Things That Burn Me ‘Bout My Kindle
I love reading on my kindle. I wasn’t sure that I would, but I do. Somehow, once you get the darn thing to work, it goes a little faster. Since acquiring my own, I’ve already read 7 titles. There’s a reason that statistically kindle users read more than non-kindle users. There’s more access, they’re conveniently portable, and there’s lots of free stuff to download so it’s poor people friendly. (Trips to the library use gas.)
But that’s IF you can stay connected to the wifi. Clearly, I’m on my wifi now – typing this onto my online blog. My kindle, however, can’t find the connection. Can’t make the connection. When I do have a connection I download everything I can as fast as I can because there’s no telling when it will disappear. I CAN guarantee that it will disappear if I plug my device into my computer to manage documents or to charge it. As soon as I unplug, I have to set it all back up again.
When I have a connection, it loves to download things I didn’t ask for. Those pages at the end of books that invite you to read other stuff the author has written? Yeah, avoid them like the plague unless you have plenty of money and really love the author. You even blink at that page and it will download the book. I called customer service and the very helpful people un-downloaded it for me and returned my money… for the book I had already read instead of the one I didn’t want. I had to call back and say, “Nope, you got the wrong one. I need that book, I should be charged for that book as I already read it… it’s the OTHER one I don’t want.” Currently I don’t have either. Despite their speediness in answering phones (no lengthy wait times for these awesome people), I am not looking forward to calling yet again.
You would think this is user error. I thought so too. Clearly, it’s me we’re talking about here. Technology is not my strong point. However, I can read directions. I can navigate myself around websites, and I READ. (Also, there are tons of online complaints about the same issues I’m having.) More and more I’m finding that technology is not my strong suit because there always seems to be something wrong with it. Computers always get viruses. Phones drop calls. The electronic features in your car leave you trapped inside after a car accident because the door won’t open and the paramedics have to pull you through a window (true story); the electronics features in your (different) car stop working and the window just FALLS down while you’re driving down the highway. Kindles forget how to find their wifi. It’s not so much that I’m ANTI-tech… it’s that it is only worth it to me when the tech is actually making my life easier, not more difficult. Yay! I read 7 books on my kindle. They were great books! I enjoyed my time with them. But were it not for my extensive physical library, I’d be out of reading material before bed tonight.
If YOU have a kindle, or are thinking about getting one, you might want to write this stuff down:
online:www.amazon.com/kindlesupport
e-mail:kindle-cs-support@amazon.com
phone: 1-866-321-8851 or 1-206-266-0927
Guns and Roses (and E-readers)
This post has nothing to do with Guns and Roses the band. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tease you that way. Actually I did. This is about my new book-gal-crush Rose Gardner, brain child of author Denise Grover Swank.
Title: Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes
Author: Denise Grover Swank
Genre: Mystery (Romantic Suspense)
Format: Kindle
I downloaded Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes solely because it was free and on kindle. I just recently got a kindle for the first time, because my home library is primarily in storage for the moment, and as a reviewer I couldn’t stomach adding more physical copies to a collection I couldn’t even access. So e-reader it is for now, aside from the stash of books I toted to my temporary digs with me, and if I’m going to be reviewing ebooks, I need to know how to read them.
So Denise Grover Swank’s free ebook was my guinea pig, my learning curve, my book to help me decipher buttons and technology, my reminder that I really am 105 at heart.
The first twenty “pages” (I don’t know how to quantify without page numbers) or so I HATED IT. “This is so lame!” I kept shouting at the screen. I was mostly talking to the kindle, but I took it out on the heroine Rose Gardner. Not that she needed anything else being taken out on her… her mother thinks she’s demonic and ends up dead, naturally the whole (small) town wants to pin Rose for the murder while Rose finds herself in a world where her mother is no longer telling her how to live. Insert sexy next door neighbor who might be a potential boyfriend, or… of course… the actual murderer!
I loved it. It’s gloriously cozy with less cheese than the average cozy mystery, placing it more in the romantic suspense category than the cozy realm.
By the time Rose is burying a gun under a rose bush in her backyard I was completely hooked and had mastered the art of turning the kindle page. That is a bigger feat than it might seem, as I don’t always maintain feeling in my fingertips and I kept inadvertently hitting the next button too many times. Without page numbers is was pretty difficult to find my way back. So it took DAYS for me to get to Rose burying that gun, but less than an hour to wrap up the book.
So thank you Rose (and Swank) for teaching me to read (on an e-reader). I’m looking forward to reading the next installment in the Rose Gardner Mystery series.
Anakalian Whims 