Smugglers Stash

Smugglers’ Stash & News

Hello everyone and Happy Sunday! If you’re in the USA, I hope you’re ready for a nice short work week! (I know I am…) Without further ado, let’s get down to business, shall we?

Giveaway Winners:

The winner of a copy of Cold Steel by Kate Elliott is…

Cold Steel

Andrea Chettle

Congrats! Send us an email (contact AT thebooksmugglers DOT com) with your snail mail address, and we’ll get your book out to you as soon as possible.

R.I.P. Google Reader

Flipboard Feedly

Tomorrow, July 1, is the day that Google Reader goes away forever. If you haven’t migrated your RSS subscriptions over to a new reader alternative, you will lose all of that information as of tomorrow morning.

If you’re still on the fence and not sure about which new feed reader you can use for your RSS viewing pleasure (or if you’ve procrastinated…like us), here are a few alternatives we’ve found very useful:

Feedly – The most popular of the alternatives, Feedly is a simple, very pretty feed reader. There were some bandwidth problems early on (and may be happening today) because of the sheer volume of people transferring over and setting up new accounts, but it shouldn’t be a problem going forward! Google Reader migration instructions HERE.

The Old Reader – The reader to choose if you like the old Google Reader interface, don’t want any bells and whistles, just straight-up RSS aggregated in one place.

Flipboard – A digital news magazine, not so much a straight-up version of Google Reader, this one is Thea’s news aggregator of choice. Not only can you migrate over your meticulously organized google feeds, but you can also get a broad array of news from across the interwebs in curated categories (e.g. technology news, space exploration news, politics, etc). This is probably not for everyone as Flipboard’s magazine format can take some getting used to (it looks nothing like Google Reader did) and it doesn’t have a desktop solution. The app is available for free for both iOS and Android, though, and it is very pretty. Google Reader migration instructions “>HERE.

Newsblur – Honestly, not a big fan of this one as it’s a little slow and clunky and you have to pay an annual fee if you want to import more than 64 feeds. Your mileage may vary, though!

For other alternatives, check out these different articles.

This Week on The Book Smugglers:

On Monday, we kick off the week with an Inspirations & Influences guest post from Ryk E. Spoor, the author of Phoenix Rising. Plus, Thea reviews Proxy by Alex London.

Phoenix Rising Proxy

Tuesday, Ana reviews historical middle grade novel P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia. Plus, later in the day Bennett Madison is over to talk Inspirations & Influences about his controversial YA novel, September Girls (plus a giveaway).

PS Be Eleven Bennett Madison

On Wednesday, we take a break from Old School Wednesdays and officially announce our best books of 2013 – so far.

Orleans The Ocean at the End of the Lane (US)

Thursday, we have Elizabeth Ross over for a guest post to talk about her novel Belle Epoque, followed by Ana’s review of Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch.

Elizabeth Ross Moon Over Soho UK

And on Friday we close out the week with Ana’s review of Jack Glass by Adam Roberts. Thea is over at Kirkus with a list of horror roadtrip books perfect for the long weekend, inspired by NOS4A2 by Joe Hill.

Jack Glass Nos4r2

That’s it from us today! Until tomorrow, we remain…

Andry Rajoelina - Wondermum Andry Rajoelina - Batdad

Superfamilies by Andry Rajoelina

~ Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Smugglers

5 Comments

  • Andrea Chettle
    June 30, 2013 at 1:48 pm

    Wow! Thanks very much Emails been sent and I look forward to receiving the book!

  • Eliza
    June 30, 2013 at 2:22 pm

    Lots of interesting stuff coming up. Honestly, I don’t know how you two find the time to create all this wonderful content. I’m just grateful that you do.

    I just finished P.S. Be Eleven last night. I’m looking forward to comparing notes.

  • Lexa Cain
    June 30, 2013 at 4:46 pm

    I guess I’m lucky that I’m so technologically-challenged I don’t even know what a feed reader is. I just put blogs I like (such as yours) in the bloglist on my blog and let it update them. Works for me! 🙂

  • Ace Maxs
    July 1, 2013 at 10:17 am

    Hi..
    Just stop by for saying that was amazing contest. Congratulation to the winner.

    xoxo

  • Ace Maxs
    July 10, 2014 at 5:35 am

    wow is great and cool thank very much

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