Penelope, a Madcap Regency Romance, by Anya Wylde
When I downloaded this book, it was temporarily available for free. It’s not that expensive even now. And it’s hilarious.
At the beginning of the book, Penelope comes to London to stay with a dowager duchess, her excentric father, her only a little less excentric (but extremely handsome) son and fun-loving daughter. Penelope lost her mother at birth and was raised, reluctantly by a mean stepmother. When she arrives she has her maid and her faithful pet goat in tow. The dowager duchess, who was a close friend of Penelope’s late mother, has promised to look after her friend’s daughter but feels she’s neglected this duty and invites Penelope to stay for her first season (of balls and dinner parties).
It’s not going to be as easy as it sounds, because Penelope is the most awkward and accident-prone girl in England. The duchess has to ask the help of the mysterious Madame, who has hllarious secrets to hide, and an endless knowledge of how to catch a husband.
I won’t say much about the plot because it’s nearly all just a lot of fun. This is probably the funniest book I’ve read since the Stephanie Plum ‘mysteries’ by Janet Evanovich. I can recommend both Penelope and Stephanie Plum to everyone who needs a good laugh (or two, or three…).
Fatal Boarding and Deep Crossing, by E R Mason
Ever since I discovered ebooks I’ve been searching for freebies to download and read, first on my iPod Touch, then later on my Kindle and my Cybook Odyssey. Most of those freebies have been – to put it charitably – ok for a freebie, some even exceptionally bad.
Fortunately, I have also come across a few really good ones.
Two books by an author named E R Mason belong to the latter category. I’m amazed that this writer is giving away his books for free.
I grew up reading the classics among fantasy, sf and horror. I never took to horror stories (except for some ghost stories) and though I enjoyed the classics, I never really liked modern sf until a few years or so ago when I discovered To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (a time travel novel). And suddenly I was enjoying science fiction again. A little later I came across a Swedish book called Alba about a young woman who is among a group of people exploring a distant planet. It seemed I was on to something. Not that I stopped reading fantasy, mysteries and the other genres of books I enjoy, but it was unusual for me.
And I now I’m getting to E R Mason’s two novels Fatal Boarding and Deep Crossing. There are some aspects of the books I don’t like so much, but in general I love both books. Though I normally prefer mystery to suspense, these books have both and they’re very well written (except for needing a bit of editing). I’m amazed that these two books are available for free. I’d happily have paid to read both of them and now I’m going to read the other books by the same author.
The first book is set aboard a space ship where the main character Adrian Tarn is chief of security. Not long into the journey the ship runs across a wreckage drifting dead in space (thank you, Star Trek, for that phrase). It’s decided that a team will investigate. That’s their first mistake…
I could describe this book as a thriller set in space (and in the future) but in any case I think my dad, the major sf fan, would have enjoyed it.
The second book is also about Adrian Tarn, this time on an expedition to a very distant star system. There’s some suspense in this book too, but mainly it’s fascinating. I had no idea where the book was heading at the beginning.
I can really recommend these two books, to anyone who enjoys science fiction or thrillers.
Death of a Serpent by Susan Russo Anderson (A Serafina Florio Mystery)
I have just finished reading this fascinating historic mystery. It’s set in 1860’s Sicily, a (more or less) new time and place for me. Other than from my studies of history, I haven’t read anything from this era.
What I really like about this book, apart from the very interesting plot, is that I like most of the main characters. Lately, I’ve been disappointed in so many books, because even the ‘good guys’ are such extremely unsympathetic characters. It’s hard to really get into the plot of a book, if you hate everyone in it. With this book I didn’t have that problem.
I was a little surprised to find that most of the plot takes place in a brothel! But strangely enough you ended up sympathizing with many of the people there, and not just pitying the ‘girls’.
The ‘sleuth’ is a recently widowed midwife with seven children (one of them has run away from home and another has gone off to university). The madam of the brothel is Serafina’s best friend, and that’s why she agrees to look into the gruesome murders taking place on the very doorstep of the brothel. Someone seems to have it in for Rosa, the madam, or is there another motive behind the killings?
