Stolen or Lost Kindle – What to Do?


The link below is to a very useful article on what to do should the unthinkable happen – your Kindle is lost or even stolen.

For more visit:
http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/what-to-do-if-your-amazon-kindle-is-stolen-or-lost

Article: Reading in the Dark


What do you do when reading at night and the electricity fails? The link below is to an article that offers some useful suggestions.

For more visit:
http://bookriot.com/2013/03/12/how-to-read-a-book-with-a-flashlight/

Article: Keeping Kindle Ebooks & Other Ebooks for Kindle


The link below is to an article that looks at a number of things to do with Kindle ebooks. The article gives some useful advice for securing ebooks purchased through Amazon and also how to read ebooks purchased from elsewhere on the Kindle.

For more visit:
http://consumerist.com/2009/07/20/how-to-load-up-your-kindle-with-non-amazon-ebooks/

Article: Google Book Scanning


A lot has been said about Google and its book scanning projects. In one case Google has won a case for scanning books as a search project. Will this also prove useful in their case for scanning books for the Google Books project?

For more visit the article linked to below:
http://gigaom.com/2012/10/11/why-google-is-right-and-the-authors-guild-is-wrong-on-book-scanning/

Article: Convert EPub Ebooks to Kindle


The link below is to a very useful article that explains how to convert EPub files for use on a Kindle Ebook Reader by using Calibre.

For more visit:
http://www.mediabistro.com/appnewser/how-to-convert-epub-books-for-use-on-kindle_b619

Article: Fake Book Reviews Increasing


The link below is to an article that looks into fake book reviews. Are book reviews useful anymore?

For more visit:
http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/a-new-report-states-15-of-all-ebook-reviews-will-be-fake-by-2014/

Article: Do You Read Ebooks on a Smartphone?


The link below is to an article that looks at reading on smartphones – do you? To small to be useful as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps a little now and then in the future – haven’t yet. I do have the Kindle app and Adobe Reader installed, so a little may be possible at some point. But not a lot.

For more visit:
http://www.teleread.com/smartphones/reading-e-books-on-smartphones-how-popular-is-it/

Book Review: Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson


Treasure Island was the first major novel of Robert Louis Stevenson. It was first published in 1883 and has remained a much-loved book. First penned as a story for boys, it was as a young boy that I first came across Treasure Island. It was the first real book that I ever read – certainly of my own choice. If I remember correctly, the copy I had was a small book, not much bigger than my hand and illustrated throughout. The illustrations weren’t coloured as such, but I think I may have started to ‘colour them in’ as I read the story several times. The name of the ship, ‘Hispaniola,’ came back to me in one of my first compositions at school. In that early attempt at writing I wrote a story about piracy and a ship called the Hispaniola. I believe I was written into the story, along with several of my classmates, though the original composition has long since been lost and the
plot a thing of the past.

Treasure IslandNot until the last couple of days however, did I take up the novel once again and begin to read the story of Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins, and the journey to Treasure Island. It has been a long time now, since that first book I read and my taking it up again. It must be at the very least thirty years and then some by my reckoning. Remembering this book as the first I had really read, was the reasoning behind my picking it up again for another read.It is an easy read. It is not a long read. But it is an enjoyable read. If it is that then the author has achieved his goal in fiction I believe. To be sure there are many things that can be learned in reading a novel and many lessons that can be taught through a novel, but without enjoyment all else is lost. This is a short novel that can be enjoyed greatly.

I read this book by way of a Kindle, which shows that the future of Treasure Island lies assured into the digital future and beyond. I also own Treasure Island in traditional form and as part of a set of works, being the entire works of Robert Louis Stevenson. One day I hope to read more, if not all of this man’s printed contrinution to English literature and I look forward to doing so.

Treasure Island is the classic pirate story, coming fully equiped with the pirate talk which is so popular even to this day and the vivid description of a pirate adventure. The story is a great one that may well bring younger generations to read and pull them away from the Xbox and other gaming devices. It is a short read, with short chapters, which may be a useful tool in getting a young one to start reading – but it is the adventure of a life time for Jim Hawkins that will really draw them in and the promise of buried treasure.

If you have not read Treasure Island, pick up a copy and have a read. It is free in the Kindle Shop at the time of posting this review and well worth spending a couple of hours a day reading this classic – by the end of the week the story of Treasure Island will be completed and you will be the richer for having read it.

