Thrifty Kindle Tips...

Enjoy reading on your Kindle??

Enjoy saving money??

Then read on!!

*This is for Amazon UK – I haven’t checked if the route is the same for other Amazon sites

You may already have discovered this and I might be behind the times, but I just found a good way of browsing some of the free Kindle downloads.

Of course, you can type ‘free kindle’ into the search bar, but I find that this list is harder to navigate, and brings up lots of dodgy-looking options to sift through…

So! First up, go to your Amazon UK account (click on the photos if you need to make see them bigger):

Hover your cursor (don’t click!) over where is says “Shop by department”, up in the top-left beneath the Amazon logo (circled in red).

A drop-down menu will appear:

Glide your cursor down the menu. As your cursor lands on the different options, other menus will pop up. Keep going till you are hovering (no clicking yet!) over the option “Kindle e-readers and books” (big red arrow above, underlined below).

The pop-up menu for this option has a few headings. Under “Kindle Store” you will see the option “Kindle books” (red arrow below).
This time click on that option.

Clicking there will take you to a new page that will look something like this:

Look down the options on the left-hand side. There are lots of options there (I'm intrigued by "100 books to read in a lifetime"), but look for the one called “Kindle Best Sellers”, and click on that one (red arrow below).

That click will take you to another page of Amazon bestsellers. Circled in red, you can see two options: “Top 100 Paid” and “Top 100 Free” (red arrow...).

Click for the free ones, and voila! You are free to browse the free downloads!

Lots of the books might be a bit rubbish, but if you have a good browse you should find something you fancy – and if you’re not sure, well at least they’re free so you have nothing to lose!

Top tips:

• Use the genre options down the left-hand side to help you refine your search and to access more book options.

• Don’t ignore the paid options – some really great new books appear for a couple of pounds or less, which is still a bargain!

• Amazon says that the list is updated regularly, and the prices are subject to change too, so it is worth checking back every now and then :)

• Finally, I’m sure you would be supervising if your kids are looking for books, but be aware some adult titles do still appear in random genre choices, so it’s not fool-proof for searching.

A Few Things...

A few things for a brief catch up :)

First up, this tickled me a bit – my Pinterest Weekly email a little while ago included a link to one of my own Pinterest boards!

Last week, on my way to stay with my mum for my brother’s wedding, I got my smallest tattoos touched up by Jessi. They are now a bit more unique and colourful - although a little difficult to get a decent photo of when there’s no-one to help, I had to stand like Charlie Chaplin for the 'after' photo! (I know it must by now sound as if I have a lot of tattoos, but honestly you can't see any when I'm dressed - even in shorts and sleeveless top! Except if I wear flip flops or sandals, in which case you can just see these two teeny ones)

Before...

...After (the colouring will soften with healing)

I took lots of crochet away with me – some to give away, like the Mumbles Ripple and the Glastonbury Blanket; some just to show my mum so she gets to see what I’m up to, like the Cuddly Hexagons; and finally I also took her blanket beginnings (previously mentioned here and here) in order that she could make sure that she liked the design, and so I could continue working on it.

There wasn’t much time for crocheting in the end, as The Cake had to take priority, but before I we got started on anything cake-related I was able to have a silly play around with the existing crochet bits…

I thought these flower motifs were like water lilies on the Mumbles...

I think I prefer them in the orchard :)

I joined the local library yesterday – I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of doing this sooner! I’m a bit of a bookaholic, but currently all but very few of our book collection is boxed up and in storage.

It was great fun to go through the book shelves, searching for my next few reads, and to then walk out with them without paying! I felt really naughty for walking out without paying – it’s so long since I used a library, and the feeling was enhanced as this library has a computerised issuing service. You scan your card, put your pile of books in a hatch of the machine, and then it registers them and you are free to go, so you don’t even have to go through the librarian to take your books! I have to say, I kind of missed the whole taking the ticket and stamping everything process that you used to get in libraries…

Slight Edit here as I just finished the book! The book I took out to read yesterday - and have already finished! - is this Neil Gaiman book, The Ocean at The End of The Lane. I really enjoyed it, as you can tell by how quickly I read it. I might try to do a bit of a review of it, as I want to get better at this sort of thing - I’ll post that if I get round to it, and if it's any good! The book, however, was brilliant!