One of the few things that bothered me about this well-written book is the fact that almost no one questions Serafina when she suddenly becomes a private investigator. Only two of her sons even comment on the fact!
Another thing that I’ve been wondering about is that everything is so modern. Serafina has studied at the university. She and her friend and some of the children go on idyllic little outings by train. Everyone seems very up to date about things happening in America, though in all fairness many people are emigrating and many others probably have relatives living there who keep in touch regularly. Maybe that part isn’t too surprising. But really, even if the setting is a bit too ‘modern’ I don’t care. This was such a wonderful reading experience I won’t question all the details. The author must have done her research, quite probably she knows more about the time and place than I do anyway.
I can definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes historic mysteries.
Hespira by Matthew Hughes
I have just finished Matthew Hughes’ novel Hespira. Like in the first two books in the series, the story is about future private investigator, Henghis Hapthorn. He’s a bit full of himself but rather funny. There are plenty of wonderfully weird and fascinating details, such as the fact that Hapthorn’s intuition has moved out and now lives in a separate body and the equivalent of a personal computer is turned into a cute little creature called a grinnet, who’s like a mix of cat and monkey.
The story is set in Earth’s ‘penultimate’ age – a bit like in Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, and is scientifically based but is changing into an era of sympathetic association, meaning magic. Hapthorn isn’t looking forward to that, without his intuition.
In this book, Hapthorn accepts a seemingly simple case, but it leads to unexpected complications that force Hapthorn to leave ‘Old Earth’ for a while. At the same time he meets a mysterious woman who’s lost her memory. He takes her along on his trip. While travelling, Hapthorn and Hespira run into more mystery.
The two earlier books didn’t work completely for me, though I loved some of the ideas. This book feels a lot better though I have a feeling there was nothing actually wrong with the other two, it’s just that I prefer the plot in this one. On the other hand I’m looking forward to re-reading the other books. Maybe I’ll feel differently about them now. There’s also a collection of stories about Hapthorn that I have bought and downloaded. Unfortunately, for me, just a week or so later, the book was available for free, in fact, it might be still.
The series about Henghis Hapthorn are science fiction books that are a little different to what I’m used to, but I can recommend them to anyone who likes science fiction, mystery and fantasy. I wish there were more books in the series about Hengis Hapthorn. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Hughes will write another one.
This book wasn’t available as a paperback which would have been my first choice. It wasn’t even available in hardcover, except at a ridiculous price (from about 90 dollars?). At first I had no idea why, but after a digital conversation with the author, I now know why and unfortunately, it’s inevitable. It’s a shame though, since I have both the other books in the series in paperback.
Amazon buying Goodreads…
i just found out that Amazon has bought Goodreads and now I’m a little concerned. Don’t get me wrong – I like Amazon. We rent dvd:s from a film rental club they own (Lovefilm) and we buy books and dvd:s from them all the time (sometimes other stuff as well). All the same, I find myself a little doubtful about this acquisition.
So I started looking around for alternatives. I don’t use Librarything much anymore. You can only add 200 books and it seems I’ve hit the limit there. Shelfari already belongs to Amazon and that hasn’t done the site much good. What I dislike the most is that they keep trying to make me log on using my Amazon ID (I don’t have one of my own, my family and I share one).
After a couple of tries, I found several, but a few of them don’t seem to be working properly and I’ll withhold my judgment on them. Another seems really good, a lot like Librarything, only better, but I still don’t fully understand how to use it, so I’ll leave that out as well. That leaves The Reading Room. So far that seems to work great (especially importing my bookshelves from Goodreads). Actually, it seems to be very much like Goodreads, so I feel right at home.
Before I go any further, I have a confession to make – I’m not quite as diligent at posting reviews on Goodreads or Librarything as I used to. I rate the books I’ve finished and I always check online first before I buy a book, but I suppose I like to save my reviews for my own homepage/blog. Which leads me to the second really great alternative to Goodreads: Booklikes.
