Happy Valentine's Day From a Book Addict

I took this photo of a redbud tree ( cultivar Forest Pansy)  last May, and I have been waiting since then for Valentine's Day so I could post it and wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day with red, heart-shaped leaves. 

Yes...I know.  But, I'm a sucker for things like this in nature. 

My Valentine's Day present was a replacement Kindle from Amazon at no charge because I hadn't had the old one for a year before it croaked.  Yippee!  The reason I bought a Kindle in the first place was so that I could (hopefully) find all of my favorite books and have them stored on Kindle in case we have to evacuate for a forest fire.  I don't have room in my car for my books and my animals, and when it comes to that kind of choice the books are going to lose.  Any thing is going to lose, even treasured photos.

BUT...did I get rid of my favorite, and even second favorite, books once I had them on Kindle?  No.  I couldn't bear to part with them.  There's just something magical about holding a book, the scent of a book, and when I open it up (if I've read it before) I can see my favorite characters coming out to greet me.  If I'm reading a book for the first time and it turns out to be a favorite, then I've just made a whole bunch of new friends.  The downside of making these new friends with a Kindle is that I then want to have the actual book so I can add it to my shelves (and shelves, and shelves, and shelves...well, you get the idea) of books.

If it weren't for the threat of wildfires up here I don't think I ever would have bought a Kindle.  But, it's so wonderful to be able to have the best of both worlds! 

A Thrift Store Find...and Drat!

I found this cute little teapot at a thrift shop up here.  I don't think it's antique, or even vintage, but it just spoke to me...really.  It said, "Take me home, I'll brighten up your mantle."  So I did.

When I got home, I made a cup of tea and sat down with my Kindle to read.  DRAT!  It refused to function.  I went to Amazon.com and did all the things the help section said to do, but no luck.  I haven't even had the thing eight months (it is the Kindle Fire HD).  So, I called Amazon and, bless them, they said they would have a new one delivered to me by Thursday, no charge to me since it wasn't even a year old.  I sure hope so.  I was right in the middle of a really good book. 

Thank goodness I couldn't bring myself to get rid of my real books (well, not many of them, anyway).  I just don't feel right if I don't have a book to read!

Duck's Ditty

(The picture will enlarge if you left click on it).

"All along the backwater, through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling, up tails all! . . .
Everyone for what he likes! We like to be
Heads down, tails up, dabbling free!"

Excerpted from Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows," which is one of my all time favorite books. Mole, Ratty, Badger, and Toad are all such wonderful characters. I never tire of reading this book, but I've never been able to find a complete, unabridged version. Well, one that was within my budget.

Imagine my excitement when I found a complete, unabridged version that includes the original, rare first draft in the form of 15 letters written to Mr. Grahame's son, and illustrations...for only $1.99! There is a slight downside, however; it is on Kindle.

But, hey, at least I have it!

Amazon's Kindle

I've had this Kindle for several weeks, but I didn't want to post about it until I was sure I liked it. Well...

It's very easy to use as it comes with a really simple,

easy to understand user's guide.

The one I got is not only Wi-Fi enabled, but also has 3G. I don't actually know what 3G does, beyond that I had to wait until the latest version of Kindle was equipped with it to be included in their coverage area.

You can see at a glance what books you have by going to the home page. I'm not sure yet how many titles it will store on the home pages; so far, I have two pages to access when I click the 'home' button.

Pressing the 'menu' button enables you to turn the Wi-Fi on (I've found the battery charge lasts for 10 to 12 days if I only have the Wi-Fi on when I'm shopping for new books).

You can get free samples of a book to read before you purchase it. There are also many, many books that cost only 99 cents or are totally free! Some books are 'text to speech' enabled, which means that the book will be read to you. That's very handy if I have a migraine, but the quality of the reading is very poor and almost sounds, at times, like it is an electronically generated voice. That's something Amazon could definitely improve.

One feature that I really like is the ability to change the size of the font. You can go from teeny-tiny to huge, with many sizes in between those two to choose from.

The cover has a cool little reading light that pulls up out of the upper right corner. It has two tabs on the inside that slide into two ports on the left side of the Kindle, thus enabling the light to be powered by the Kindle battery. However, I've found that the battery will need recharging much more quickly if I use the reading light.

The screen isn't back-lit and is really easy on the eyes. It's not anti-glare though, so you do have to adjust the way you're holding it if you're reading in a bright, direct light to avoid glare.

When you're not reading, you slide a button on the bottom of the Kindle to put it in 'sleep mode' and this helps extend the battery life also. There are a lot of different pictures of various authors and things that it cycles through each time you put it to sleep.

What I like best about the Kindle is the extremely light weight. I have some medical conditions that are starting to make it very painful for me to hold large, heavy books for more than a very brief time. Kindle solves that problem for me.

But will it ever replace 'real' books for me completely? NEVER. I just love books too much; the scent of them, the texture, the covers (on some), the feeling I get when I open a book that I'm actually stepping into another world. I have no doubt that I'll buy a book in hardcover after I've read it on Kindle just so I can have all those experiences if it's a book that I really love and is available in hardcover. (There are quite a few books that I love that were never released in hardcover. Stupid publishers!)

Of course, good writing will transport me into the world of the book I'm reading, whether it is a 'real' book or a book on Kindle...it's just that the transition is a little easier for me with a 'real' book.