Earlier this month my DH went to China for a couple of weeks so we broke down and finally got him a Kindle. Well, it was more like I dragged him kicking and screaming into getting a Kindle. (No, I don't have one but I'd gotten one for my elderly mother and drilled her in how to use it so I knew pretty much all about them.) My husband went from being a reluctant Kindle owner to an avid Kindle owner. He travels a LOT and he was always packing piles of paperbacks in his luggage. Sometimes he'd run out and wind up buying more paperbacks and carting them home. (One reason we quite literally have thousands of them.) He loved just having the Kindle to pack when going to China. He loved that he had 90 books loaded into it. (All but one of them free.) He's in Washington state now and didn't even look at packing paperbacks, just stuck his Kindle in his carryon. As far as the ipad goes, yes it does a lot more than a Kindle does BUT, I wouldn't recommend it for reading for long periods of time. The display screen of a Kindle really does look like a printed page....a printed page taht you can adjust the text size. An ipad or any tablet thing like that will be backlit and while that might make it easier for you to read in a roomw ith no lights, it'll also tire your eyes more....just like reading a computer screen all day.

Well, Snooks, it seems that you and I have differing interpretations as to the meaning of "ending," To me, a "series of books" means that there are anywhere from 2-50 (or more!) books, written by the same author, with the same main character, and some secondary characters that appear in more than one of the books. HOWEVER, the main storyline/plot of each book in the series can stand on its own. If you read more books in the series, you may find out that the main character finally marries, gets a dog, has kids, etc., but those details do not hold hostage the main storyline/plot of any single book in the series. Michael Connolly's Harry Bosch books are a good example. Harry Bosch is a homicide detective in Los Angeles. Each book is about one murder that gets solved. Through the series of books (which, by the way, are excellent and some of my favorite books), Harry has different partners, different girlfriends, etc., but each murder mystery stands on its own. Yes, when you're done reading one you want/hope there's another because they're so damn good, but if there's not another one, it doesn't detract from the story of the one you've just read and you aren't missing anything by not reading the next book if there is one. The Lincoln Lawyer, also by Michael Connolly (and made into a movie starring Matthew McConaughey), and its subsequent books tie in from time to time because Mickey Haller and Harry Bosch are half brothers. But when one character appears in a book that is part of the other character's series, there is enough explanation of "back story" that you don't need to have read the other book(s). A serial, on the other hand, is different. For those, you do need to keep going to the next, then the next, then the next, etc., until the main storyline/plot comes to a conclusion. Television shows (soap operas, Survivor, and Murder in the First - especially the first season of MITF) are like that, and comics are like that, but I personally am not aware of books that are like that. I'm not saying there aren't any, but I am not aware of them, and they certainly aren't the norm. I read close to 350 books a year, so if serial books were common, I'd be more aware of them. Then, of course, there are books that were originally written with the author not having any particular intention to write a follow-up. Oh, the author may certainly be thinking that s/he would like to become a serious, wealthy author of many books, but when writing his/her first book, there was no thought to a sequel to that particular story. Or maybe the author is planning another book, but doesn't mention it publicly. (When you read a synopsis of the storyline to determine whether or not you might be interested, there is no mention of the book being the first in a series.) The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan is an example. I bought this book in Kindle format in July 2011 (it had been published in May 2011) for $0.99. Great book. Even after I was done reading it, there was no mention of a second book. Then, in August 2014, Ms. Chan published a follow-up book entitled The Mill River Redemption. Did I have to buy it to find out the ending to the first book? No, of course not -- the first book was done, and the second book has a totally different storyline. But, I did buy the second book (for $5.99) because I had so enjoyed the first. A year later, another Mill River book was published -- The Promise of Home: A Mill River Novel, also $5.99 in Kindle format. I bought it because I had thoroughly enjoyed the first two and knew I'd also enjoy the third. But, let's take the Mill River books as example of what Pawprint is talking about. Let's say that in July of 2011 when I got the original book, The Mill River Recluse, I downloaded it to my Kindle, but didn't get around to reading it for quite a while because, like Pawprint, I have more than 2,000 Kindle books. So, I finally decide it's time to read The Mill River Recluse -- and it's January of 2015. When I get done reading the book, I discover that there is a second book, entitled The Mill River Redemption. Was there trickery involved? Of course not. But you would say that there was. I very much prefer to be me.

Kathy, some years ago I borrowed from the library Florence Nightingale by Mark Bostridge. An amazingly detailed, and somewhat daunting bio. In fact it had to go back before I had got half way through it . . . I didn't even reach the time when she went out to the Crimea. An amazing woman who didn't believe in germs because she had never seen one. But through her belief in cleanliness and order greatly she improved the filthy Army hospitals and once home, and prone on her couch, used her considerable influence to start training for nurses. She lived to be a great age and there is still a recording of her from about 1900.

The most favorite read in our house is a series of books by Clive Cussler. Note that as his book career advanced, other authors entered his fold. In some of the later books, he has lent his name to the title and cover, when it may have been written by another author. Many of his subjects are on a grand scale affecting large geographical areas, sometimes the entire world. His tales could be classed as science fiction, however, his ideas hold the potential of real possibility, rather than 'pipe dreams'. A reoccurring theme in some of his stories involves his son borrowing one of his collector cars for a date and then he gets chased by some baddies and the pristine car gets beat up.