What are you reading? | Page 2 | Golden Skate

What are you reading?

merrywidow

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 20, 2004
One of the best mystery/romance cozy type books I've ever read was "The Saddlemaker's Wife" by Earlene Fowler. Am currently reading : "Six Geese A-Slaying" by Donna
Andrews. It's a humorous Christmas mystery.
 

iluvtodd

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 5, 2004
Country
United-States
My next book to read will be Doug Wilson's (of ABC Sports) When the World Was Our Stage. Hopefully I'll get Push Dick's Button soon!
 

Dee4707

Ice Is Slippery - Alexie Yagudin
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Country
United-States
BTW, for users of e-readers, I've gotten good deals via Book Bub, Bargain Booksy and Pixel'o'ink

I used to read all the time but now have found little time. The other day I was having my car oil changed and wished I had brought a book. I guess I don't think to carry a paperback or book around. I used to read before I went to sleep at night but got out of the habit. I wonder if I would get back into reading more with something like a kindle that I could easily carry in a purse?? Your thoughts.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Yes, I find I read more since I got a kindle. The Kindlefire models are more sturdy-which is important if you read to fall asleep. You can also read & post on GS & do your email & Facebook.
 

Buttercup

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
I used to read all the time but now have found little time. The other day I was having my car oil changed and wished I had brought a book. I guess I don't think to carry a paperback or book around. I used to read before I went to sleep at night but got out of the habit. I wonder if I would get back into reading more with something like a kindle that I could easily carry in a purse?? Your thoughts.
I've been reading more since I got my Kindle. As you wrote, it's easy to carry around, and there are other benefits - you can get books immediately, if you're bored with one book you can switch to another, plus a lot of books are now available only electronically or are at least cheaper that way, so there are more choices and you can afford to buy more. And basic model e-readers are so inexpensive now it's worth taking a chance on, IMO.

Just to follow up on Doris's post, a Kindle Fire does not have an e-ink screen so reading on it for an extended period of time might be hard on your eyes. A dedicated e-reader, though, won't really function as a tablet, it'll be for reading only. You should look at different options and see what would fit your needs best.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
The newer modeal Kindle fires have a choice of a sepia colored screen that I use. As Buttercup says, the older version of the Kindle Fire had a brightly back lit screen that could be harder on the eyes-it's nice that there is a choice on the newer ones. The cheaper model e-reader e-ink screen is ideal for reading, and is good even in bright sunlight, but the original Kindle I had was not back lit, so I had to have the light on in the room to read it. Plus I twice fell asleep reading the original Kindle in such a way that I damaged the screen. The first time, the Kindle was under warranty, and it was replaced immediately for free, the second time it was not free, and with the cheaper price these days, that kind of damage may not be included in the warrantee at all.

My original Kindle ereader came with 3G that was free, and had an odd "experimental" option where I could read web pages, although any but the most rudimentary responses were very difficult (however, I have, when it was really necessary, managed to send a short email from the original Kindle.)

Read very carefully what options each machine has before buying, as Buttercup suggests.

At this moment I have 4 Kindles. I haven't gotten rid of the 2 oldest because they have options the newer ones don't have, and I can see the same thing happening perhaps with the newer two.

The oldest one, the ereader, has the free 3G - I use it while travelling even yet.

My oldest Kindlefire supports Adobe Flashplayer. Adobe ceased to support Android for newer model Android phones & Kindle Fires. I am apt to use this to watch Icenetwork. It connects to the web via Wifi.

My 2nd Kindlefire has a wire connection to HDMI that works perfectly with my TV. To get support for Adobe flash player based sites, I had to sideload Dolphin browser and Adobe Flash player, and when Adobe updates Flashplayer, sometimes thiskluge will stop working until I update the sideloaded programs. The machine is light weight and has good video streaming, but the onboard storage is a little on the small side. It connects to the web via WiFi. This one is "mine."

