chesilbeach

I would never get a Kindle Fire as I need a Kindle with the e-ink technology. I can only read a backlit screen for an hour maximum, whereas the e-ink technology I can read just like a book with no headache. I don't use it for any other function, as I have a tablet and a laptop for everything else. ETA: Sorry forgot to say, the keyboard is useful for typing in search items, naming collections, and as I remember, at the time, it was the default with the Kindle so I guess there wasn't much choice!

My Kindle keyboard has had a few funny moments lately too, June, but fingers crossed, it's still working. Occasionally, when I go to the next page, I just get a black screen, or half a black screen, but if I go back a page then forward again, it seems to sort itself out. I also takes about 20-30 seconds to come out of sleep mode sometimes too, which gives me a heartstopping moment, and then a huge sense of relief! I think if mine goes, I'll probably go for a Paperwhite, but for now, I'm hoping my trusty keyboard version keeps going for a while longer!

It's here … it's today … BBC One 8pm tonight. I. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

I finished listening to The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Armin this morning in the car. I was sure I had the film somewhere, so I'm going to have to dig it out to watch again, as the book was wonderful, but it's been about 15 years since I've seen the film, and would love the compare with the book. I'm sure it compares favourably, as I read the book a few years back too, so I'm familiar with both, but would still love to see it again. Also came home from work and flopped in the chair so I could polish off the last couple of chapters of Velvet by Mary Hooper, as I just couldn't quite finish it during my lunch break. Good stuff. Not sure what I'll read next, but there's a book out tomorrow that I've been waiting for, so I might go and get that from the bookshop tomorrow, and I have a feeling a book I pre-ordered on Kindle is also out tomorrow, so that'll come down in the morning and I might start that instead … assuming I can get through the evening without starting something new, but since Bake Off is back tonight, I think there's a good possibility that might happen.

Ooops … busted!!!! Yes, I did start it yesterday, but in my defence, it is a YA book, with a rather large typeface, and Hooper writes in such an easy style and with wonderful characters, that the pages just slip by without you realising how quickly they're going.

Finished Poppy by Mary Hooper and started Velvet also by Mary Hooper. It's been a Mary Hooper sort of day …

As it's the anniversary of the start of WW1, and I needed a new book to read, I thought I'd pick up Poppy by Mary Hooper, which is about a young woman who joins the Voluntary Aid Detatchment to train to be a nurse as part of the war effort in 1915. It's a YA book, but I've read a couple of Mary Hooper books before and enjoyed them, so I'm looking forward to this one.

Oddly enough, (although it's not a novel), I've just had a similar experience with Cider With Rosie. I had to read it at school, and actively disliked it, but having read it again for the English Counties Challenge, I enjoyed it a lot more, although I still think it has faults, but I was able to put those aside this time. I guess I must have grown up a lot since I was thirteen! Glad you've enjoyed the first two Potter books more this time - I've always felt the first three were better than the last four, with Prisoner of Azkaban being the best written and my favourite. After that, my personal opinion is that the books were such a phenomenon that no-one wanted to be the one to say they needed editing. From what I've heard on radio programmes discussing them, I'm not sure which book this started, but to protect the secrecy of the novels, more than one editor was employed for each book, but not one of them edited the book in its entirety, so I'm not sure how they could do their jobs and point out problems with plots or story lines that didn't make sense or were superfluous. I know there are lots of people who don't think there are any issues, but like I say, it's just my personal opinion, and this is all conjecture anyway, as none of us here have the insiders knowledge of how these things work! P.S. Another of my personal opinions which I've recently adopted and am now strident about - there should be no such thing as a *guilty* pleasure - you like what you like, and who is anyone else to judge you. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else or break any laws, a pleasure is a pleasure and let there be no guilt about it!

Day 3 with #bookadayuk is your favourite collection of short stories. I do love Ali Smith's short stories, but I suspect I could pick her books in almost all categories, so for the sake of variety, I've gone with the sublime Love Begins In Winter by Simon Van Booy. Here is an extract from my original review, and I still stand by it!

