Not a sponsored post – just me enjoying books and birthday presents 😉
I’m an avid Elizabeth Chadwick fan; I don’t think I have yet read one that didn’t feel completely satisfying from start to finish – and she’s got a fair old number of them (and I’ve read them all) so that’s a reasonable achievement. She covers a part of history that was immortalised in my A Level history lesson on the very first morning. “The time up until the Wars of the Roses was thrilling ,exciting and interesting. We’re going to begin just after that, at the Tudors.” 🙄 Well done Mrs Armstrong. Killed it stone dead 😆 Chadwick’s books range from the time of the Norman Conquest up to and beyond the reign of King John (now THERE is a Bad King if ever I saw one!) and really add some fire and colour to a time that otherwise gets too ignored in my opinion.
Book #2 of the year is The Leopard Unleashed
Book #3 is To Defy a King
With the emphasis being on the role of women in the major houses and how they were both vital for marriage and domestic running of castles but also almost helplessly buffeted by the forces of politics, it’s a book well worth reading. It’ll be a little while before they get handed on to Fran as they have some mild sex scenes which I don’t think she’d cope with yet but as living history, i really think both books are well worth a read.
Which leads me on to what I think of my Kindle
Now obviously I expected to like it, or I wouldn’t have asked for one, but I’ve been really surprised by HOW MUCH I like it. I honestly, HONESTLY, can’t find a single thing about it that I don’t love. The most annoying thing about Amazon, really, is they never ever get it wrong 😆
The reading is perfect, just exactly like reading a book that magically turned into a glorified etch-a-sketch. The usability is effortless, certainly no damn harder than reading and holding a book. The 3G is quick, the Kindle shop is slick and easy to use. The buttons all make sense and the browser they have added is remarkably decent for something experimental. The feel is light and pleasant, the ability to change text size and font, line spacing and more is perfect for reading in different circumstances. The text to speech is quirky but would have uses, adding Audible to it is seamless and helpful. The ability to sort and organise is clever and makes sense.
And you will just keep looking at it and going “It’s just so… so… oooooh…. so weird but so… wow. I want one.”
I have nothing bad to say about it. Nothing at all. It’s beautiful and I love it. And I can read and knit. (Did I mention that already? 😉 ) I don’t even mind if it replaces books 😆
Max got me a Kindle Lighted Leather Cover too – it makes it a bit more book-like, which I like, and has a light, so you can read in bed – and that works very well. Very clever.
As an extra, one thing you can do is subscribe to blogs on it, for a fee. Now, I can’t see why anyone would do this (it’s about the only ‘eh?’ moment about Kindle I have had, but just for fun I added PoP to it, mainly as it made the girls laugh to see us for sale. If anyone fancied reviewing us, we’d really like it 🙂
Ohhhhh thank you for all that info!! I’ve been pondering getting a kindle for a while but I just wasn’t sure if it was worth it.
I have really enjoyed having the kindle app on my macbook as i found one handed i cannot read a regular printed book, but the laptop solution is perfect as stable next to me and the screen angled perfectly. I have also synched the iphone and like reading on that too but laptop easier. M now has the kindle on iphone and reading from that on commutes. Separate kindle machines would be a nice to have but difficult to justify for me, for M I could see the bigger kindle machine screen could be better on trains, but again a difficult to justify additional expense (and “extra” to lose). If we won one I reckon we’d use it quite a lot.
Have sort of concluded that as the books are cheaper (if only slightly) and take up space, it only takes buying 50 novels to justify having it. I can easily do that in a year, if not considerably less when not constrained by finances 😆 And it is SO lovely – and encouraging me to read classics, the mostly free ones, was a big motivating factor. The added knitting bonus just makes it all the more wonderful 😀
I’ve got my phone synced to it too – I do have ibooks on there and the one downside is I can’t put the one book I have on that back on to the Kindle – it would be good if they came to an agreement about that – but I like page turning on the iphone less; with the kindle it feels much nicer.
Can also see (grits teeth) that the Kindle would be brilliant if I ever find myself breastfeeding again.
Thanks for a very useful review of the Kindle and a nudgely reminder about Elizabeth Chadwick. Wonder if Mrs Armstrong walked out of that classroom kicking herself for that introduction to the Tudors!
