Reviewing at Amazon

I've been reviewing books, and other things, at Amazon.com since February 2003. Possibly earlier, but that was the earliest review Amazon had listed. I'm not one of their top reviewers. I think you can only be a top reviewer if you aren't actually reading the books you review. You have to have done too many reviews every day. But some of the time, at least, people find my reviews useful.

The most recent ones include

• Fair Game  http://www.amazon.com/Fair-Alpha-Omega-Patricia-Briggs/dp/0441020038/ref=cm_cr-mr-title
• Celebrity in Death  http://www.amazon.com/Celebrity-Death-J-D-Robb/dp/0399158308/ref=cm_cr-mr-title
• Perfect Blood   http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Blood-Hollows-Book-10/dp/0061957895/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

I've been doing a lot of hard cover, from the library, fiction reading. All books I won't buy for my Kindle at this time because they are too expensive. It is interesting that all three of them have Kindle editions at $12.99 and not the $14.99 that a lot of publishers went to about a year ago. I think some publishers are rethinking pricing Kindle editions as high as hard cover books because a lot of us voted with our feet when the prices went up.

My library will buy almost anything I ask for. I'm careful that I mostly ask for brand new fiction that I think others will read as well during the book's first year. I do notice that the books I ask for aren't sitting on the New Book shelves most of the first few months, so I guess I'm doing a good enough job.

I'm also getting a lot of free and very low cost Kindle books.  I'm trying out authors that I've never read, and in a few cases I'm happy to have found them.