My birthday present is getting a real workout. Husband bought me a third generation, wi-fi enabled Kindle e-reader, and I just love it. I have already churned through eight books since my birthday in mid July. Now, I'm already a heavy reader, but this is exceptional, I think, even for me!
I was worried about the screen on the Kindle; I can get eyestrain looking at the computer screen for long periods of time and hoped that the e-reader had one that was easy to look at. I shouldn't have worried. It's like looking at a page in a book. The fonts are clear and the display doesn't glare. You can easily adjust the size of the fonts so I don't have to use my reading glasses. And, reading is less tiring when the text is displayed in a narrower column like on the screen. It's wonderful, really.
And I'm pretty happy so far with the availability of books. I have run into several authors that are not in Kindle format, but there are a good number of public domain books that are, and of course a lot of new books come out in Kindle versions when they're published. I wish the new books were a bit cheaper; there is so little cost in making them into the Kindle format they should sell for substantially less than the paper version and they don't. The newly published books are running about $10 or a little less each. I need to watch out that I don't overspend.
But I love digging up old free books. I've downloaded Trollope, Jerome K, Jerome, E. F. Benson, E. M. Delafield, Conan Doyle, and Frances Hodgson Burnett, among others. I just wish that the novels of Angela Thirkell, Barbara Pym and more by Delafield were available. ( In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of an Anglophile, at least in my reading.)
The recent newly published books I've read are a history of the British involvement in the Civil War, an account of the lives of Ambassador Dodd and his family in pre-war Nazi Germany (his daughter was a real handful) and a fascinating study of the generation just now hitting the age of employment call "Generation Me"; it's interesting to read a psychologist's take on these kids and compare it with my experiences with the new college grads at work before I retired. I also got a completely indexed and searchable Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which is very handy.
And not to mention getting my weekly New Yorker magazine in a format that won't clutter up the den. I'm in reader's heaven.
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You should subscribe to these 2 blogs:
Free Kindle Books and Tips and Books on the Knob You can pick up some pretty decent books for free from these two blogs.
I enjoy my Kindle too but I do spend too much on books now (whereas before I couldn't get English books at all. I'm grateful for the new blessings!) It is a little discouraging to buy a $10 Kindle book and then find the same book for 50 cents at the second-hand shop. (Which happened while I was visiting the States.) I will look Paula's recommendations!
I'm beginning to feel the weight of an inexorable slide towards the Kindle. Everyone I know who has one is so enthusiastic, and your post has confirmed this.
Barbara Pym is one of my favourite writers too! And I love EM Delafield with a passion - my copy of the Diary of a Provincial Lady is very "loved" ie. battered, crumpled and well read. Have you read "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day"? I think you would probably love it.
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