My new Kindle

For Christmas, Ram bought me a Kindle Paperwhite. It was a surprise present, because I already had a Kindle, but a very welcome present, because the Kindle that I have is one of the very early ones. Not quite a first edition but very close, with the old keyboard at the bottom.

Although I do still enjoy reading a real paperback, I've loved my Kindle over the years. There are so many classic books that you can download for free, and if you keep an eye out for special offers you can also find new books for free or very cheap. I like that I can keep a selection of books to hand, depending on what I'm in the mood for, and it takes up much less space than a real book.

But a few weeks before Christmas we were browsing child-free in a real bricks and mortar electronics shop, and I was whiling away a few minutes playing with the Paperwhite that they had out on display. I gave some positive feedback on it to Ram, and he was obviously paying attention!

I hadn't really noticed how clunky my old Kindle has become. I don't know whether it's just showing its age, or if it's simply because technology has moved on so much. The Paperwhite is touchscreen, smaller in size and lighter, although the reading pane is wider and feels more natural to read from. It is a lot more responsive, the pages flick over quicker and the menu system is more intuitive. I also like the 'time left in chapter' feature, because I do missing being able to flip through pages to see how long is left until a chapter break.

The only thing that I've not quite got used to is that you can't turn the pages on both sides like you can with the buttons on my old Kindle, and sometimes I confuse it a bit if I want to skip back a page (I'm terrible at turning a page before I've finished the previous one and sometimes I need to pop back and finish the sentence!)

After Christmas Amazon had some of their bestsellers on special offer, and using digital vouchers that I built up in the run up to Christmas by choosing normal delivery instead of Prime I was able to stock up on my reading material for the year.

Two books that I particularly enjoyed were The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty and The Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Moyes. Unfortunately they are full price again now, but it's worth keeping an eye out in case they go down again!

I'm currently reading The Sisters by Claire Douglas which is also proving a very good read. All are books which are easy to pick up and put down around frequent interruptions with a plot that is interesting with a few twists, but not too complicated for me to follow!

Have you read any good books lately?

Amazon links are affiliate.