Reading as a cheap hobby

Floss

I dropped to a weekly Bookbub email - it arrives at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon 😊

Brie

Was off on a long weekend away and took one of my Tesco charity finds with me, David Park's The Big Snow. I oh so did not enjoy it and didn't get past the second chapter. The hotel we were at also had a charity book case and so I left the book there and picked up the The Tattooist of Auschwitz. A very interesting read. Ok, nasty in bits, starving prisoners, executions, evil guards but also a lot of love and tenderness too as it is, in essence, a love story. Well worth the effort and the 50p to charity.

Going away again next week (hopefully without my cold) and will need to find something new to read….

PipneyJane

I believe the film of The Tattooist of Auschwitz was very touching, too, @Brie .

May I rave about how wonderful my Kindle Paperwhite is? It's so much more like reading a dead-tree book than using the Kindle app. I've had to make two long-ish Tube trips this week and I really feel like I'm reading a paperback when I dig it out of my bag.

(Seriously, I'm like a little kid, wanting to wave my Kindle about and shout "Hey everyone. I'm reading a book!")

What am I reading? Andrew Ross Sorkin's book about the 1929 Wall Street Crash "1929: Inside the Crash". It is well written and covers most of the big players, following them throughout 1929. He explains how they manipulated the stock market to make money, using investment pools and short-term bank loans secured on shares; how they pulled in/exploited the punters/middle classes to boost their profits, etc.

• Pip

Blackcats

Pip - that book sounds interesting and some of the tactics seem to have happened at subsequent financial crashes.

I finished Good People by Patmeena Sabit. A story of a family from Afghanistan living in America and the challenges of the parents' traditional beliefs and the new world they live in which ultimately result in tragedy. It's cleverly written from the perspective of friends, family, reporters, school officials and the plot weaves together very well. I was less convinced by the ending but it's a v good book.

I'm now reading Death Writ Large by Susie Dent. I really like the explanation of the origins of language in the book although sometimes it feels a bit forced into the narrative but I've already learned the origins of "on my tod" and "taking the Mickey"

Wednesday2000

I was saying how good Kindle paper whites were yesterday to the woman from my book group.

I'm going to start my next book group book this weekend.

DigForVictory

Remember kindles (& kobos etc) are memory sticks with screens - you can back them up to a computer.

PipneyJane

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82116788#Comment_82116788

Absolutely! However, I understand that Amaz0n are imposing some software controls which mean that you can no longer open/save their Kindle-books with software other than their own. (It used to be possible to save them down as PDF's.)

• Pip

DigForVictory

I have to say (as a devout geek) that I will be exploring this with glee & that in the meantime all the old volumes on the old devices should still download like lambs. Plus I back calibre (free ebook editing software) to help me over the rougher patches alongside google & reddit…

ruby_eskimo

I have upgraded my kindle to the latest paperwhite and so far I'm loving the auto brightness adjustment to save my eyes and the dark mode for reading in bed when DH is asleep. I had the gen 3 with the keyboard up until the recent software changes and it was on it's last legs anyway being 15 years old so was happy to have the forced upgrade in a way.

I won't go through all the books I've read since I last posted but some recent ones:

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li was something I bought ages ago and just didn't really get round to picking up. Tale of two girls growing up in a French village in the years after WW2 and how they navigated friendship, their place in the world and breaking the cycle of expectations. Gave it 3.5 stars.

The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins was a gift from my parents again, ages ago. What I would call a light thriller; artist lives on a remote island, has a complicated life, leaves artwork to the family of her manager, turns out a sculpture may contain human bone and her husband disappeared under mysterious circumstances before she died. Told from multiple perspectives, lots of misdirection, again 3.5 stars.

Currently reading Two Storm Wood by Philip Gray which was again from my mum, didn't think I'd like it but I'm kind of hooked. In the aftermath of WW1, a woman goes to France to find out what happened to her fiancé who was missing in action, and a former inspector is trying to find out who murdered Chinese labourer's during and after the war. Think I can see what's coming but I may be wrong!

Brambling

I picked up The Blue Hour at volunteering today as they have a bookcase for book sharing, its next on my list.

I picked up an old copy of Little Women from Petworth on Wednesday, from the £1 shelf, it has a label inside saying it was a Sunday School prize in 1936. I haven't read it since I was a teenager and the book has such a nice feel to it, it probably won't make its way back!