My husband had the oldest Kindlefire and wanted the bigger size of the 8.9" HDX Kindlefire, and I got it for him for Christmas this year. His favorite use of the Kindlefires is to watch TV shows & movies using a yearly Amazon Prime subscription (a huge amount of content is free). The video quality is outstanding. So is the sound quality. It has wireless connection to TV...but my TV's aren't wireless, yet. And it doesn't have the HDMI wire connection. It has 4G available as an option, but unless there is some deal available when you buy it, you have to pay AT&T a monthly contract to use it (check with AT&T first-they don't coordinate well with Amazon, and you may think a deal is available from the Amazon advertising, but it may not be). But you don't have to buy one with 4G, unless that is something you want. the 8.9" is very lightweight for its size, and has the option of a lot more onboard storage than mine. If you're having any problem with the machine, you can hit a Mayday button and start a free phone session with the Amazon help desk. They can, if you allow, take control of you machine and fix the problem while you watch.

If you get a Kindlefire, you will probably want to pay for an Amazon Prime subscription for the free video and book content, especially the video. If you aren't generally a big Amazon user, you should know that all Amazon Prime subscriptions include free 2 day shipping on everything you buy from Amazon (at least in the US). For about $4 extra, you can make that one day shipping on an item. Any item :) Before Hurricane Irene, we needed a generator. The storm was going to hit us on Friday. It was Wednesday. There wasn't a generator to be had in town. We bought one on Amazon and paid the 4 bucks for one day shipping. It arrived Thursday, worked great, and saved us from a lot of problems in the subsequent power outage on Friday. When they say anything, they mean anything :) that is offered with Prime (not by Amazon cosellers) but that is not a big limitation.

Be aware that if you are about to buy your third Kindlefire, there is a problem. Video licenses go nominally for 2 machines only, so the second you buy a third one, it messes your account up so you can't buy stuff on your 2 older machines, and can't download your purchased content from your cloud storage. It messes you up more than it should because the problem affects books as well as video. Before you buy a third one, deregister the machine you are least likely to use for video & buying books. Start a new Amazon account for it, and register it to that account.

Then buy your 3rd Kindlefire.

Then your content will be immediately available on your new machine, and everything is painless (As it was when I bought my 2nd Kindlefire).

If you don't do that, you have to do some very annoying screwing around to make your new machine work correctly, not to mention reregistering one of your other 2 machines (easy enough, once you know how). (However, with the newest one, somehow you have to get it up and running before you can deregister it, and reregister it, and go from there.) We didn't know, and finding this out was pretty painful. The Mayday button was some help, but a lot of the workers are very new and didn't know. The online help desk was more useful.

For the most part, we really like our Kindles & Kindlefires and Amazon in general.
 

Jaana

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Country
Finland
My next book will be the self-biography "The Pirouetten des Lebens" (The Pirouetten of the life) by the German pairs skater Marika Kilius. It was published in Germany in 2013 and I´m very happy to have gotten it as a present from a German friend.
 

ForeverFish

Medalist
Joined
Aug 21, 2012
I've taken a short break from contemporary things and gone back to classic literature -- Thoughts by Marcus Aurelius, Homer's stuff, Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I'm planning on starting Plato's Symposium as soon as I get it for Kindle. (I have a Kindle Fire, BTW, but I also use the app on my phone and tablet. Most of my friends have the classic Kindle, and I have to admit that I prefer it over the Fire, which is glossy and nice to look at until you're nearly blinded trying to read in the sun.) So excited!

In addition, I read Gone With the Wind for the fifty-eighth time and fell in love at first sight with Vladimir Nabokov's writing.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
On the kindlefire, if you have the older model, yes, it's bright in the sun.

If you have either of the newer models, pick View when you're reading the book, and you can pick a less bright display.

In the case of the 8.9" Kindlefire, there is an autoadjust of brightness on the screen, using its onboard camera. I hate this option, but you might like it. The varying brightness, especially at night, is very distracting to me. You can turn Autobrightness off in Settings>Display & Sounds
 

LRK

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
I myself am reading Flora Thompson's "Lark Rise to Candleford", and am enjoying it a lot. It's the one-volume version of her autobiographical trilogy "Lark Rise", "Over to Candleford" and "Candleford Green". It reads very much like a memoir, except about "Laura" and in third person. The first book is more about the community of Lark Rise, the hamlet she grew up in in the 1880s (in reality Juniper Hill), the second and third books are more about Laura herself. I've just begun "Candleford Green" with Laura's arrival as a 14 year old to begin working in the post office in the early 1890s. Highly recommended.
 
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