I Think You Might Like This!

I must admit, this is a bit off topic, but it’s got me really exited and I think it could be useful for a lot of people so please bare with me while I explain why.

As somebody with limited movement in my arms and not much strength to hold things, readings book has always been a bit of a pain, so for much of my life I never really bothered.

The first time I remember actually reading a book for myself was during my English Literature course at college, which I only took because I seemed to be good at it. At secondary school I tended to just get away with extracts and remembering what the teachers said.

I enjoyed reading the course books, but had to have someone turn the pages for me and this makes the process a lot slower and more frustrating than you might expect.

Despite this I’ve developed a real thing for books, not so much fiction, but books about successful people, marketing and anything that will help me be the best I can be and avoid some of the painful mistakes people make in life!

To paraphrase Thomas Edison “I only got where I am by standing on the shoulders of giants“.

The thing is, as old fashioned as it sounds, I’ve realised that books are like a fountain of knowledge, you can learn anything you like from them.

Sure you can find a lot on the internet, but books are the most inexpensive and reliable source of information by far!

I only really started reading regularly last November and since then I’ve probably read 6 books, not many really, but I’ve learnt so many valuable things it’s unbelievable, far more than from my uni course.

There is no doubt that, apart from personal experience, reading (the right things) matures and educates you more than any other activity.

There are page-turning machines you can get hold of (I was lucky enough to be given one by a family friend) that operate by remote control and once they are set up they work extremely well.

The issues with those however, are the price tag (in the thousands), size (oddly, mine looks like one of those x-ray reader things) and the time it takes to set them up for different books.

Thus, imagine how excited I was this morning to find that Amazon are releasing their fabled “Kindle” in the UK!

For the uninitiated, the Kindle is an E-book reader that can store around 1500 books at once and connects over a wireless network to Amazon’s ebook store (wherever you are, for FREE) allowing you to download books whenever and wherever you like!

Even better, it only takes around 60 seconds to download a full length book!

Now, to be fair, each book costs around $10, so probably £7.50, which isn’t exactly cheap, but for those of us have mobility problems it is quite frankly a god send!

The Kindle itself is thinner than a pencil, and probably doesn’t weigh much more than an ipod, so a lot of people should at least find it easier than a book.

In addition, it also has a text reading function that will read books to you, so if you’re visually impaired (or just feeling lazy) you can get an E-book and audio book in one!

It does cost about $279, you have to order it from amazon.com, not amazon.co.uk, but for me it will be worth every penny!

Have a good one!

George

P.S. here’s a link to the kindle that works in the UK http://tinyurl.com/yevgvxj