Sunday, May 31, 2015

The Joy of Kindle Unlimited!

I love to read. I mean it. I read lots and lots of books. While I thought I would never enjoy reading on a Kindle, I discovered it was much easier to hold for my hands. I could read while eating since I don't have to hold pages open and with Kindle Unlimited I have so many books at my finger tips I'm in readers heaven. I truly thought that the only 'free' books would be cheap romance novels written by 6th graders. Instead I have found some terrific authors that write serious pieces of work.

Before you download any book to read on the Unlimited program or buy for that matter, most have book samples to read of around 5-10% of the book. If you get through that sample and go argh! because the book is so enticing, exciting, etc. when the sample is finished it is so great to be able to download the book and find your places and continue reading. This is one thing that I would like to see improved since the Kindle can keep track of our places in all the books we may be reading at one time, I don't know why when we finish a sample and then download the book we have to manually find our place where the sample left off. Perhaps there is a way and I just haven't found it yet on my Kindle keyboard which I don't think they make anymore and if someone knows how to do that, please let me know!

I read serious books as well as cozy mysteries and vintage books that are hard to find in print anymore. My constant companion when reading any book taking place in the US is my large print atlas (10 cents at the thrift store!). A book that takes place in other parts of the world I have an atlas for that as well, but much more difficult to find some countries that keep changing their names and boards. The worst being the former Soviet Union and the eastern side of Europe where battles seem to be continually fought and the boundaries keep changing. It would be nice to have an atlas built into the Kindles as well with maps for the different time periods. But even with a current atlas that shows only our more modern world, I'm still learning more geography. One of the last books that I read to review on Amazon, took place between 1912 -1922 mostly in Russia and India where boundaries constantly where changing then. It was hard to follow the character's travels without getting lost.

Now that was a 'serious' book which meant I had to clear my mind out before reading another serious one and so I found a new cozy mystery writer who writes in a series and so far I have been able to read her books for 'free' through the Kindle Unlimited program. Why do I need to clear out my mind? Many times on the Amazon review program that I am on I get books by new authors and lets just say they may never get past that first book. I rarely ever do reviews here of books that were disappointing to me. I would prefer to review here books and products that I truly like and if most of my recommendations are ones that you find that you like as just as I do so why bother with the lousy books? You can always find my reviews on Amazon here.