At first I was a bit surprised and overwhelmed when I realized that not only was it a book review site, you get your own book blog when you sign up. Now, though, I’ve decided to just see how it goes. There were only three blog themes to choose between, but I’m not sure how much I’ll post anyway, so I’m fine just getting to know the site, for now. I think I’ve imported my Goodreads books, but so far nothing shows up, so I don’t know what’s happening. Maybe it just takes time.
Anyway, I think I know enough by now to recommend both sites to book lovers looking for alternatives to Goodreads.
Finally, I’ll just mention the few Swedish book communities I’ve found. They’re not anything like the international ones, just very basic sites. That’s rather disappointing, because I try to balance my book collecting so that I buy/borrow/read almost as many titles in Swedish as in English. When it comes to French, I’m just grateful there are some titles I can get.
Letto (Bookeen Cybook Odyssey) review
Since it was on sale – at a very good price – I decided the time had come to get the ‘Letto’ or Bookeen Cybook Odyssey as the original device is called. For a while now, I’d been wanting an ereader that could display library ebooks.
The other day, the ereader arrived, in the mailbox outside. I’d been told I’d have to go and pick it up at a store in town, but apparently, it fitted into our mailbox and that was of course very convenient.
Expectantly, I unpacked it. It was actually in a nice looking box resembling a ‘physical’ book. An adapter for a wall outlet was included, which was – again – convenient. I wasn’t sure what I’d have to order extra. As it turns out, not a lot. Just some kind of cover and some vinyl screen protectors, just in case. I’ll get to that later.
It’s great to finally be able to read on something decent-sized. IOS devices are great – for talking, chatting and listening to music – but not so good for reading longer texts.
Unfortunately, here’s where I’m forced to get to the negative.
First of all, I have to say that I bought this ereader to read library books, and nothing else. I can’t stress that point enough. As it turns out, it’s extremely complicated to transfer the books to the right file on the device. In the end, I couldn’t manage it and I had to ask my tech savvy sister for help. Eventually, she managed to find out hot to do it, by trial and error.
I have read reviews that warned about this problem, but the thing is, I didn’t have much of a choice. It was basically either get the Letto or keep reading library books on the iPod Touch. So when the price dropped down about 50 US dollars, I felt I had to get it. The alternative would be to try and order a Kobo Touch imported from Germany, which would probably mean an older model, and not in the color I wanted, or get an iPad MIni, which I can’t afford at the moment, and probably never will. The fact is that a Kindle AND a Letto PLUS covers and screen protectors are still a bit less expensive than one iPad Mini WITHOUT a cover and screen protector! So I was still getting a bargain.
I just feel sorry for the people who can’t get help transferring their books to their devices. On the other hand, maybe those people aren’t getting theirs exclusively to read library books? Apparently, if you want to buy books from the bookstore that sells the Letto, it’s really easy to transfer the files. They pretty much transfer themselves, or so I’ve been told.
Another con is that while the original Cybook Odyssey comes with several free books, in more than one language, including dictionaries, if I’m not mistaken, the ‘Letto’ comes with one or two Swedish classics and a few modern ‘freebies’ (not any that I will want to read) and no dictionary, but a manual, that unfortunately didn’t help much. The stuff it dealt with was easy to figure out on my own.
To be fair, part of the trouble I had was getting my Adobe ID to work, but it’s still very complicated to download Adobe Digital Editions, then authorize both the device and the computer (just to remember the password is hard – we’d had this problem before with Adobe and apparently our way of solving that was to get a new ID…) Maybe it will get easier once I’m used to the Letto.
Anyway, now that I have the Letto and I’ve been able to transfer the book, I’m not too unhappy with it, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who wants to read library books on it (unless they’re as tech savvy as my sister).
Bottom line:
Pros:
Low price (at the moment anyway – but still quite a good price at any time)
Cute box
Cute ereader with a back that is nice to the touch
Easy to read fonts
Power adapter included
Device entirely adapted for Swedish conditions
Cons:
Difficult to transfer files (other than the books from the bookstore that sells it).
I had trouble with the touch screen and had to resort to using the physical buttons on the side to turn the pages.
