When my in-laws gave me a gracious Christmas gift of an Amazon gift card with instructions to 'use it for yourself,' I struggled. This should go towards diapers, I told myself. Or a toy for Holden. Or clothes for Holden. Or something for the house. Unlike my birthday Amazon gift card (which went straight to cleaning supplies, a new litter box system, and other necessities for our upcoming move), I listened to my mother in law's advice, and treated myself. On a new swimming suit, which has come in mighty handy this summer, taking my little guy to the public pool for his new fave activity of splashing around like a little water bug, but also a Kindle Fire. I had always been against the idea of Kindles and tablets. I figured it was just another electronic device I didn't really need. I have a laptop. A work laptop. An iPhone. Why would I need anything else? Well, it turns out that not only are Kindles great in the kitchen (seriously, it's bigger than a cellphone for recipe looks ups, making it easier to read, and you're less likely to get pasta sauce all over your cellphone), but the reading feature is also a major plus for three main reasons.
1) I'm a mom now. So our bookshelf has officially run out of real estate. Our beautiful Ikea bookshelf is now Holdie's toy box. Only the very top shelf, which he cannot reach (yet), is reserved for literature, and my husband and I are both avid readers, so we no longer have any room for more. (Although apparently my husband never got that memo, as he's still busy hoarding away). Purchasing a Kindle helped resolve (ok, not fully, but sort of) our physical space issue.
2) The Kindle takes up smaller space on the go. When I read, I read. So slipping a 7 inch electronic device in my purse is much easier than a super thick hard cover brick of 900 pages, leaving more space for my hoarded collection of lip balms/glosses/sticks and random baby gear.
3) No more library overdue fees! No more hassle of returning books in the midst of having a crazy kid life schedule! You place your eBooks on hold on the library website (at least in Chicago), you get an email when the book is ready to download, and with a couple clicks, voila! You have your book! And after your given period of three weeks or whatever the loan is, it will automatically delete off your appliance. So you don't have to worry about getting your fat lazy ass off the couch down the block to return your books. And you don't get a hold on your account because you owe 30 cents. It's amazing. I love it.
So that being said, I'm sold. I get to read all I want for free. The only downside, I suppose, is having to wait for the books to become available to download, but I'm a patient lady. Mom life made me patient. And I won't lie - I get a bit of a rush when magically all 3-5 of my books on hold suddenly become available within a 3 day period and I have a clock ticking to rush through all my goodies at once. Makes me feel accomplished.
So anyway, I realized I've read a lot this year. And I want to try and write brief synopses of my thoughts of what I read going forward. I just sped through three books recently, so was able to jot down my thoughts of those selections, and I may try to go back further, but if I'm not able to - I'll just list the books I have read this year and whether or not I think I'd recommend any of 'em. Because just like a record store, whenever it's time for me to purchase/rent a book or record, my mind always comes up blank, and I know I thrive off my pals' recommendations, so maybe this will help any of you? Or at least we can have a conversation. Or this can just take up space on the world wide web. I don't care, it's fun to read and write. Here goes, nothin'.
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