Twilight, Travel, and Treats

Sorry, I couldn't think of a more creative title for this post. I'm still reeling from the fact that I inadvertently sent my parents the link to this blog.

WARNING - Any family members including parental units who choose to read beyond this point be warned. You may not want to see this or the rest of the blog so close the window and go do something else. You can see our Olympic photos on facebook instead.

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Okay, with that out of the way...

Before I get to the erotica links, I'm super happy about this Remember Me trailer where they kiss...



Okay, this week's Fanfic Friday is a bit off because I gave you a crapload of fanfic rec's this week already. I thought we'd stick to the non-twilight world of fiction this time.

The other day I ventured out of my twilight shell and went looking for Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant.

As you all well know Rob is currently filming the movie adaptation with Uma Thurman, Christina Ricci, and Kristen Scott Thomas. I also heard he really liked the book and I can't believe I'm going on an endorsement from a 23 year old guy.

He'll be the George in my head

I'm sure many of you know by now if you've tried googling Bel Ami that you sometimes you'll get stuff like this.

Not the Bel Ami I was thinking of

That's because a guy with the pseudonym Georges Duroy started an adult film company with the same name. If you click the guys you'll get the wiki page, not the actual film.

So getting back to finding the Bel Ami book, I managed to find it on ebook in English for free here at ebookread.com and put it into stanza on my iphone. It's not as well formatted as if it came from the fanfic downloader but it'll do for free. There were many versions in French but they didn't cover a lot of erotica and sex in high school French.

JJ at Twitarded put up a post a couple of days ago highlighting her favourite erotica classics. Some of these stories go back to the 1930's. I was wondering if any of these could be found on ebook.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to do anything illegal. I just figure some of these books are so old that they really are classics and like many classics may be free ebooks by now.

While doing research for this post, I also found out Playboy actually has a list of the 25 Sexiest Novels Ever Written. No joke that there are no pictures in that article, just book covers. Never thought I'd have a link on my blog to Playboy.

See, it really is just book covers

Where I have managed to find a free downloadable ebook copy I've put the site name underneath. Keep in mind that some of these are file download sites. I take no responsibility for their content eg. I haven't virus scanned them all. If you are worried at all about it regarding viruses or the legality of any of them just pay the extra buck or two to download it from a regular ebook store (see next paragraph).

Seriously, it costs less than 5 dollars for most of these files and less than 10 bucks for newer books. Some of you will definitely just want to go to the store and buy the real book if it's 10 bucks but I don't like walking out of the bookstore with my arms full of erotica.

To buy an ebook. if you use Stanza check the "Get Books" under "Fictionwise Book Store" and you'll find many books you can download directly into your ipodtouch/iphone Stanza app for a small fee. If you can't find it in Fictionwise there is a Kindle for iphone app and you can get every one of these titles from Amazon.com in kindle format for sure. I haven't reviewed it myself but some people like Stanza better.  There is also www.flipkart.com and www.ebookmall.com to buy ebooks from.

Here is the Playboy list and if you click the story name it takes you to the Playboy write up with plot and historical significance (I kid you not) and link to buy from Amazon (either book or ebook):

1) Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill) by John Cleland (1749)

http://www.memoware.com/

2) Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence (1928)

http://www.memoware.com/

3) Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934) *Twitarded pick

http://www.truly-free.org/#fS (max 5 books in 2 weeks)

4) The Story of O by Pauline Réage (1954)

http://www.memoware.com/

5) Crash by J.G. Ballard (1973)

http://www.truly-free.org/#fS (max 5 books in 2 weeks)

6) Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (1976)

http://www.truly-free.org/#fS (max 5 books in 2 weeks)

7) Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth (1969)

http://www.truly-free.org/#fS (max 5 books in 2 weeks)

8 ) The Magus by John Fowles (1965)

http://www.truly-free.org/#fS (max 5 books in 2 weeks)

9) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (1995)

http://www.truly-free.org/#fS (max 5 books in 2 weeks)

10) Endless Love by Scott Spencer (1979)

11) Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

http://www.truly-free.org/#fS (max 5 books in 2 weeks)

12) Carrie's Story by Molly Weatherfield (1995) *Twitarded pick

13) Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (1973)

http://www.truly-free.org/#fS (max 5 books in 2 weeks)

14) Peyton Place by Grace Metalious (1956)

15) Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille (1928)

16) The End of Alice by A.M. Homes (1996)

17) Vox by Nicholson Baker (1992)

18) Rapture by Susan Minot (2002)

19) Singular Pleasures by Harry Mathews (1983)

20) In the Cut by Susanna Moore (1995)

21) Brass by Helen Walsh (2004)

22) Candy by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg (1958)

23) Forever by Judy Blume (1975)

24) An American Dream by Norman Mailer (1965)

25) The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins (1961)

Pdfdatabase.com also has the following Twitarded recommendations:

Delta of Venus

Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

Phew, that is a long list. Hope this satisfies all your non-twilight smut needs for a while. Lord knows how many of us had moms or grandmas who read this stuff too. How many of you might have been conceived because of these books? Disturbing imagery but some food for thought.

This post comes from a thread on twitarded where prstlk brought up that she uses a fanfic downloader. A what?? And how do you then get it onto your mobile device? Lisa @17forever put me on a quest to find out.

What's the benefit? You can read while offline, it splits the fanfic into chapters, it actually looks nicer than reading on the computer, and it's free.

What it doesn't do? Automatically update your fanfic for you into your mobile ereader. I don't think that's been invented yet (please tell me if it has). For now, you'll have to manually update each time.

Note that when you use this method it is great for complete books and if you are willing to download each update yourself onto your iphone then it is totally worth it for the partials too.

Of note, I use Windows XP but all this would work with Vista. I have an iphone and an ipod touch and this method works on both devices. If you have a Blackberry or Palm then stay with me until you get to the Stanza part and you should use Mobipocket ereader instead.

This works with stories from www.fanfiction.net but not http://www.twilighted.net/

Last thing, I am assuming you are using a wireless network and that your ipod touch or iphone (set on Wifi) is on the same wireless network as your PC.

If you are not using a wireless network then see the Stanza FAQ here. You may need to save as a different file type as well in fanfic downloader so take a look at the FAQ first before embarking further.

Things you need to do:

part 1

This first step takes the whole fanfic story you like from www.fanfiction.net and converts it into an electronic book (in this case a Mobipocket ebook) using fanfic downloader.

1) Download and install fanfic downloader from this site Raimonds Homepage.

2) Once you have installed it, open up the application Fanfiction Downloader.

3) Before you do anything else go to the Settings at the top and pull down to Settings. I will uncheck the box that says "###" separator at beginning of each chapter. Leave this alone if you want the whole book to be one big file without individual chapters. Press Save.

Untick the box "###" separator at beginning of each chapter

4) Go to www.fanfiction.net and get the URL for the story you want to convert. I chose Master of the Universe by Snowqueens Icedragon because it's my favourite. It has now been removed from fanfiction.net so I'm glad I got it when I could.

URL in this pic http:www.fanfiction.net/s/5368782

5) In "Step 1: Source URL and ID" copy and paste the URL of the fanfic you want into the field "Story URL."  Then, click continue.

6) In "Step 2: Check download" you can change which chapters you want to download. If you want the whole book then don't change any of the numbers. Next to the "Name" there is a field where you can change what Title this book will have on your computer. I also just leave the default here.

7) Click "Save As" and change which folder you would like this file saved in. Don't worry about the "Save as Type" field and leave it as whatever it shows up as. Then, click continue.



8) In "Step 3: Configuration" choose between having chapters or having one long book. I usually like to have the book broken up into chapters.

9) Next box choose "Save as Mobipocket ebook."

Your screen should now look like this

10) Press Download and wait until you see a black screen zooming by with lots of text. When that finishes then you are done.

Your story is now a mobi file stored in whatever folder you put for "Save As."

part 2

If you have a Blackberry or Palm just go to Mobipocket eReader and follow their instructions.