There is, there is … I've been listening to some more of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Armin, read by Eleanor Bron. I've read the book before, and seen the film, and am thoroughly enjoying revisiting it with the audiobook. I also managed a few more chapters of Little Sacrifices by Jamie Scott (aka Michele Gorman) and I'm enjoying it, but I need to settle down to it so that I can get to the nitty gritty.

And there's the problem. We live in a small house, but it's not that tiny, however, we have full bookshelves in EVERY room in the house, and my OH doesn't give away his books, and we both want to keep all our books from childhood. There's no room to add any more shelves, and no space left on the shelves we have. I've mostly switched to ebooks as well now, and I don't often get the chance to visit a bookshop, so I don't accumulate many tree books now, and bookmarks are only needed occasionally. For me, the convenience is having my book collection on my Kindle, which fits conveniently into my bag, and takes up far less space

The good thing with using train tickets etc., is that it doesn't matter if you lose them! A while back, I bought some gorgeous wooden bookmarks which had animals symbols carved in them, but do you think I can find them now? Not a chance! £3.99 per bookmark wasted. Now if I lose a used train ticket - so what? Plenty more rubbish in my purse to be recycled as a bookmark, and costs me nothing. Personally, I'm more interested in the words on the pages than the physical book. Most of my books go to the charity shop after I've read them, so cracking spines, turning page corners and spilling drinks on them really doesn't bother me. I take care with other peoples books and library books, as I don't own them, but for my own, I'm not precious about them.

I use anything I have to hand - usually an old train ticket, a coffee shop loyalty card, a business card. It's often something hanging around in my purse, but just a piece of cardboard really. I love proper bookmarks, but I tend to lose them too often as I find they fall out of books, but something slim and made of paper/cardboard is more likely to stay put - not sure if it's the similarity to the paper pages that causes an attraction, or if it's just because they tend to sandwich closer together than a thicker bookmark, but they're more reliable, and don't cost anything. I used to turn the corner of the page when I was little, but I haven't done it for years. I'm not bothered by it, and it wouldn't worry me if someone borrowed my book and did it, but I would never do it to someone else's book, and I just find a piece of cardboard has become my preferred method.

The #bookadayuk category today is The best pairing of words and pictures and my choice is Raoul Taburin Keeps A Secret by Jean-Jacques Sempé. It's a whimsical tale of a bicycle repair man who keeps a secret from everyone he knows, and the consequences it has on his life. It's a very traditional style of illustration with a nostalgic tone, and the story itself is utterly charming, amusing and affectionate, and has that classic small French town feel with an almost timeless quality about it. I completely loved it.

I've been taking part in a Twitter book thing for the last couple of months called #BookADayUK. It was started by the publishers Borough Press in June, then Doubleday Books took the helm in July, and this month the Sibhan Dowd Trust have taken over. Each month the host has set a list of categories, one for each day, and asked people to tweet their choices of books for each category. I've had a lot of fun coming up with my own selections (although I have missed a few days), but thought I might expand on some of my choices for this month here (rather than trying to cram all my thoughts into 140 characters ). The list of categories this month are (if you click on the picture it will take you to the tweet but is a better size to see what the categories are): I started yesterday with The most arresting opening line, for which I chose Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith. The opening line is "Let me tell you about when I was a girl, our grandfather says." How could you NOT want to read on? I adore this book, it's probably my favourite book ever, and this opening sentence gives you a sense of what you can expect, to be told a story, but an unusual one that will make you think. The story for me was incredibly moving, and by the end I cried tears, but tears of joy, seriously the most joyous book I've ever read.

4/10 (and two of those were lucky guesses)

Oooooh, (possibly) exciting news!!!! Went to one of the shopping areas near me today, and one of the shops that's currently being refitted has an intriguing but rather vague poster in the window that certainly suggests it's going to be a bookshop! It's due to open this month, so I guess I've not got long to wait to find out. I'll have to get my detective cap on and see if I can find out more …

Started Little Sacrifices by Jamie Scott today (this is the pen name for Michele Gorman). I've enjoyed her romcoms but this is a historical fiction piece, set in the 1940s in Savannah and feels like a bit of a detour from my usual reading, but I'm enjoying it so far. I suspect the simmering tension is waiting to erupt ...

