OK, I finally Got A Kindle

Always wanted a paper book in my hand. But having enough for extended cruises was becoming a pain, so I got myself a Kindle today.

Just bought Edward Rutherford's The Forest. Really enjoyed his Sarum, Russka, New York, London, and Dublin.

So what else should I get for a good book read. I like historical novels, with plenty of facts woven in.

The Trawler Trash series by Ed Robinson won't win any literary fiction awards, but it is set in SW Florida/The Keys/Caribbean and is based on the hero, Breeze's exploits on a Marine Trader 36 trawler. Lots of boat stuff, Florida culture and a little bit of sex to spice it up.

All books in the series (6 I believe) are free with Kindle Unlimited.

David

Congratulations Menzies... I absolutely LOVE my kindle.



You may find this article useful, especially if you want free books.
Janice aboard Seaweed, trawler cruising on a nickel budget...

Did you get the new 64gig 10" Fire? That's on my wish list along with another Paperwhite. I wear these things out. The paperwhite is my absolute never leave Seaweed without it item. Enjoy yours, and happy reading.

janice142 said:

...The paperwhite is my absolute never leave Seaweed without it item. Enjoy yours, and happy reading.

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Lena and I both have one and love it. I’m a bit of an insomniac and it’s great for reading at 3 in the morning without having to turn on a light.

We also have library cards from St John’s County. They have over 3000 Kindle books you can borrow anywhere in the world as long as you have internet. The new releases may be waitlisted but you can get an email when the one you’re interested in becomes available.

If I haven’t finished a borrowed book, the library gives you two weeks, I put the Kindle in airplane mode till I finish. Sort of cheating the system.

I like reading Bernard Cornwall. He writes very good readable historical fiction.

https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/bernard-cornwell/

Yes I got the Paperwhite. When I was buying my wife one a couple of years ago all my research pointed to that. This time though I saw the new 12 LED version and thought I would have a look at that. When we got to Best Buy the Paperwhite was on sale for $99! So I grabbed one.
Re the library. Yes my wife does.that at the Duval library. Seems to work well and she reads voraciously so two weeks seems to be enough for her!
I set up a family group for the two of us and then took all of her books on share. Now I need to delete them all as they are all not to my taste!
So will research the most cost effective way to get books, thanks for the pointers.

menzies said:

Always wanted a paper book in my hand. But having enough for extended cruises was becoming a pain, so I got myself a Kindle today.



Just bought Edward Rutherford's The Forest. Really enjoyed his Sarum, Russka, New York, London, and Dublin.



So what else should I get for a good book read. I like historical novels, with plenty of facts woven in.

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Many options. My go-to recommendation is the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’brian. With 21 volumes, lots of material there. Another one that is a truly exceptional work of fiction set in the past is Neil Stephenson’s “The Baroque Cycle”. It is a series of eight books that was originally published in 3 volumes but now can be had as eight separate books. FWIW, anything by Neil Stephenson is worth reading.

There are also a bunch of “popular” history books that are fantastic. “Longitude”, “The Name of the Wind”, “The Professor and the Madman”, “Miracle in Philadelphia”, “River of Doubt”, “The Incredible Great White Fleet” are just a few that come to mind off the top of my head.

Greetings,
Mr. m. James A. Michener perhaps? Haven't read too much of his work but thoroughly enjoyed Caribbean.

I bought Michener's Chesapeake last night since we are going there.

dhays said:

Many options.


Another one that is a truly exceptional work of fiction set in the past is Neil Stephenson’s “The Baroque Cycle”. It is a series of eight books that was originally published in 3 volumes but now can be had as eight separate books. FWIW, anything by Neil Stephenson is worth reading.

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Oh my, yes!

Everyone probably knows this already, but you can also get the Kindle app for iPads and other tablets. It gives you full Kindle functionality without having to buy and carry around another device.

menzies said:

Always wanted a paper book in my hand. But having enough for extended cruises was becoming a pain, so I got myself a Kindle today.

Just bought Edward Rutherford's The Forest. Really enjoyed his Sarum, Russka, New York, London, and Dublin.

So what else should I get for a good book read. I like historical novels, with plenty of facts woven in.

Click to expand...

I finally got to read Stephen King's "The dark tower" series on Kindle recently. It's certainly different. Not his usual horror story. But you are hooked until the end of the last (7th) volume once you get into it.

Peter B said:

I finally got to read Stephen King's "The dark tower" series on Kindle recently. It's certainly different. Not his usual horror story. But you are hooked until the end of the last (7th) volume once you get into it.

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My son had all of these and they are still all in the bookshelf here at home. I often wonder if I should grab the first one to see - even though not a fan of King's genre.

menzies said:

My son had all of these and they are still all in the bookshelf here at home. I often wonder if I should grab the first one to see - even though not a fan of King's genre.

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Menzies, I suggest you do that, because it is quite different from the rest of his stuff in many ways. If the first gets you hooked, then getting the series on the Kindle will solve your reading for quite some time.

Oh yeah. One word of caution. Be careful not to unwittingly select Kindle Unlimited, because you will be billed a certain sum every month whether you download anything or not. I only dropped to the fact this had happened when my wife queried the regular monthly debit, some time after I completed that series and had not downloaded any more books for quite some time. To their (Amazon's) credit they did just that. Credited me back what I had not used.

Seven of them?