If you have an ipod touch or iphone then I'll walk you through.

You need to find a way to open this mobi file and then you can read it on your PC. You use Stanza desktop to achieve that. When you have opened a book on Stanza desktop then you can share it with any ipod touch or iphone that is sharing the same wireless network.

1) Download Stanza desktop for your Microsoft Windows PC here and install.

2) Open Stanza desktop and go to File, pull down the menu to Open File. Go to the folder where you have stored the mobi file and select the file itself. Remember choose the file that has the .mobi extension.




3) It should take less than 20 seconds to load and you should be able to see the story now in Stanza Desktop. You can minimize Stanza desktop now but don't close it.

Not always tall and skinny; can change to full screen

transferring from PC desktop to ipod/touch - the tricky part

4) Now you need to transfer it to your ipod touch or iphone. You do this through the wireless network.

5) On your ipod touch or iphone download the free Stanza app.

6) Now on your PC on Stanza Desktop go to the Tools on the pull down menu and go to Enable Sharing. Make sure that there is now a checkmark next to Enable Sharing. This allows Stanza on your iphone or ipod to get any story that is open on your Stanza desktop.



Now Stanza says there are many ways of sharing your books with your mobile - ways listed here.

7) This is the step that gave me the most trouble - sharing your books from the desktop to the ipod/iphone. For this part at first I needed to turn off the firewall on my PC for a very short time. I can't let my husband find out since he is a network security specialist by trade. Please don't email me that we shouldn't turn off our firewalls - I know already...

*********long technical part***********
If you have trouble here see this Troubleshooting FAQ from Stanza.

They will suggest that if you have a firewall enabled (you can find it in the Control Panel under Windows security) make sure that it allows traffic over TCP port 9652. You do this by going to Exceptions and then "Add Port" and typing in name "Stanza" and Port "9562" and tick off the TCP box. They will also ask you to check that the program Bonjour is also ticked off (see Stanza support).




The thing that I finally fixed to get it to work with the firewall enabled was that I made it so JAVA(TM) PLATFORM SE BINARY was allowed to access the internet (it asked if I wanted to keep it blocked and I said no). I actually couldn't find a way to get that step but the computer prompted me.

If you get frustrated remember that in the end I ended up turning OFF my firewall for a few minutes. Just remember to turn it back on after you transfer your fanfic to your ipod/iphone.

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8) On your ipod/iphone click on your Stanza app. You should see this screen.


9) Still on the iphone click on the bottom middle "Get Books"

Click bottom left - Get Books

and then go to Shared at the top.

Click Share at the Top and you should see your computer listed below.

You should see your computer listed there under "Computers Sharing Books" so click on your PC name.

Surprised my netbook is named Isabella? How many of yours are too?

10) It should say "Loading" and eventually your story should show up.


11) Click on the green arrow to the right of the title and it will download the file into the Stanza app and put it in your library. When it is downloaded the green arrow changes to a grey circle.

12) Once the gray circle appears, click on the story and voila!


You should be able to flip pages and also be able to touch the screen once to get here

Bottom left Book Icon leads you to Table of Contents

and then if you click on the lower left Book Icon it should take you to this Table of Contents.

what to do about updates?

Every time there is an update you have two choices

1) This way keeps the whole thing together all the time but still with chapter markings. Before you add an update, delete the book off your ipod Stanza. Then go through all my instructions from the top again starting with copying and pasting the URL into fanfic downloader. You will have the whole book every time all as one file.

2) The second way keeps the already existing partial and new updates will appear each as a separate book from the original eg. not adding to the original partial book file. Do the exact same thing as above but in the fanfic downloader step 2 input only Chapter Number "X" for the updated chapter and also change your Save As file to a different filename otherwise you will get confused eg. Master of the Universe 2. Finish the process as above to get it on your ipod.

I am not a techie by any means so I hope this makes sense. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. I'll do my best to answer.

Phew! No letting me write technical posts again.