Hard to get nice covers: you only have one type to choose between, in a range of not so dazzling colors. Of course, if you check out the measurements, you can always take a chance and buy a cover meant for another, slightly bigger, device.
Oops, it turns out I’m quite partial to the Letto, after all. 🙂 Oh, well, draw your own conclusions. If you live in Sweden, this is still a rather good choice. If you live in France (Belgium, Switzerland etc), the Cybook Odyssey might still be a good option, but you’ll have to decide that for yourself. As for others, maybe you should consider some other device.
Update:
I just thought I’d post a quick (and brief) update about the Letto’s screen in comparison with that of the Kindle Touch.
Kindle Touch:
The touch screen is quicker to respond. It looks a little different from the Letto’s too. I can’t say exactly how.
Letto:
This touch screen is slower and it’s a bit harder to turn the pages. On the side there are two pysical buttons that I’m not used to yet, and I keep pressing them and the pages turn quickly forwards or backwards. The text looks even more, if that is possible, like a regular printed page.
Les revenants, French tv series
Recently, I finished watching a really good French tv series. Swedish television had taken the rather unusual decision of airing it only online, perhaps as a sort of trial to see how popular it would get. I thought it was great. No more keeping track of time, just watching whenever I liked.
The series is about a town where strange things happen. It lies idyllically in the mountains, somewhere in France. Perhaps a French viewer can be more specific about which region it is, or perhaps it’s been left intentionally vague. I’ve seen other series like that.
The first episode begins with a teenage girl wandering around rather dazed in the countryside. She is seen climbing up from a slope, onto a road. She has no memory of how she ended up there. Her last memories are of being on a school trip, on a bus.
She makes her way home and meets her mother inside, telling her she understands if she’s been worried, but something’s happened and she doesn’t remember what. Her mother manages to keep her calm, and embraces her daughter, but we soon learn that the girl, Camille, has been dead for four years, following a tragic accident while on a school trip. Despite that, she seems exactly as she was four years earlier.
Camille only learns about that when her twin sister (!), Léna arrives home, rather late. Léna has a hysterical outburst and Camille is upset too. The family can think of no explanation for Camille’s return.
I won’t go into all the main characters, but Camille is probably ‘the’ main character so I thought I’d describe her more in depth. Léna has had a really hard time dealing with losing her sister and has rebelled against her parents, but she finds it even harder to accept her sister’s return. The two sisters have a falling out.
In later episodes we learn more about the two sisters and also about a number of other characters, some who have returned from the dead, among them a sinister little boy, a good looking young guy, who played in a band, but who, we are told, killed himself on the night before his wedding and a serial killer.
Some of the returned have no families to return to, having died ten, or even, in one case, thirty-five years earlier.
I’ll just end by saying a few words about the name of the series. In French it’s called Les revenants (“the returning”) and in Swedish it’s been given a name that is one of our words for ghosts (literally meaning ‘those who walk again’, or ‘someone who walks again’). I think that’s a bit of a misnomer, in a way. These people are not like traditional ghosts, though somehow, they seem to be able to get around in mysterious ways. However, we never get to see them going through a wall, or anything like that. You never get the impression they are not flesh and blood. They can eat (to begin with, they’re quite hungry), fight, have sex, but have a difficult time sleeping, though some are able to, as time goes by.
If you get a chance to see this series, I can really recommend it. It’s fascinating, creepy but not too terrifying (if it had been, I wouldn’t have been able to watch it). The tension builds slowly with little details adding to the feeling of dread.
Edit: Here is a link to a gallery with images of the main characters. Just click the image to see the next.
Free legal downloads of books
Recently I read a post on Tumblr where someone listed links where you could download free books. Some of those books were modern or at least still copyrighted books. As far as I know copyrighted books aren’t available for free downloads.
Now I’m not familiar with the copyright laws in all countries throughout the world, but I do know that old books – in many cases, for instance in the USA, books published before 1923. In Scandinavia (Sweden) where I live, the copyright expires when the author has been dead for at least 70 years.
