books

Some recent reading

As well as blogs, tweets and reports that are published online, I spend quite a bit of time reading books too. They are often great for the bigger picture stuff which requires a bit of thought and chewing over.

Here’s a list of some of the stuff I’ve been reading recently – I’ve marked them as either DT (dead tree, ie a real paper book) or K (meaning I have it on my Kindle). It’s all in no particular order.

The Kindle has really changed the way I read techy books. I now won’t buy a work related book in paper form unless I have to – they just seem to suit the Kindle really well. I won’t switch to the Kindle for novels just yet, I don’t think, but for some reason the digital form suits non-fiction rather well.

(Disclaimer – where I have linked to Amazon, I have used associate links, meaning I get a few pence if you buy the book via the link. All the money I make from these goes towards the running of Palimpsest, a book group forum I host.)

DavePress bookshop

I’ve always wanted to own a bookshop. Somewhere nice and quiet, with tables to sit down and read, some sort of tea and coffee arrangement and plenty of books to browse and buy.

I’m obviously not ever going to have one – after all, if Borders can’t cope, then how could I? But I can have a virtual arrangement, thanks to Amazon’s astore service.

You can find it here. I’m still stocking the shelves, but you should find some good stuff in there. In fact, they are all books I have read and liked, so you can blame me if they’re crap.

Disclosure – I get a few pence every time you use the bookshop. I’m not going to get rich out of it, though!

Leaving the Asylum

I read this post with some sadness, as John is giving his blog a break. He writes book reviews, great pieces about proper books. He says it’s going to be temporary, I hope it will be.

John’s blog is an example of why handing the process of publishing into the hands of everyone is a good idea. Amongst the egos, the idiots and the talentless are the gems like John, who make sifting through all the shit worthwhile.

Without the internet, and without the development of the technology that democratises the power to publish, I would never have bought the books he recommended and my life would have been less rich as a result.

Just another reason why this stuff matters.

Kindling

My Kindle arrived today.

I can haz Kindle

For those that don’t know, it’s Amazon’s own e-reader, a portable device that can hold around 1,500 books in its memory which can be read by turning pages using the buttons.

Even though I knew the screen was 6 inches, it still seemed smaller than I was expecting. The device is also a lot thinner than I thought it would be:

Thindle

The screen is really weird, it’s like nothing you’ve looked at before – other than the page of a book. Very odd.

Another interesting thing is the wireless – the Kindle uses the cell network, the cost of which is covered by Amazon and is presumably a part of the cost of the device.

Anyway, I can buy and download books from Amazon.com – not from the UK store yet (which may mean spelling issues…), or add books or documents from my computer. This can be done either by plugging the Kindle into my computer with the supplied USB cable (also my only way of charging it, since the plug supplied is US only too), or by sending a file by email to a special address, which is pretty neat.

You can also use the keyboard to add annotations to documents or books, so this could be really useful for students.

As well as established e-readers like the Sony Reader, the Kindle also has competition from Barnes and Nobles’ new Nook. Crunchgear has a useful comparison chart.

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