Tag Archives: mcewan

Online Kindle Notes & Highlights

I woke up to a sweet little email about Kindle’s new online feature. Now you can access all your notes & highlights by simply logging in on your Amazon account at http://kindle.amazon.com. All your purchased content (so nothing from Feedbooks or anything you made yourself, just your Kindle store purchases) are listed. You just click on each book and all of your notes & highlights are there, with locations and everything.

While it’s not terribly useful to me, I think that on the rare occasion that I quote something from a book it’ll be so much more convenient than having to hook up the device to my computer, open up the txt file “My Clippings” and scroll down until I find the quotation I wanted. (Actually it would have been useful while I was writing my thesis and using Kindle books for sources… but I’m done and won’t really be writing papers for a while now.) Or perhaps since it’s so much easier I might start posting quotes more often!

Like this lovely one from Atonement!

Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can ever quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same slight emphasis on the second word, as though she had been the one to say them first. He had no religious belief, but it was impossible not to think of an invisible presence or witness in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract.
(Location 1892)

Yes, I think I like it! New goal: post more quotations!

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More Kindle, Atonement cont.

I forgot to mention that I still don’t actually have a cover for my Kindle. These are the three features I want:

  1. Looks like a book!
  2. Not leather
  3. Uses the hinge system

So far the M-Edge covers seem perfect for me, but they’re not putting the hinged ones out until next week or so. Right now my poor little KT travels in a cloth pouch that I happen to have and I just put her in the top part of my backpack when I’m walking around campus. Of course, this makes me a little restless so sometimes I walk around holding her, in the pouch. Like a baby. Ahem. Anyway, let me know if there are any other covers you think I should know about!

I’m more than halfway through Atonement and I already know that this book gets two thumbs up. I knew it before I finished the first chapter. It’s lovely, and so much better the movie (which incidentally, I loved). I also loved how Part II starts exactly 50% into it. And I love the progress indicator in the Kindle; it’s grown on me. I’m planning on finishing Atonement tonight before going to see my boyfriend as Grumio in Taming of the Shrew! ‘Til tomorrow!

Edit: Hey, M-Edge! Did you know I was writing this post? Because you just put up the cover of my dreams on your website! *runs to order*

Kindle 2 Update, Atonement

I really love reading on the Kindle! I find it pleasing and I do feel like it allows me to read faster and with fewer distractions. My current gripe though is that when I plug my Kindle into my laptop, sometimes it stops recognizing the Kindle as the E: drive and I have to eject and do it over. I think I may have to cave and actually look at the User Guide, which in general I hate doing. (In my family, we usually ask my 10-year-old brother to read the manual for us and then summarize how to use the gadget.)

But eventually I was able to load all of my public domain e-books, so now I have something like 100 books on the Kindle and I’ve only paid for one book so far – Atonement! Speaking of which, Ian McEwan’s writing is really excellent. He has this way of going into tangents that feel quite familiar for some unknown reason and then he surprises you by tying it in a few pages on. Also there’s a story behind the importance of the vase which is a really nice touch and I kind of wish I’d known of it while watching the movie. Briony’s voice is so lovely too; at times I definitely feel so much like her. There’s this part about her writing process as she’s just starting out, learning new and beautiful words from the dictionary and thesaurus and not quite understanding the: “the king’s furrowed brow was the ‘hieroglyph’ of his displeasure” (Locations 94-101). So far I just really love her thoughts on writing:

A story was direct and simple, allowing nothing to come between herself and her reader – no intermediaries with their private ambitions or incompetence, no pressures of time, no limits on resources. In a story you only had to wish, you only had to write it down and you could have the world; in a play you had to make do with what was available: no horses, no village streets, no seaside. No curtain. It seemed so obvious now that it was too late: a story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols on a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader’s. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it. Reading a sentence and understanding it were the same thing; as with the crooking of a finger, nothing lay between them. There was no gap during which the symbols were unraveled (Locations 514-522).

Edited to Add: I’m so sorry to have doubted you, Kindle! Re: the random un-recognition of my Kindle in the E: drive, it turns out it was my USB port that was faulty, not the Kindle’s connection! Phew…

Kindle 2 arrived!

kindleI’ve just opened the box! The packaging is lovely & minimal – I usually end up receiving books in boxes big enough for balikbayan & I always feel so awful about it. I turned it on and already have about two dozen books I bought (ok, for $0.00) from Amazon. It’s true, the screen really is fabulous & looks quite crisp! My first impression at holding it was mostly delight at how light it is! And I really like the Next Page buttons. I haven’t yet used the keyboard but I suppose I can always talk about that later. Also no one has ever really mentioned the screensaver… it’s a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe! (Edit: I just realized that there are several screensavers that cycle through.) How nice! My first read will be Atonement by Ian McEwan ($7.99 at Amazon) so stay tuned!

Sorry about the image quality though; my darling Sony Cybershot seems to have bit the dust so for now it’s my 2.0 megapixel camera phone!
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