I also discovered this bit of the library while I was there:

A whole big section of craft books! Brilliant!! I bought a few fairly dud crochet books when I was learning, but now I can borrow them, and then only buy the ones I think are worth it! Brilliant!! I took out ‘75 Crocheted Floral Blocks: Beautiful Patterns to Mix and Match for Throws, Accessories, Baby Blankets and More’ by Betty Barnden, and I have to say this is looking like something I might like to buy… I haven’t had a chance to play around with the patterns yet of course, but already a few designs have leapt out at me as things to have a go with!

Finally, I’m heading off to Snowdonia today, to go to Plas y Brenin again (I have been before here and here). This time round I’m going as a ‘mock student’ for one of their instructor courses taking place tomorrow, and I’m hoping to get some rock climbing done as part of that – I say “hoping” as the weather seems to be very damp and rainy again! 

After Snowdonia, I will be heading off south to Somerset again, to go to a bit of a cider festival with the other half and a few friends. It will be taking place on the pier at Weston-super-Mare, and will include a gig by The Wurzels, so I’m not totally sure what to expect from all that! At least I can combine it with seeing family and friends though, which is getting increasingly important as time-before-Oz gets shorter!

Bank Holiday Inking

I’m back from a lovely, but rather soggy, bank holiday weekend :) 

I will write more about the rest of the weekend later, once I’ve gotten round to uploading the photos, but I do have some bits I can share now.

I am halfway through a new book, thanks to a recommendation from Niki Murray on my previous post about books, and I’m really enjoying it. Hopefully I can do another write-up about these books once I’ve read some more – I’m not great at writing about books, but I’m hoping that practice will make improvements!

Currently reading

Also, the Glastonbury is finished!!! Yay!! I’m very happy with it, but I have had no opportunity for photos, so the proper post will have to wait – boo!! :(

Instead though, I can reveal my new ink! I am really really happy with it. It was once again done by the lovely Jessi at Black Rabbit Tattoo Collective in Newbury, Berkshire. Jessi’s artwork is fantastic, and she has a great technique with tattooing. My previous piece from her healed so well and so quickly, and while the watercolour technique does mean that it’s not tattooed so heavily and therefore the skin has less damage to it than a heavily shaded or coloured piece, I also think that her personal tattooing technique must be really good.    

On this occasion, my best friend and I got matching tattoos of an origami swan line drawing, with watercolour splashes on it. Jessi’s ability to create a watercolour effect with tattoos just blows me away! She is so talented :)

We chose the swan as, in my friend’s words, “Swans mate for life, and we’re mates for life!”  [I know that when swans mate it has a different meaning, but we had been searching for an idea, and by a long process of planning we decided that swans were the right image :)  ] We chose the origami as we both liked the style of the line drawing, and we both liked the watercolour effect, and so an idea was born! 

So here is the stencil on me, the red lines are where she freehand drew on guide lines for the watercolour elements:

Here is the work in progress on me….

And on my friend….

And here is the finished result!

With an extra close-up of mine, as it is a bit obscured by my top in the previous pic:

These pictures were taken straightaway, so they are still a bit red and swollen, but they will settle down beautifully! I will see my friend again in a couple of weeks, so I’m hoping we’ll remember to get another photo of them as they are more healed. We are both so happy with the results! So happy in fact that I already have my next appointment booked in – I have 2 very small black tattoos, and I’m going to have some splashes of colour added to them to brighten them up and make them more unique. I have to go to Newbury next week anyway, so it would be a shame not to make the most of the opportunity ;)

An old pic, but the subject of my next appointment...

Books

Well I don't know where yesterday went! It seemed like one minute it was morning and I was mucking out the donkeys, and the next minute it was late evening and I was getting my stuff ready and getting to bed in time for an early wake up, ready for my photography course today!

Obviously I will upload my photos from today and write about the course, but last night before bed I started writing up something a little different to usual, so I wanted to finish that off and give it a go first...

When I first started this blog, I intended that one of the topics I would regularly come back to would be books.

I love books – I love looking through books, I love choosing new books, I love seeing lots of books on my shelves, I love everything about books! I tend to have phases where I’ll read, and during those phases I will read a lot, I will want to spend every spare moment reading, and I will become totally absorbed in that book. The characters in that book will be my friends and I will miss them when the book is over…

I had wanted to share this love of books, just as I share my love of crochet, and my love of travel etc. There was a fly in the ointment though: I’m not good at writing about books. I have tried a few times in the past, been really unhappy with what I’ve written, and then given up… [I don’t think I’m very good at travel writing either, since I brought that up – I really do try, but I think I just lack something when I write. And I am very behind on it too! I still have another post from Romania in draft form, and I haven’t finished half of the stuff from South America!]