Greetings,
Mr. m. I'm pretty well a computer Luddite in the broadest sense although I have been dragged into the 21st century kicking and screaming only to find that I now own an I-Pad. Go figure.



REALLY didn't like it at first for a number of social reasons BUT it IS starting to grow on me. What I discovered is this site that appears to have a sh*tload of free, downloadable "stuff" that happens to contain my favorite genre-science fiction. Perhaps you might find something of interest...


I don't know if any of it can be Kindleized but...



https://archive.org/index.php

RT Firefly said:

REALLY didn't like it at first for a number of social reasons BUT it IS starting to grow on me. What I discovered is this site that appears to have a sh*tload of free, downloadable "stuff" that happens to contain my favorite genre-science fiction. Perhaps you might find something of interest...

I don't know if any of it can be Kindleized but...

https://archive.org/index.php

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There are Kindle and Nook apps that will run on iThings, and Android and Windows tablets. I dunno if actual Kindles will do that. Also don't know if Google Play Books will work on an iThing or a Windows platform...

But I do sometimes find that some e-books are available through one channel but not another.... Chapman's e-version, for example, was only available from Nook...

Your public library can be another decent source for free books. Ours supports several formats, including Kindle, Overdrive (ePub format), etc...

-Chris

I own a Kindle Paperwhite (two actually) and really like them. I also have the Kindle app on my iPad and Android phone. For extended reading, I prefer the Kindle.

Greetings,
Mr. 42. Oooh boy. I recognize two words in your post (library and channel) but the rest is totally Greek to me. Don't bother to attempt to explain please. I have enough troubles trying to find a way to play those new gramophone records....

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. 42. Oooh boy. I recognize two words in your post (library and channel) but the rest is totally Greek to me. Don't bother to attempt to explain please. I have enough troubles trying to find a way to play those new gramophone records....

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Heh... Not to worry, those have been replaced already, anyway...



-Chris

Larry M said:

Lena and I both have one and love it. I’m a bit of an insomniac and it’s great for reading at 3 in the morning without having to turn on a light.

We also have library cards from St John’s County. They have over 3000 Kindle books you can borrow anywhere in the world as long as you have internet. The new releases may be waitlisted but you can get an email when the one you’re interested in becomes available.

If I haven’t finished a borrowed book, the library gives you two weeks, I put the Kindle in airplane mode till I finish. Sort of cheating the system.

Click to expand...

Definitely get a Library card!! Most Libraries belong to consortiums that share kindle books. Its easy and I have not bought a book in years thanks to my wife who set me up through Overdrive

Love my Kindle (Paperwhite). Would never go back to paper books!

Can't help you with history as sci-fi is my favorite genre.

The Kindle app for the iPad or iPhone is great too, although like someone else said, the Kindle itself is better for extended reading as it's lighter and the screen is less taxing on your eyes.

BTW, most people that say they'd rather read a paper book haven't used a Kindle.

I know this was really about history books, but I'm a huge Kindle fan so had to chime in!

Michener is a great suggestion. Long reads, a wonderful combination of historical fiction, science and geography.

The Source, Alaska, Chesapeake, Hawaii, Tales of the South Pacific...

dhays said:

I own a Kindle Paperwhite (two actually) and really like them. I also have the Kindle app on my iPad and Android phone. For extended reading, I prefer the Kindle.

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I prefer the iPad because the iBook app is much more sophisticated and user friendly. I also particularly like being able to read at night without the light on to bother the wife, and the white light of the Kindle is not as good for this as the white on black format the iPad offers, which I use a lot.

I also found it annoying that you don't get access to a printable receipt with Kindle that you get when ordering via iBooks on the iPad. In my view the only benefit of the Kindle is being a bit smaller and lighter to hold. I might try this Kindle app on the iPad - that might be the best way to go for me.

A good source for deals on Kindle books

You might consider signing up for the daily email from BookBub. This is an excellent source for finding bargain and free books for the Kindle. You select the type of books you like - in your case historical, and perhaps seafaring - and they will send you an email every day alerting you to books on sale.

What makes them different, is they really read the books, and they only select books that are quality books. You won't be offered books that are poorly written and edited.

If you don't want the email, you can just go to their website and search for bargains.

Happy reading!

https://www.bookbub.com/

IF you have a library card many millions of titles can be downloaded for free with Overdrive.


I do 150-200 books a year and the bride does about the same in audio books , she listens while weaving.


Although the device can store a history of the last 100 books , its best to start a paper list , to keep track.


$50. for an Amazon Fire was the second best bucks spent , (first best was for a GPS).


Enjoy!!!

Thanks for the overdrive tip FF!

Larry M said:

I like reading Bernard Cornwall. He writes very good readable historical fiction.

https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/bernard-cornwell/

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In particular, The Saxon series. Amazingly good.

Delfin said:

In particular, The Saxon series. Amazingly good.

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Thanks for the heads-up! I didn't know the latest book was out.

BaltimoreLurker said:

Thanks for the heads-up! I didn't know the latest book was out.

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Just finished it. The remarkable thing about Cornwell's books is the historical accuracy and the depth and sophistication of character development. In this last book, Uthred is aging and it is starting to show, but like most older folks, he compensates in other ways to get the job done. That said, the ending to this one is a bit surprising. Love the complexity of the politics as well. You'll enjoy it BL.