Tuesday, December 29, 2009

I love my Kindle

No seriously I do. Even though when people ask me if they should get one I often waffle about it and kind of say no. I love my Kindle, but I should never have bought one for myself (which worked out well because wonderful, darling fiancee bought it for me for my birthday). I say that simply because it is a great thing if you have a LOT of disposable income OR you read super slow OR you have a lot of PDF's and Word documents that you intend to read on your kindle (because you can load those yourself or send them at a cost of 15 cents each.

I mean seriously, I can get myself in a bad financial way at a bookstore. Imagine carrying a bookstore around with you? That is what the Kindle is, pretty much as much as it is a book reader, if not more. Plus if you have an iphone or an itouch, you can get the Kindle app on that and do a serviceable job of reading on the go. Now I would say that I prefer the Kindle to the app because after an hour of reading the backlit screen of the app device can cause some eye strain and I don't ever notice eyestrain on the Kindle. Also, I can get The New Yorker on my Kindle which you can't get on the app(actually on the app you can't get anything that isn't a book purchased from Amazon).

However, having the Kindle is a great glorious thing. I am currently reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol (yeah dudes, I know, but I like the fast paced breathlessness and smartipantsing of his books even if I find some of it kind of dumb, it is always a good ride and DaVinci Code was his worst book), so this morning I got on the bus and opened the Kindle case and fired up the Kindle. I backed out of The New Yorker page I was on to the main menu, and there was my Dan Brown book BUT even better there was the latest Jasper Fforde novel that I had preordered back in like September or something. It just magically appeared like Manna in the Heavens. Of course I will finish Dan Brown (one of those things you cannot help but finish), but Shades of Grey is up next.

And unless you are Sally, I would recommend Jasper Fforde's books (Sally tried some already and didn't like 'em), but they are literary and silly and crazy and mysteries and like spy detective novels but in the fiction world. They are hard to explain, but great fun and like a Harry Potterish world totally for adults (without actually being like naughty, more just over kids heads).

2 comments:

Sally said...

Two thoughts.

1) On an episode of QI I watched last night, Stephen Fry referred to the DaVinci Code as "arse gravy," which has become one of my new favorite terms.

2) I find Fforde's writing style grating and simplistic. Not sure why, it's just something about his written voice.

I have some Book Books to lend you when you're looking for new reads, however. A lovely British writer named Barbara Pym. I'm pretty sure her stuff isn't available on Kindle.

Macaela said...

The Lost Symbol is Dan Brown's worst book by far. I won't spoil it for you though. I love Jasper Fforde as well, and have ordered a copy of Shades of Grey from the library. A book book not a Kindle - I'm kind of old fashioned that way.