Monthly Archives: April 2012

So. Books! I am a writer, if you didn’t know. Also a photographer but I think that might be a little obvious. So I love books because I love words. I admit that I use books as a pain killer a lot of the time so they need to be something there right now as opposed to something that I have yet to carve out of the inside of my brain. So when I am feeling unwell (week 3 of a flare ahoy), I read more than I write. But when I’m not reading other people’s worlds, I’m knee deep in my own. I even dream in Story which I have to say is a knack that I am extraordinarily grateful for.

Ok. So for Christmas I got a Kindle (after annoying J. to bits until he gave it to me early – hey, I had a neck injury and couldn’t knit. What else was I supposed to do?). And I love it. Because I love books. And yes, I was just as paper-book snobby as the next person. Books, I said loftily, are supposed to be REAL. Tangible. Not random words on a screen. I happily eat those words and that attitude, by the way. The Kindle is brilliant. And of course, I still read paper-books just as voraciously. Seriously, I read a lot. Part of it is just because I love books. And part of it is because when I can’t manage to do much, I can almost always read. Case in point, this year with a neck injury + 3 week flare in 4 months, I have read 117 full length books, novellas and short stories. I have about 20 books on hold at the library and a to-read list a mile long. Think of a sick day when you can barely get off the couch. That’s how I’ve been recently. A cup of tea, a warm quilt and a book. Isn’t that kind of universal?

The point to all this rambling is the Kindle Lottery. When I first got a Kindle, I quickly outstripped all my systems to keep track of what I read/want to read. Enter Goodreads. Which is fab. But I needed something Amazon based to keep track of the prices. I put together wishlists based on price and then added the books accordingly. So when I wanted to buy a random book for £2, I didn’t have to search through hundreds. What I also discovered is that Amazon will randomly drop the price of books substantially. At least twice a week I find that some book I wanted has been reduced to nothing. And when that happens, I buy it. That’s the Kindle Lottery. Books you’re wanting to read anyway that pop up for free. I just arrange my wishlist by price and hit buy on anything with a big fat £0.00 next to it. Nifty, eh?

Of course, my reading taste is a very narrow sliver of what’s out there. So the three books I got today for free may not excite anyone else in the least. But I liked ‘em enough from the samples and they were free. No harm in that.