Kindling

For Christmas I had a surprise … it was a Kindle. I had no idea I was getting one, and to be honest I didn’t even know I wanted one. I was happy with my books (many many books) and had the idea that reading on anything other than paper would be weird, and would strain my eyes, and I didn’t think about it much more than that. But my husband (Richard) is, it would appear, rather clever, and realised that I would very much enjoy a Kindle once I tried one. He was right – very right! Best Christmas present ever!

On Christmas morning a mystery present appeared in the pile, and I was very confused – I was mainly responsible for wrapping stuff and I’d been lazy when it came to Richard’s so none of his had labels on – the plan being that anything without a label was for him. Then this mystery one appeared with no label, and I was thinking ‘did I wrap this? is it from me? I can’t remember what it is!’. Most confusing. So, anyway, as you may have gathered, this present turned out to be for me … from him! I was so surprised!

The display on it is amazing – when I first got it out, I was quite convinced that there was some kind of sticker or something over the display – it just didn’t look like any kind of electronic device’s screen I’d ever seen! I’m sure a lot of people have at least seen a Kindle even if they haven’t got one, but I hadn’t and I spent ages just marvelling at the “E Ink” display!

I’ve read a couple of books on it now and though I’ve stopped the amazed marvelling, I still think it’s really cool It’s just as easy to read as a paper book and is so slim and light it’s not much different from holding a paperback. I can bung it in my bag and I can have loads of books at once – all different types so whatever my mood I can find a book to read. I have autobiographies, fantasy, fiction … and it’s so tempting to buy loads more! The other great thing is the Whispersync thingy – I’ve got a Kindle app on my phone as well, so if by chance you forget to pick up your Kindle in the morning (like I did today) you can temporarily continue reading on the iPhone … then when you go back to your Kindle, a quick sync will catch up with where you got to! So cool!

[Well, I suppose it was bound to happen - I declared that I might not manage this daily blogging ... and now I have inspiration and stuff to say! Who knows whether I will really continue or not - we shall see! ]

Books I’ve read

Saw this on Susan’s blog (Celadon Pool) and thought I’d have a go …

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Underline those you intend to read. -
3) Italicise the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Dreams to-do list

I recently read “Where the River Ends” by Charles Martin, and it made me think …

In the story, Abbie has been battling cancer for several years and it’s got to the point where there is nothing else to be done, so her husband Chris takes her off on a journey to fulfill her special to-do list. This is some of Abbie’s list:

• dance with her husband
• laugh until it hurts
• drink wine on a beach
• loop the loop in a plane
• swim with dolphins
• ride the St Mary’s river from where it starts right down to the sea
• ride on a merry-go-round

It started me off thinking of a list of my own. I’m not dying or anything, as far as I know, but sometimes I get so bogged down with the everyday stuff … get up, get the kids up, take them to school, go to work, pick them up, go home, get dinner, put them to bed, slump in front of the tv/computer, go to bed … and then it all begins again. So I’m going to start to make a list of things I would like to do before I die … and maybe gradually I might work my way through them (or maybe I’ll never do them – but it’s nice to dream!)

My list of things I would like to do before I die

1. Watch my children grow up
2. Cuddle baby grandchildren one day
3. Fly in a hot air balloon
4. See orangutans in the wild
5. Go skinny dipping (would have to be somewhere extremely secluded!!!)
6. Take an utterly relaxing holiday where literally all I do is sleep, eat good food and read good books
7. Do something really worthwhile, like help feed starving children, actually there in person, not just by sending a donation, or help dig a well for people without water, or help care for AIDS orphans … or something, anything that would actually make a real difference to someone
8. Sing in a choir or group

To be continued …