A.

“I just wanted to say how wonderful it is that PBS is supporting a program like Story Time with Soldiers!

My brother-in-law is currently on his 3rd deployment to Iraq, leaving behind my sister and 2 small boys, ages 4 & 1. Before he left, he had my sister video tape him reading books to the boys. Those boys have watched that video just about every day since he left 6 months ago. And when he came home for his 2-week mid-deployment leave, those boys had no trouble bonding with their dad because they had seen him reading to them every single day since he left. Even though my sister and brother-in-law did their video on their own, this is still my personal proof that this is a very important program.

Thanks to PBS for supporting our troops AND their families!!” – Yvonne G.

Thanks, Betty and Yvonne!  We too love this program, and we’re so touched at how you all have reached out to these families.  You can read more about the program here.  Thanks again for giving!

We’ve spruced up the author bibliography pages. If you click the author name on any listing you will now see the book images of the currently-available books by that author, and every book version is shown.  It used to be just a list, but members wanted more detail.  We hope this helps you keep up with your favorite author, or stock up on an author you just discovered.

Shopaholics take note! Love browsing the PBS Market ? Hate it when you get interrupted and your cart is empty when you log back in?  Now your cart will remember the items you have added, even if you log out; they’ll be waiting for you when you come back.   If you haven’t visited the PBS Market lately, be sure to stop by – new books are added every hour.

Timed-release Newsletter: Sending this NewsWire puts a strain on our servers, which can slow down the site.  We are trying something new this month – the Newsletter will go out slowly over several days.  So if you hear that someone else hasn’t gotten her Newsletter and you have, just reassure her that hers is on the way.  We hope this takes the load off the servers so that the site will continue to run smoothly even while a Newsletter is going out.