Books

Kindle.  It's one of my favorite things.  Who knew a little electronic device that does nothing more than show text would be one of my favorite things?  I never imagined.  When we got Cora one a little over a year ago, I thought it would be an interesting gadget, but nothing that would truly be useful.  How wrong I was.  She bought one for me for my birthday in March.  I have read more in the past year because of that little device than I would have otherwise, and I LIKE reading.

It may be the ease of reading that it allows.  Perhaps it is because we can both read the same book at the same time.  Or, it could be that you can put more than one book on it and it is such a small package.  I seem to recall paperbacks being harder to work with.  If you finished one, you had to wait until the next time you visited the book store.  We no longer have a decent books store in Yakima so I am glad I don't have to go visit one for my books.  All I have to do is turn on my Kindle's wireless and buy a book.  No trip to town, just instant gratification.

Cora started reading what is called Urban Fantasy.  It is a genre very close to Sci-Fi and Fantasy, yet it grounds itself in the present and in seemingly recognizable places, then it adds a dark monster, like a werelion, a vampire, or a faery.  All-in-all, I never imagined I'd enjoy reading them, since they seem to carry a feminine feel to them.  Far from that, though, these are fun books to read.  There's slicing and dicing and knocking down the back guys with shear might!  There's villains with devious plans, only to be foiled by the hero/heroine.  There's plenty of humor.  They are just plain good books.  They aren't Shakespeare, but honestly, I was never fond of him, nor much of the other "classics."

I still buy most of my history books in paper form (it just seems right), but for the day-to-day, get-myself-away-from-whatever-problem-I-have-at-the-moment, these books completely and totally rock.

The fact that we have been reading the same books, mostly concurrently, adds a lot to our relationship and our ability to communicate with each other since we share so much.  We can make references to the stories we're reading and know what the other is talking about.  It's that sharing that strengthens our relationship that much more.  Usually one of us is ahead of the other, since it is hard to read at the exact same rate, so we are forever asking where the other is.  It is natural for us to answer the other using a percentage, since that is the way our devices measure the books we read.    

I can think of no better way to enter the new year but reading together, as we have so many years previous, except, now we are reading the same books and using Kindles.  Does this sound like a sales pitch for Kindle?  Probably, but, it's true.  We both enjoy our Kindles far more than we imagined.

What have we been reading?

*Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews

*Dark Fever series by Karen Marie Moning

*Night Huntress series by Jeaniene Frost

*Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter