…I took delivery of my new Kindle Voyage today.
I’m not comparing myself with Achilles. He had only one bad heel and I have several more than that. I suppose I could be the Very Hungry Achilles. Anyway, competitive reading at school between the ages of four and seven put paid to my love for reading for many years and it wasn’t reKindled until I studied French literature for A level, if then, with the result that I feel hugely under-read compared with the people with whom I surround myself.
I tend to read when I’m visiting my mum in India because, aside from spending time with her, there’s not much else to do. On my last trip I took a hardback copy of Edmund de Waal’s The White Road, whose pristine cover was bashed and squashed around with my cabin baggage every time I went through the security x-ray machines. So this time I shall take a loaded Kindle instead.
HOWEVER, I’d like you help, dear friends, with book recommendations. I have downloaded:
The Curious Tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (MsDD’s recommendation)
To Kill a Mockingbird and The Name of the Rose (with any luck no-one else will die in the next few weeks whose work I haven’t read)
The Female Eunuch
Fear of Flying (Yes, yes I know. But I’m intrigued and I keep missing the serialised episodes on Radio 4)
What else is a must read, do you think? And can anyone help me connect my Instapaper account please?
Fear of Flying is available on iPlayer for 28 days. There’s likely to be an omnibus at the weekend on 4 Extra.
LOLOLOL I like the incidental music too.
ReKindled, very good. I think this walkthrough should help you connect instapaper to Kindle https://david-smith.org/blog/2012/10/11/instapaper-on-the-kindle-paperwhite/ As for books to read, where to start? Moby Dick and War & Peace are both excellent, if a little long. William Makepeace Thackery is usually a fun author, my personal favourite being The History of Pendennis. Star of The Sea by Joseph O’Connor is magnificent. If you want something non fiction I highly recommend The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, anything by Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Jay Gould is an excellent and accessible author on evolutionary biology. If you are in the mood for an epic, Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series are the best historical novels I have ever read, the most thoroughly researched and detailed, and span the rise of Marius and Sulla through to the fall of the Republic and the ascension of Augustus. I hope you have many happy hours of reading on your new kindle.
Thank you James. See you next century.
I have a Kindle too, and love it. Is the Voyage just the latest version or does it do special things? I’d recommend any Jane Austen and the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard (I’m currently reading the third of five). Or how about Heartburn by Nora Ephron? Also loved The Secret History by Donna Tartt, Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms and Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín. There are so many more and the list of books I want to read but haven’t yet is very long indeed.
F Scott Fitzgerald ….. I love everything of his.
Also Alan Bennett to dip in and out of ….
I love the suggestions by James and Annette too.
And I would add Bill Bryson for humour.