It's not the content of the site I had an issue with, it was the privacy policy. I refuse to sign up to a site where I'm not happy with the level of personal information of mine that they may want to share(/sell) with other websites and/or companies, and not have the right to opt out. I'll stick to BCF. I did look at LibraryThing, but the amount of books I have, I would have had to pay the annual sum, and I've already got a database at home for my own catalogue, plus I share all my reading and reviews with people here, so I didn't think it was worth it. Goodreads does look fun for comparison with other users and recommendations based on my own reading, but never mind, you can't miss what you've never had!

I might have to have another look at Goodreads. I really like the idea of it, and I was going to join a few years back but I didn't like some of the terms and conditions (can't remember exactly what now, but it was something to do with sharing information, I think), but they've been bought out by Amazon now, so perhaps that's changed.

I did manage to finished the Amelia Peabody book, The Last Camel Died At Noon and the latest in the Bloodlines series from Richelle Mead was published today, so my pre-ordered copy of Silver Shadows automatically downloaded on to my Kindle this morning, and I'm 20% into it already!

I started a blog for a few years before I joined the forum (the blog has long since been forgotten ) and started a spreadsheet during 2006, and have since converted it to a database, so I've got records for eight years of reading now! Thanks for the compliment on my reviews - I have to be honest and say I don't spend too much time on them, and they're a bit of a stream of consciousness sometimes, just blurting out everything I can think of as I'm writing! I think the could be better, a bit more organised and more considered, but I'm glad you read them anyway. Like you, I read almost all the reviews of the books on here, even for books I know I won't be interested in reading, although you never know, maybe one day I'll stray into some more gritty crime novels or those epic science fiction or fantasy worlds. I'm only a fast reader on books with gripping stories and interesting characters I invest in, as I just get so caught up in them, I can't wait to find out what's going to happen next! For the more demanding books (like Hawksmoor, which I still need to review), then I can be a very slow reader. Hawksmoor took me four or five days and for a book just over 200 pages, that's a very long time for me. It needed such concentration to get to grips with the language and the dual period setting, that I just couldn't read it fast, in fact, I often re-read sentences, paragraphs or pages to try and understand it fully! My reading lists are coming along quite nicely - this year so far I've read one from my Jane Austen challenge, one from the J. L. Carr list, two Persephone books and six from the English Counties Challenge, so that's not too bad. Trying to reduce my TBR at the moment though, and I don't really include challenge books on there, so they've taken a bit of a back seat for the next couple of months, but I think I'll probably spend a bit more time on them once the autumn comes.

No goal in term of numbers, but I would like to progress some of my reading lists. I did break the 150 mark last year which was something I'd been hoping, reading over 180 in total, but I won't be anywhere near that this year and I'm not bothered by it either. My reading does tend to drop off in October and November because of a website I run which needs updating daily between October and mid December, but my reading usually picks up again over the Christmas period, usually due to the lure of the shiny new books on the shelf that Father Christmas often brings me

The good months are the ones where I've had a week holiday away from home - I spend most of my holidays reading, and can get through 1-2 books a day, and this year, I think both weeks away were 12+ books. Some books are also audiobooks when I'm working on other things, although not that many so far, perhaps one a month on average? But essentially, not much of a social life, guaranteed lunch break reading, and just getting stuck into good stories means I get through a whole bunch of book every year.

Like almost everyone else has said, I come to BCF to discuss and read about books with like minded people, so a lot of my recommendations come from here. I appreciate that the forum has other areas to chat about other things and that some members visit for the chat, but the main focus for me is to discuss books and find out from other readers I trust what books are worth spending my hard earned cash on, and after getting to know people here, I know which members are likely to recommend a book I'll enjoy. I do occasionally buy books from radio programme recommendations, but I don't the people who are reviewing them, so it's more difficult to judge whether it's really a book for me.