You can get modern books when the author chooses to allow people to download them for free. It might be the first book or some other older book, or the first book in a series. Many authors also allow free downloads of novellas and short stories, perhaps hoping to sell more of their full length work.
Another way to read ‘free’ books legally is to borrow e-books from the library (or for that matter, printed books too).
As far as I understand, it doesn’t matter if you’ve bought a title as a printed book. You still need to pay for the e-book if you want one. That is, unless it was a special deal where you buy a title as a printed book and an e-book.
Amazon is a very good source for free modern books. Some may have a sort of ‘message’ – I’ve read that sometimes authors try to promote their religion by writing free books. But like I described above, you can also get one book in a series or shorter fiction by a novel writer who is hoping to sell more novels. Don’t forget, if you live in the US and many other parts of the world you have to go to amazon.com, not for instance amazon.co.uk, unless of course you live in the UK.
The library is another great source for free books.
Here is a list of links to free (legal) download sites:
https://www.bookeenstore.com/fr/free
http://www.kobobooks.com/free_ebooks
http://manybooks.net/
http://www.baen.com/library/
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/
http://www.freesfonline.de/Authors.html
http://runeberg.org/
http://litteraturbanken.se/#!start
http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/fiction/
http://www.sacred-texts.com/ring/two/
http://www.sacred-texts.com/ring/index.htm
http://www.readprint.com/
http://e-library.net/Fantasy.htm
http://www.getfreeebooks.com/?tag=fantasy
http://worldebookfair.org/
http://en.childrenslibrary.org/index.shtml
http://www.smashwords.com/
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?bbn=1286228011&qid=1354222865&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133143011%2Cn%3A!251259011%2Cn%3A1286228011%2Cn%3A157028011&sort=price
http://bookboon.com/se
http://blakatt.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=36&Itemid=53
http://www.bookyards.com/index.html
http://archiveofourown.org/
http://umrion.net/archives/
Many of these are in English, but you can also find books in Swedish, French and other languages. The last two are fan fiction sites.
Female role models in tv, movies and books
I recently read an article about positive female role models in movies. In general, there is a lack of good female role models so I think the short list in the article is a good starting point in changing that. I began to wonder which female characters I would deem positive and came up with this list (some of which were in the original article):
Ellen Ripley/Sigourney Weaver, the Alien movies (especially the first and second)
I read that Ripley was originally meant to be a male character, which figures. What man would write a female character like Ripley? Or anyone? Which is too bad, because I think that any woman who was physically capable would have done exactly the same things Ripley did. All she did was save her own life and those her adopted kid/s and try to pay a corrupt corporation back for killing her crewmates and setting them all up to bring back a lethal weapon in the form of an ‘exo lifeform’.
Erin Brockovich/Julia Roberts in the movie by the same name
Erin Brockovich is an unedcuated rather simple woman who stumbles across corruption and finds that she wants to do something about and then does exactly that. Simple enough, but at least when I watched the movie, I was impressed with her development from someone who just wanted to make a living to someone with a conscience. Normally, I don’t like Julia Roberts, so I was surprised to find that I liked this movie and the main character.
Olive Hoover/Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Olive is anything but a cliche. You might say that her grandfather is not really the kind of person who should have been helping her create her act for the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, and you’d think someone would have thought of that before the actual pageant, but I guess then there wouldn’t have been much of a movie. In any case, Olive is an amazing kid and several other characters in the movie are quite unusual and interesting too.
Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey
Catherine is adventurous, imaginative and though I understand she’s supposed to be a parody of the typical heroine of a ‘gothic’ novel, I really like her. She’s fun and human and flawed, but in general, just nice and you find yourself rooting for her throughout the novel.
Anne Elliot, Persuasion
Anne is also quite different from the other Jane Austen heroines, which is probably why she and Catherine are my two favorite characters from Jane Austen’s books. Poor Anne has been rather too obedient to her family and that has left her in the unenviable situation of being unmarried at the old age of 26. She spends her life trying to help her family and keeping them from bankruptcy. Then when she gets a second chance at life, she’s strong enough to go against her snobbish family and do what she wants for a change.
