Cover via AmazonHoliday Reading
I'm back, refreshed from a week in Tenerife. It's the first time I've ever been on holiday and not taken a book. Instead, luggage pared down, it was my Kindle, loaded up with my intended reading.
The experience only reinforced my existing Kindle mania. Light, easy on the eye and infinitely practical.
First on my reading list was Justin Cronin's weighty modern-day vampire novel, The Passage. This didn't justify the hype, and would have benefited from being 200 pages shorter, but it was still an absorbing read. More rewarding was Joe Abercrombie's long-awaited The Heroes. In publishing terms, Abercrombie is a well-established brand: ultra-violent, blackly comic deconstructions of the fantasy genre, told through mulitple viewpoints and clearly differentiated viewpoints. Nobody does this niche better but, after five novels, I'm interested to see where he goes next.
My final reading, which I'm still working through, is Antony Beevor's immense history of Hitler's Russian campaign, Stalingrad. It's a grim and chilling account of an almost unimaginably hellish time.
5 comments:
Glad you had a good time, Tim. I can see how useful a Kindle would be on holiday. But supposing it was lost or stolen...all your holiday reading vanished at a stroke. That's the stuff of nightmares!
I admit I was worried about losing the Kindle. But I go away with only one passport, and touch wood manage not to lose that. And I take even better care of the Kindle!
Yes, I'm getting to love our kindle, too. I'm seduced by the fact that when I want a book, I can have it. Now. This could be bad news for our bank account...
One of my greatest memories of my trip to Rome way back when was burning through the two books I bought way faster than I anticipated, and roaming through the bookstore in Termini to pick out a handful of Michael Crichton novels, printing in English with with their Italian covers. It was a little treasure hunt, and so sensory. Getting there and downloading a few new eBooks just wouldn't be the same.
Nothing against eBooks.
I'm just trying to hang on to one nostalgic thing. lol
You got me, and I got a Kindle. Marvellous, for all the reasons you gave. As a novice user, I still find it easier to randomly access a physical book, such as a text book. But for novels and for 'get it right now', can't be beat. The fact is, I have way way too many books already. When I only had 100, I read them over and over. Now they are dusty and cracked.
Post a Comment