Buy this book at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Treasure-Island-ebook/dp/B0084AZXKK/

From My Armchair: 28 July 2012


I am doing a little experimenting here, just trying to get a good format together for a new post I’ll be doing here on a regular basis (I hope). I thought I might start to do a regular reading progress type post, or something like that. It will probably be a weekly summary of what I’m reading and other book news ‘From My Armchair.’ There you go, that can be the title of the regular post. That is, book news from my own reading experience and exposure to books on a personal level, including updates from my personal library – that sort of thing.

Now to work out just what I’ll include in the post – it could be something like a newsletter I suppose. So straight up, there can be this sort of preamble blurb thing going on. Just a bit of a ramble about book stuff from a personal perspective. Then I can put down a few sub-headings with some structured content, relevant information and comments. Sounds like a plan I think. It will probably take a couple of weeks to come together and look presentable, at least to me anyhow. So it will be a work in progress for a while.

Something else I’m going to do is clear my reading list at Goodreads and have a new start there also. That way I can tie everything together and have a continuous and consistent story as far as my experience with books is concerned. That way, when I do this weekly post, ‘From My Armchair,’ I’ll be able to pass on a summary of my reading activity as recorded at Goodreads.

 

Social Networks, Web Applications & Other Tools

Under this head I think I can provide a summary of what I’m involved in as far as social networks and web applications are concerned. I use quite a number of social networks, web applications and tools in the area of books and reading, with a variety of applications and functions. All useful in their own way I believe. I think they provide a good means to not only glean useful information, but to also maximise the benefits of my books and reading for a whole range of activities that I am involved in. I like to see my books not only as entertainment and an escape from the world for a while, but also as tools for accomplishing many things within the world.

I currently use Goodreads as my social network for books/ebooks. I once also used Shelfari, being torn between the two, but now that Shelfari has closed the better of the two networks has continued as far as I am concerned. I am trying to use Goodreads as my online catalogue for books, so slowly I am adding them all to it. I also use a database on my own PC, which I am trying to sync with Goodreads, though I enter the information to both manually. It will take some time to get all of that done as I do have a large number of books.

 

Currently Reading:

I like to read and prefer reading to television viewing. I don’t like to waste my time and prefer to use my time in worthwhile pursuits. I do watch a small amount of television, but that is usually to further my intellectual development, so I watch documentaries, news programs and the like. I do watch the occasional program to wind down from time to time, but prefer to watch a DVD for that purpose as most of the stuff on the Idiot Box is just a lot of rubbish lol.

I usually have several books on the go at one time, but have found in recent years that I tend to not finish a lot of books also. That hasn’t always been the case, but it seems increasingly so now. I’ll be cutting down on the number of books I’m reading at any one time in the future, to try and ensure I finish what I start more often than not.

Currently, I am reading two books – well one actually, but about to start another. These are listed below:

– The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum
– Killing Calvinism: How to Destroy a Perfectly Good Theology from the Inside, by Greg Dutcher

 

Finished Reading:

The Hunt for Red October, by Tom ClancyI did have a few books underway and these were all listed at Goodreads, but I cleared these a little while ago and gave myself a fresh start. One book I completed recently was ‘The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy. I read the Jack Ryan series of books by Clancy some time ago and recently decided I’d read them again. I also watched the film again to see how close to each other they were – there was quite a difference between the book and the film. I have a post about this which I’ll link to below.

For more visit:
https://atthebookshelf.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/1614/

 

Purchased & Added to Library:

I have recently acquired a large number of ebooks, many for free from Amazon, including the following books:

– Killing Calvinism: How to Destroy a Perfectly Good Theology from the Inside, by Greg Dutcher
– The Discipline of Grace: God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness, by Jerry Bridges
– Beyond Belief – The Real Life of Daniel Defoe, by John Martin

 

Website: MagicReader for iPad


The link below is to an iPad app, which allows you to turn pages by simply turning your head. It could be useful for say turning a page while cooking (recipe) and you aren’t able to touch the screen and other miscellaneous situations. It also performs some other reading functions which are described on the site. The app is currently free in the iTunes store.

For more visit:
http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/id505117386
https://atthebookshelf.com/tag/useful/
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