Beatrice Eliott/Stella Gonet, The House of Eliott
In the first episode of the House of Elliot, Beatrice and her sister Evangeline are basically slaves to their selfish father, but when he dies – which he does during the first five minutes or so of the first episode – Beatrice is the one who quickly finds a way for the sisters to support themselves, doing something they’re both good at and enjoy doing. Beatrice is fun, tough and the sort of person you really root for, except when she’s mean to Jack.
Trudy Joplin/Olivia Brown, Miami Vice
Trudy is the most fun member of the Miami Vice team. Crockett and Tubbs may be sizzling hot, but Trudy is fun, tough and cool. I love her outfits (when she’s not playing prostitute in sting operations).
The rest of my list:
Constance Peterson, Spellbound
Alicia Huberman, Notorious
Tracy Turnblad, Hairspray
Jane Eyre, in the movie by the same name.
Alice, Alice in Wonderland
Miss Froy, Alice Henderson, The Lady Vanishes
Eowyn, LOTR
Stephanie Plum, Lula, Grandma Mazur/mormor Mazur, One for the Money
Veronica Mars, Cindy “Mac” McKenzie, Veronica Mars
From Downton Abbey:
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham
Lady Sybil Crawley
Lucy Pevensie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe + Prince Caspian + Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Morgan, Cutthroat Island
Janet, Charmed Lives, Diana Wynne Jones
Tea with Mussolini: Most of the female characters.
As you can see this is a mix of characters from movies, tv series and books. They’re in no particular order, chronological or otherwise. I just put them in as I thought of them. Some are from the early 19th century, others from this year or last year and the rest from anything in between. Considering how long a period of time this is (nearly two hundred years) you could say that it’s a pitifully short list, but of course I’ve probably overlooked several great characters that I might have come up with if I’d taken more time to consider. Also, it’s just characters from the English-speaking world. Anyway, for what it’s worth, this is my list. Do you have one too?
Kindle Touch review
A year or so ago, my sister and I were able to get our hands on a Kindle (gen 3). We posted a review of it, on our sites. Now I’m in a position to compare the Kindle 3 to Kindle Touch (and also iPod Touch/iPhone and iPad 2).
Kindle Touch iPod Touch
 
Excuse the poor quality of the first photo. I really should learn to do it a little better (or get a real camera).
First of all, I’d like to say, though I hesitate to even make the comparison, for reasons I’ll get into later, that I very much prefer to read a printed book. That goes without saying. Or – I suppose I should say that if someone forced me to choose, I’d always go for the printed books. Fortunately, that’s not how it is. I can, and will read both and enjoy both types of book, if not exactly equally, then quite close enough.
I should also mention that I’ve decided, at least for the moment, never to pay for an e-book, unless the online bookstores should start to offer package deals. If so, I’d gladly pay a little more to get the same title in both formats.
Now back to the Kindle. When I tried the Kindle 3, I found it easy to use and pleasant to read from, though, in all fairness I’ve never really had any problem reading from a computer screen or smart phone display either.
When I found myself able to get a Kindle myself, only the Kindle 3G Keyboard and Kindle (4) were available. Strangely enough, only a day or so after I began to consider buying my e-reader I found that the Kindle Touch was now on offer as well.
So I ordered mine and waited. Kindle 3 arrived after barely two days, all the way from the US. Kindle Touch took a bit longer(about a week), but that wasn’t too bad.
Comparison
In some ways the two Kindles are more or less exactly the same, at least as far as ease of use is concerned. Of course, there were more superficial differences. Kindle Touch is a little sturdier, not as thin and I think, a bit smaller overall, than Kindle 3. That extra weight is absolutely no problem. In fact, if anything, Kindle Touch is even easier to hold in your hand. The touch interface is a little different, but other than that, it feels the same as the older Kindle.
