Monday, January 25, 2010

A "hats off to...." spot!


This week I have to take my hat off to author Eoin Colfe, for his Artemis Fowl series. I haven't read it yet myself, but any series that makes reading more fun for my 13 year old son is great with me!

My son Joshua likes reading fiction as much as going to the dentist! He doesn't mind books per se; he'll read straight through the Guiness Book of World Records, Ripley's Believe It or Not, or a subscription to National Geographic for Kids! But fiction? Cue the sighs, stomps, groans and drama!

We've tried all sorts - drama, sci fi, EOTW, horror, romance, spy books, fantasy... the lot! It's rare he'll want to finish one. So when he reached the end of book 1 and asked for not only book 2 but the whole series of Artemis Fowl, I was thrilled! His review: "It's a little bit weird but it's really good!"

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Tip #3 Update: Kindle Store Wishlist update

A while back, I wrote about the little inconvenience that Amazon.com didn't have an Add to Wish List button for Kindle books. Not only that, the Amazon.com wish list didn't sync with the Kindle shopping "save for later".

Well both little issues appear to be fixed!"

1. On Amazon.com, not only can you now add a kindle edition to your wish list, you can set up a separate wish list just for eBooks and save them to it.

2. Even better, when shopping the Kindle Store from your Kindle, you no longer have to use the Save For Later button! Now you can "Add to Wish List", select which Wish List - and it syncs with your Wish List on Amazon.com!

About time!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Happy New Year!

Yeah, it's been some time! I've been a very neglectful blogger, I know! Between holiday bustle, winter colds and the slog of work, my Kindle has also been somewhat neglected too *shock* I know!

For the past, um, 20 or so years I've read something every single day. Over the past few years, I read more & more - read with morning coffee, when the family watches TV, in the queue at the supermarket. With Kindle & text to speech, I'd even be reading in the car or when weeding the garden.

But about 2 months ago, I got into a reading funk. For the first time ever, I didn't want to read. I got a bit worried. I downloaded a bunch of books. Then I hit the freebies (it could get expensive!). About the best I could manage was a couple of blogs and the Readers Digest (which is pretty good on Kindle, BTW).

Some of the freebies kinda depressed me. There are a lot of not-so-good books out there, to be polite about it, and I seemed to download each and every one of them. ugh! Bad horror, cheesy dramas and the oddest thing - the Christian fiction hiding as a thriller. Don't get me wrong - I've nothing against Christian fiction, or any religious fiction. Just that if I wanted to read it, I'd read it. If I want to avoid it, I do that too. So getting halfway through a couple of thrillers - and even a horror - recently to have it turn into a pious ranting wasn't my cup of tea. And I promptly deleted them.

"Next!"

So what have I read? Wow, very little!! I did finish a few Cesar Millan (Dog Whisperer) books (Kindle edition) which were good reads. But I didn't even start my long awaited Under The Dome yet! I KNOW!! I told you - major reading funk.

Right now, I am reading The Keeper, by Sarah Langan that I got as a freebie ages ago. It's pretty creepy, actually. Plus I am re-reading the fabulous Hunger Games with my 10 year old daughter. Love that she loves so many of the same books as I do! She's recently finished Oz Chronicles trilogy and keeps begging me to write to RW Ridley to find out about book #4!

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