Giveaway Winners

I’ve selected the winners of the giveaway. Now, ultimately, I thought the only criteria I could possibly use was the amount of creative/typing effort involved in responding. I love you all really. You know I do.

First up was:

SMD // Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 4:11 pm

Dear Mr. Newton,

I’m going to be totally honest about my response. I feel you deserve it. I’ve hidden this from the public, but that doesn’t make it any less true. In fact, it’s very true indeed.

Ten years ago I was diagnosed with a very rare disease called librania neuroitus, which is an affliction of the brain. The disease is so rare that I am the only person to have been diagnosed with it. The symptoms include an innate desire to eat the pages from books, which, I might add, is a terrible thing for a book lover like myself because now my entire library has been ruined and I’ve been forced to replenish my book coffers and store the new books in a special location that is not made immediately known to me. There are other symptoms, but I won’t bother you with them.

The last ten years have been a trying time, but I have used the time well. I have dedicated myself, in secret, to researching this disease in order to find a cure. And I have found it in the most unusual of places: your book.

Only through the arrival of a signed copy of your book, with an inscription wishing me well and possibly a doodle of an amoeba wearing a viking hat and carrying a silly looking sword, can I be cured of this affliction. I won’t bore you with the details of how I know this will work (you will, of course, find the irony of this whole situation rather humorous, as I have). Needless to say, I will be attempting to publish a five-hundred page book detailing my research entitled “The Great Book Disease: Finding the Cure For the Worst Disease In Human History” under the pseudonym Virgil G. Coddlefoot. I will furnish you with a copy of the final product as a fair exchange, if you so desire.

That is why I want a copy of your book, and I thank you kindly for the opportunity to finally acquire the cure for this terrible illness.

Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,
Shaun

P.S.: Everything written above is absolutely, 100% true. I cannot stress that enough. I would not make up such a ridiculous story to get a book. Never.

How could I resist such an entertaining and well-written entry? Second:

minusakidney // Saturday, June 12th, 2010 at 5:56 am

Ready for the guilt? I live in Saigon and a couple of weeks ago I had a motorbike accident: I ripped a chunk out of my knee – you could see right down through layers of flesh to the bone, it was disgusting – which required surgery so now I can’t really walk; I broke my collar bone which means my right arm has to be immobilised for a month in a huge arm immobiliser harness that is far too hot for this climate and my collar bone (oh, I regret not appreciating how pretty collar bones can be back when I had a nice straight pair) has healed crookedly with a big lump in the middle that isn’t at all attractive. Also I cracked a rib but I don’t have gory details for that one, it just hurts like hell.

I’m from Bradford so you shouldn’t feel too sorry for me being stuck with serious injuries in a developing country. I’ve been pretty au fait with hospitals, surgeries, needles, drains etc. since I had kidney failure a few years ago so I didn’t expect to miss my mum or anything. In fact, since coming out of hospital, I do miss my mum because mums, unlike well-meaning but socially far too active housemates, don’t get bored running round after you and forget to bring you food. It’s lunchtime; I’m hungry; I’m eating dry corn flakes out of the box.

That all this has no connection or relevance to you, your book, impending ice ages or Russell Brand with a sword is OK. It’s entirely acceptable for me to expect people I don’t know on the other side of the planet to feel my pain. I’m stuck in bed watching a Grey’s Anatomy boxset even though I discovered about a fifth of the way into the first episode that I don’t really like Grey’s Anatomy and reading old, free stuff on my ereader which I dislike (the ereader that is) to the point of feeling a bit of my soul die every time I turn a ‘page’. It’s better than having nothing to read, which is pretty much the alternative in Vietnam, but it’s so aesthetically unpleasing I would shamelessly try and guilt almost anybody out of a real physical copy of an actual book that I’d actually want to read. Did I mention it’s my birthday in two weeks?

Nat

P.S. I had to laboriously type this whole thing with just my left hand.
P.P.S. I am not left-handed.

It’s heartbreaking, no? And finally:

Anne Slettli // Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 10:10 am

Right.

This is quite simple, really. I work as a clerk in a very tiny bookstore specializing in fantasy/sci-fi books. Note the word “tiny”. Our coffee-machine is placed on the toilet as that’s the only free spot. Seriously.

I get all my books from my job though we seldom get pretty versions like the ones you’re so temptingly dangling in front of my nose. Especially not signed. NEVER signed.

And lets be honest, the odds of you arriving to the far north of Norway to sign books…it’s probably not very big, is it?

Did I also mention that I had to get my copy of Nights of Villjamur -used-? Yep. I did. We sold out really fast, had trouble getting more sent over, got fewer than we ordered and there was no end to the mess. My copy looks like it was chewed on by a crazed racoon and more importantly: it does not at ALL look nice when it stands side-by-side with City of Ruin.

Hopefully this heartbreaking story of a girl with an obsession for matching and pretty editions of books, who is drinking coffee made in a BATHROOM and sells your (and others, too!) books for a living will work.

I caved in on this one, because having my house redecorated, I know what it’s like to drink coffee in a bathroom.

I will be in touch with you all very soon!