File transfer
Dowloading books is just as easy as on the older Kindle. You just log on to your Amazon account (or find the book you want on Gutenberg or other free classics site, then click to download. If you turn the wifi on, the book will download automatically. If you’d rather not waste battery (though unless you download dozens of books every day, you’ll hardly notice the drain), or if wifi isn’t available, you can just plug your usb cable into your computer and drag and drop the file. At least that works with Gutenberg. I haven’t tried it from Amazon or any other site yet. In the past I’ve read free classics on the computer or on my iPod Touch. On the Kindle the book looks a lot better. In all honesty, a printed book looks even better, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Books
As for free books – there are plenty available. Above all, you can get thousands of free classics, mainly in English, but also in other languages – for instance, Jules Verne’s classical sf stories are available on Project Gutenberg. Sadly, I must say that the selection of Swedish books is pathetic.
There are also, again mainly in English, plenty of new books available for free on Amazon or other sites. Admittedly, many of those are of a somewhat lower quality than the ones you pay for, though not always. If you’re lucky you can find temporary offers. Books that normally cost 5 dollars or more will for a limited time cost nothing. If you keep an eye on Amazon’s site you’ll find a couple of those freebies every day.
One my complaints when it comes to the iPod Touch/iPhone is that the display is too small to comfortably read. It’s not the size of the font that bothers me, though if it does bother you, it’s easy to adjust the text size (you can do that on the Kindle as well). It’s just that you have to turn pages so many times. At a guess, I’d say at least twice as many time for books of comparable size. On the other hand, I’ve also tried the iPad 2 and that’s too big and heavy to comfortably read a book on.
I’m not big on reading news – with a few exceptions, I mostly just scan the headlines – but when I’ve tried it on IOS I’d say that the iPad is pretty much ideal. In many countries you should also be able to watch videos and movies (as well as tv) on the iPad. Of course you can also do it on the iPod Touch/iPhone, and it works up to a point, but just imagine watching more than a clip or short movie on something the size of your palm. If that’s all you have (like on a trip), then sure, you can do it, but at least I wouldn’t choose to do it for long. I have also tried reading Tintin on the iPad, and that’s almost as good as reading a printed comic book – in some ways better.
Color or not?
Unlike on the i-devices, on the Kindle Touch you don’t get color. When it comes to most fiction for grownups and older kids and many types of textbooks that’s fine, but like I said, for news sites, comic books, tv/movies, you need something in color and something a bit bigger. So I guess it depends on what you want to do with your device. If money isn’t a problem – or you’re like me who never upgrades a gadget until I have to, and will happily hold on to stuff older than five years old, if they just continue to work, you could go for two or more devices but if you’re like most people, you’ll have to decide which is more important to you – text or images. If it is text then I’d suggest the Kindle in some form.
Battery and storage space
The Kindle Touch has about the same (excellent) battery time as the older Kindles and about the same storage space. The new Kindle 4 has a lot less of both, but should still be a good deal for you if the price consideration is most important. If you hardly ever read fiction and/or you’re a student of other disciplines than art/humanities and social sciences, then you might want to consider something in color, like the iPad, Kindle Fire or one of the other tablets and e-readers available.
Of course, cheapest of all would be to read on your iPhone or other smart phone, since most people need some kind of phone. A bit off topic, but at least related: you can get a bunch of free books for your IOS device too. Just search the iBooks bookstore. In the past weeks I’ve read a number of excellent and a few not so good sf, fantasy and crime novels (and quite a few short stories/novellas). Some of those might end up on my book reviews page later on.
Library books
I’ve been told that there’s an application that converts epub books into mobi format, which means you could read library books on your Kindle. I haven’t tried that myself yet, but when/if I do, I’ll comment on it here on the blog.
In any case, if you want to read library books, an IOS device would be simpler. Here in Sweden it’s easy to download free library books to your computer, then if you have a dropbox or similar file storage app, you can open the book in some book app (I use Bluefire). Usually, there are some limitations on how many e-books you’re allowed to borrow in a given time and also a time limit for how long you get to keep the book before it disappears from your device. Here it’s three books per week (and you can keep them up to three weeks).
Audio books
I’m not that much into audio books, but the Kindle and (I think) the IOS devices can handle those too. My mother is keen on audio books, and when we’ve got her some, I’ll see if I can persuade her to share her experiences here. At least I’ll interview her and post about it later.
