Nadine's Kindle

I am a bookworm and have always been a bookworm ever since I was old enough to read. I think my love of reading came from both of my parents as I grew up with them reading and books around the house.

I can never have enough time to read. When I was little, on my summer vacations I would take a trip to the library and borrow an armload of books. Two weeks later I would be back getting more books. Sometimes I would hop on my bike and take a trip to our other town library to see if there was new reading material there.

And to this day, I am still voraciously reading. I read on my lunchbreak at work (I get an hour for lunch). I read at home if there's nothing on TV and sometimes will read even if there is something on. I'll read before going to sleep, though sometimes that can run me into trouble.....before I know it I'll look at the clock and it'll be way past my sleeptime! I sometimes feel like that Twilight Zone episode, the one with Meredith Burgess who never had enough time to read! Steve says I always have my nose stuck in a book!

I devour books, depending on how thick the book is, I'll sometimes read one in a week. I was buying my books (used) off of Amazon, until I started running out of space to store them. Someone once said "well, sell them!" Never!! The books I have are all my favorites and I read them over and over again. One of my all time favorites, Ken Follet's "Pillars of the Earth" I probably have read at least six times. I then decided to get a library card (luckily the library in Providence is right on my way to work and within walking distance from my house) and if I read a book that I really loved, I would order it through Amazon to have for my own personal library.

I had briefly mentioned to Steve a while back about the Kindles and what they were about. I never really wanted one, because I'm just so used to holding a real book in my hand, and after I told him, I never gave it another thought. This Christmas, Steve surprised me with my very own Kindle!!



I have to say that I didn't know what to think of it at first, because like I said, I'm used to a paper book. But as I started looking at it and learning about it, I got more excited about it.

My Kindle is the DX model, which is the newest model out. It can hold up to 3,500 books (will I ever run out of room on it? lol!!) It has WhisperNet on it, which means that when you want to buy a book, you go on the Kindle store at Amazon right through your Kindle, buy the book you want (books range in price from $9.99 right down to free) and within seconds your book is downloaded onto your Kindle. No waiting time for shipping and also no shipping and handling charges. You also have limited access to the internet and full access to Wikipedia, which is good for me, because I'm always researching the historical figures and places I read about.

The Kindle is pretty lightweight, which means less weight in my shoulder bag I use to haul my lunch, book and shoes back and forth to work (I walk to work in the mornings and when it's warm out I walk home). Another thing I love is that I don't have to haul around two books....sometimes, if I'm close to the end of a book and know that I would finish it on my lunchbreak, I would have to also bring the next one that was on my TBR list. Last week, I finished one book, downloaded the next one and started right into reading that one, and all I had to carry to work was just my Kindle!!

Another feature to the Kindle is that the size of the font can be adjusted, which is another good thing for me. When I go to have my hair colored, I always bring a book with me to read while the color is processing. I wear glasses, and am blind as a bat without them, but would have to read without my glasses to avoid getting color all over them. I'd be sitting there in the chair with the book practically touching my nose and squinting like crazy. This past appointment, I had my Kindle and adjusted the font size to the largest and was able to read with relative ease.

I already have four books downloaded onto it with many more on my "to be downloaded" list. Since I've gotten this Kindle, I've already devoured two books and am halfway through the third one. The first book I downloaded was

a wonderful historical fiction romance set in the time of Edward IV's reign in the 15th century.

This is what the main menu looks like

The only thing I don't like about it is that there is no way to organize your books. I would like to be able to have folders so that I could categorize and put my books into them. Like, say, a folder for Henry VIII, and I could have all books relating to him and his wives in it. Or a folder that I could put certain books that are part of a series into. But I have heard that Amazon is working on this and should (hopefully) have software updates available sometime this year.

Soon after getting my Kindle, I realized I needed a cover for it, so that it would not get damaged from handling it all the time.

Then I just needed to get a skin for it so it could be all jazzed out (and also to protect further from scratches)!

I have to say, after having my Kindle for about three weeks, that I'm just loving it and the idea of being able to carry around my whole library!!