Since I got back from South America, I haven’t read much. I took a Kindle with me and read about 20 books while I was away – everything from light-hearted modern stuff like Alexander McCall-Smith to classic literature by Thomas Hardy, and on to non-fiction such as a biography of H M Stanley (of “Dr Livingstone, I presume” fame) and Victorian Travel Writing by Isabella Bird. (I must tell you more about her sometime, she’s awesome!)

But since I got back, crochet has overtaken reading in my priorities. The other day however I did start a new book. I had been craving a read of some Kathy Reichs – I wanted the drama and the sciencey bits and I like the characters – and I decided I would sacrifice a little crochet time for a reading fix. I even managed to read while crocheting for a bit, when I was doing part of my pattern that I knew really well!!

The only Kathy Reichs book I own that I haven’t read yet is ‘Bare Bones’, so that’s the one I picked and I’m really enjoying it. As I enjoy the same things in all the Kathy Reichs books I’ve read, then I thought I would have another go at writing about books, but without pressuring myself to try and write any amazing review or analysis or anything, I would just explain what I think of these books as a series :)

First up, the Kathy Reichs books about Temperance Brennan are the only ones I have read, and I’ve read several now. Temperance Brennan is the main protagonist in the TV series Bones, which I also like, but the books are very different.

The stories focus around the life and work of Temperance Brennan, who is a forensic anthropologist. She examines remains of bodies to assist in investigations to do with identifying the deceased and their causes of death, so these are basically crime stories from the point of view of the forensic anthropologist.

The books are written in the first person from Temperance Brennan’s point of view, which allows you to follow the story with all of her insights, and which also helps to build tension – if she doesn’t know something, you don’t know either! It also means that the books are written in pretty colloquial language, very Americanised for us Britishers, but we have enough exposure to American culture for this not to be an issue. The colloquial language makes for a fast-paced read, and a good connection with the characters in the books. The only thing I find a little awkward is the way that race is mentioned in descriptions of people, but I do get the impression that this is a reflection of the different culture in the south of the US versus the UK culture that I know. I also think that this 1^st person view point would make these books an easier read for women than men, but I could well be wrong about that – I’m sure that I must have read books from the point of view of men lots of times in the past.

The Temperance Brennan of the books is a woman in her 40s, separated from her husband and with an almost-grown-up daughter and a pet cat. If you’ve seen the TV series, she is also emotionally much more ‘normal’, and while she is brilliant at what she does, she is a much more grounded and realistic character, who is much easier to relate to than the TV character. Important if you are reading the stories from her perspective.

The lab settings for the book are much more realistic too – not least because in a book you can afford to take time to explain things more thoroughly, and things that work when you’re reading don’t necessarily translate directly to good TV. Therefore she uses autopsy rooms in morgues, liaises with local police and coroners, and there is no super-technology that can find things out the way it happens on TV. All of the forensic techniques that are used in the books are explained really well, also explaining margins for error etc, making the storylines much more plausible (don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the TV series too – it’s just a different beast). This greater realism also builds the tension in places, as you follow the frustrations of not having all the evidence needed, not having concrete answers, having to wait for results etc etc.

This realism and the degree of detail is possible because the books are based on Kathy Reichs’ real-life experience in the same role as Brennan, and at the start of the books her impressive professional history is summarised. At the end of the books, something I think is particularly good is that Kathy Reichs summarises the actual experiences that have inspired elements of the plot, also explaining where the inspiration ended and her imagination of a plot line began. I find this really enhances the feel of the story itself, to know it is so grounded in plausibility and even based to an extent in reality.

Besides being easy to read, intelligent and mainly plausible books (you would hope that not everything that happens to Tempe Brennan would happen to a real person!), I think that the books are also really well paced, and each chapter finishes with a mini cliff hanger, demanding you to read on. I’ve certainly been well and truly hooked on the storylines in the past, having to read ‘just one more chapter…’ every time one finishes! 

Source, with other reviews of these books

So there we have it, my best attempt at a book review – or a book series review really! If you haven’t already read any of these but feel inspired to give them a go, I’d love to hear what you think of them - I find that there are normally some of these books on sale in charity shops, so you don't have to spend lots to try them out. And if you have any recommendations of your own I’d love that too – I love finding new authors to enjoy! :)