Contest of BABEL

First, congratulations to random number 68, Lethea – you won the autographed copy of Anya Bast’s Witch Fire! Thanks to everyone who participated. Sad that you didn’t win this contest? Read on for another chance to win free books…

In an email exchange with dixygirl yesterday, I coined the term BABLE (Book Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy, obviously riffed from SABLE, Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy), then promptly modified it to BABEL (Book Acquisition Beyond Expected Life)… although I quite like BABBLE (Book Acquisition Beyond Believed Life Expectancy), too. What do you think? (Beyond realizing that I’m obviously not knitting very much, eh, Marina?)

Anyway. Getting back on track, that email exchange gave me the idea for a contest. I have this ginormous stack of books that I’ve accumulated through various means: being at the library’s withdrawn store or the thrift store without an inventory of my library, accidentally buying a duplicate, receiving a duplicate, or intentionally buying a duplicate because I liked the book and hoped to pass it on to someone.

Comment on this post before 7 pm CDT, Thursday, June 18, for your chance to win some of the books pictured below. I’ll randomly select at least three winners (maybe more, depending on whim and response). Most of the books are used. Unsurprisingly, should you win, your books will likely include some amount of cat fur. 🙂

“My goodness. This new area rug is sort of lumpy.” -Mayhem

*sniff sniff sniff* -Chaos

Categories of books include those by local authors (Strawberry Shortcake Murder, Unplugged), knitting related (A Deadly Yarn, How to Knit a Wild Bikini, At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much), Nathan Kamp cover (Hot Spell), miscellaneous abs (You Don’t Know Jack, Dark Embrace), straight up romance (Summer Pleasures, I’m in No Mood for Love, Just Like Heaven), urban fantasy (Memory and Dream, The Devil You Know), mysteries (One for the Money, Murder by the Glass), darn good paranormal romance from a series but not the first book of said series (One Foot in the Grave, Passion Unleashed, Lover Unbound, Lover Revealed), not so great paranormal romance from a series but you need to read it anyway to continue with the series (Lover Enshrined), ok paranormal romance (Dogs and Goddesses), and paranormal romance I haven’t read yet (Darkling, Moon’s Fury, Immortals: The Darkening).

“Hey, there’s yarn on this book! Will chewing the book cover be like chewing yarn?” -Mayhem

*sniff sniff sniff* -Chaos

“Hmph. Chewing on book cover yarn is very unsatisfying. I shall lie here and sulk.” -Mayhem

*sniff sniff sniff* -Chaos

102 thoughts on “Contest of BABEL”

  1. I like the morphing of your acronym.

    Neatnik recently declared a desire to read all the books in the world. A discussion on the need to learn nearly every language on the planet ensued…

  2. Yes, I noticed we haven’t seen the black sweater for quite a while! Wow! I actually read one of those books. No prizes for guessing which one.

  3. Okay, for the mathematically challenged how does one calculate BABBLE? And how do you handle the gender life expectancy variation? Or do you know you have achieved BABBLE when even the tiny bathroom allocated to the cat’s litter box now needs shelves?

  4. What a nice looking cats 🙂 My sister used to have a black cat.
    I’d love a chance to win some of those interesting books!

  5. What a wonderful contest and an awesome selection of books. Please throw my name in the hat for the drawing. 🙂

    M

  6. I like Babble too. I don’t think I’m quite there, although I have been donating a fair amount of books to my local library for their charity book sales, so that has helped to contain the madness.

    Count me in! Always willing to read new books.

    Gwen

  7. There are some books there that I’d definitely love to get my hands on. And I don’t mind cat fur at all. It will fit right in at my house.

  8. Hey you should let me know when you’re having contests I could cross promote over at Fang-tastic Books!

    Anyway count me in you know I am always ready for books! I wish I would have known about the Anya Bast contest, I love author signed books. You never know, someday they may be worth a lot, plus I love the novelty of it (ha get it, novelty) anyway I am an author stalker so signed books are one of the things I just love to collect.

  9. I do that with knitting needles!

    However, they always get used!

    I have my own pile of books to read, but I am always looking for new additions.

    Have I mentioned I love books?

  10. Please count me in for the books, as well as, the fur. It will go with the 3 fur balls we have currently in the house. Have a great day.

    house_mouse at yahoo dot com

  11. BABEL! I love it. I don’t think I’m quite in BABEL territory yet. I have high hopes for kicking up the reading pace over the summer. 😉

  12. If I win a book your cat hair with mingle with my springer spaniel hair and look lovely. Pet hair is definitely an “accessory” to be proud of. Please count me in for your great giveaway

  13. Great contest! I have two of those black devils *ups* – I mean cats. Right now they are calling me to give them something to eat (4th time today, they are two very big cats :))

    Please count me in.

  14. I may need to try to do this with some of my books. Lots of good titles, too. I kind of like BABEL, but I’m not really sure why. It just appeals to me.

  15. I like BABBLE–I can pretend I’m going to live to 150 at least!

    I know May’s curiosity never quits, but does Chaos’s nose ever get tired?

    Your post reminds me to finish getting all our books into Library Thing. I have one huge bookcase (of heavy cookbooks and cocktail books) to go. Except I just remembered 2 crates of books in the back of the closet. Dang!

  16. Cool what an awesome prize pack (some great books there)!

    Good luck everyone and thanks for a chance to win books!

  17. Great idea with BABEL & BABBLE. Sounds like a great contest. Love the fur babies. Funny the way kitties always want to see the books and have to get their noses in it. 🙂

  18. Double B “BABBLE”! Great acronym. Please enter my name. I see a few titles that I’d love to win! And we don’t mind the cat hair. With five of my own, what’s a few more hairs? 😉

  19. Your acronym totally described my ever growing collection of books. I buy them faster than I read them. And I have some that I’ve owned for over a year without touching because I just haven’t gotten around to them.

    While some of the books in the giveaway don’t necessarily appeal to my tastes, there are a couple that I would love.

  20. Hey Chris!

    You always make me laugh!! I’ll take the cat fur…

    Sure, I’ll through my hat in the ring and pimp your contest in my blog’s sidebar too. 🙂

    Your acronym rocks by the way – I think it should be added to the Urban dictionary!

    HAAW (Have An Awesome Weekend)

    L

  21. I’ve got my own large stack of fur-filled unread books, so I think I’m okay on books for now. 🙂

    BABBLE and BABEL are both good, but I think I like BABBLE better.

  22. Love the pictures of the cats!! They are hiliarous! ~ Please throw my name in the box! And cat fur would be a wonderful mix with my two dogs and albino ferret.

    Tip for M&C…. if you see her take out the knitting needles.. you may want to do the hiss thing we pracitced earlier… she may decide to make you guys matching sweaters for the Christmas… lol… remember, hiss, arch back and hell… throw up a paw!!

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