Am going to try Kindle on my HTC phone and consider buying a Kindle – for the first time ever I will feel able to get rid of books and free up space, in fact a charity bag thing came through the door today that includes books, so I think I might actually get rid of some this week.
Everyone I know who has a Kindle loves it very much.
Ali, I sincerely bloody hope so! (To the Mrs Armstrong bit!)
I have a kindle app on my phone and I agree – I found myself liking it more than I thought I would. And ditto about space saving – could do with that. One question though – how is it on the eyes – mine hurt terribly after a while but wondered if that was the size of the screen or reading from a device that got me….
If I read from my iphone in bed, my eyes hurt and it frazzles my brain. It’s been responsible for too many bouts of insomnia I think. I can play games on a dark background okay but not read on white.
The Kindle is very different – it is grey and not backlit so it needs light – the light in the case is bright and white but shines on it very differently and the screen is not glaring at you.
When I read on its own I set everything (text size/font/line spacing) to as small as possible. In dim light without the light on or if I’m knitting, I up the text size quite a bit so I don’t lose my place or read the same bit over and over.
If you download Calibre on to your computer you will be able to convert the ibook ebook into Kindle format 🙂
Oh Claire, you are a clever lady, you are 😀
I enjoyed this post as a fellow medieval history and Elizabeth Chadwick fan, Merry. I’m reading the Greatest Knight at the moment, so you’ve made my day letting me know there are not one but two more books on the delectable William Marshall and his family. 🙂
I had a chat with my neighbour recently, who had a Kindle for Christmas, and I’m hoping to have a bit of a play with it (that’s the Kindle, not the neighbour!!). I’m such a book lover, I’d really really have to be convinced that it would be better than holding a new book, turning it over to read the blurb and flicking through the pages. I just love books; love the feel and smell of them, and so wonder how I’d adapt from the joy of holding a book and turning the pages to reading from a machine, albeit an amazing one.
I completely understand the space problem – DH is currently building the seventh bookcase here, which I know will be filled far too quickly!
I read at any given opportunity, which isn’t quite as often as pre-children days, but my book even comes along for my soak in the bath and I’d be worried to death to take the Kindle into the bathroom, lol.
Glad that you’re enjoying the Kindle and am enamoured as I with medieval history….though shame on your history teacher!! Mind you, my A-level history was Victorian politics and the European dictatorships, so I think you did alright with the Tudors!! 😉
Happy reading! 🙂
Emma, Tudors were unbelievably dull at A Level – they achieved the entire course without actually spending any time talking about wives – no sex please, we’re Loughburians!
I adore books too and I’m really surprised by liking the Kindle so much. I’m determined to try out new authors from the library and use my Kindle in a specific way but I’m totally taken aback by the pleasure of reading it.
If you go to Amazon’s kindle ebook store and sort by “lowest price first” you find a pile of free books – some are poorly formatted (the Edward Lear I found was awful) but most are fine. Or try http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page – pages and pages of free books. Download the .mobi format and then, while your kindle is connected to the pc/mac via the usb, drop the files into the doc folder on the kindle.
I have over 40 books on mine and haven’t paid for a single one yet!
Some were gifts, some were giveaways, and admittedly, 4 are my own, but lots of freebies to be had if you look.
I’ve been perusing the “free and paid bestsellers” and picking out either free classics or ones doing a temporary free giveaway and just getting them ‘in case’ – I did download about 8 of the £1 12 days of Xmas ones too – I figured I couldn’t really go wrong.
I do love mine but I read mainly non fiction on it and tables, charts etc become unreadable. Also lots of bullets etc tend to drop their formatting. I’m thinking I am need to rethink how I use it, as def not fit for that purpose. Love the new look 🙂
Deifintely pleasure not business I think. I am going to email myself F and M’s novels though 🙂
If you have the novels in a word doc – get yourself MobiPocket creator (it’s free) and you can convert any word file into a kindle file and put it on yourself. Handy for nano…
Oh, I LOVE that idea – thanks – the girls will think that is great 😀
Are your books for sale through Kindle then? How did you go about that?
They certainly are Merry!
(drop me an email and I’ll gift you one – The Map and The Stone should be ok for you and the girls too, unless you’d prefer one of the others?)
It’s easy enough to do, if a little fiddly, and see my other site for a hint of news on that front.