Hubs and I each have a Kindle, and we both love them! We are both avid readers, so our Kindles get a lot of use. When we travel, we always take books with us, and the books that Hubs reads are generally hard-bound, so bringing three or four of his books along makes for a heavy and bulky carry-on bag. But our Kindles will hold at least 1,500 books (each) in a nifty device that weighs about 8 ounces. It's so easy and convenient to have the Kindle with you at all times. If you have to wait at the doctor's office, you aren't stuck reading really old magazines that aren't of any interest to you (sorry, but Field and Stream isn't on my "must read" list); if you're stuck waiting for the bridge (in Sacramento, we have the Tower Bridge, which goes up/down, and the I Street Bridge, which turns) to allow river boats to pass, you've got something with you to read to pass the time (waiting for the I Street Bridge is at least a 15-minute wait), etc. When you're reading a book, and you turn off the Kindle, when you turn it back on again, you're right where you left off. If you leave that book and go to another, when you return to the first book, you're right where you left off. You can add your own notes/annotations. You can subscribe to magazines and/or newspapers, and they'll be automatically downloaded to your Kindle. You get a free 14-day subscription to the newspapers and magazines, to see if you want to continue with a paid subscription. (You can even get international newspapers!) Now, I'd like to respond to a few things that were written above: "Yes, books cost the same as in store. if the book is available in paperback- paperback price."" Not exactly correct. To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, the cost of Kindle books can vary widely. Some books actually do cost a little more in the Kindle edition than they do in a print version. But that's relatively rare. Most books are significantly less expensive in the Kindle version, and most of those are less expensive in the Kindle version than in the paperback version. There are a huge number of Kindle books that are $9.99, there are a lot that are more than that - depending on the cost of the print edition; and there are a whole lot that are less than that. Some Kindle books are free (all of the old classics are, but many new ones are, too); some are $1 or $2, some are in the $4 to $7 range, etc. I recently purchased the following: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - $6.77 The Girl who Played with Fire - $7.59 The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - $9.99 By the way, those prices are the same for the Barnes & Noble Nook. "You can share books/magazines with up to 6 other Kindles or PC's. PC app is included." Yes, you can "share" books/magazines with up to 6 other Kindles or computers, but only if those other Kindles are registered to the same account. My husband and I each have a Kindle, but mine is registered to my Amazon account and my husband's is registered to his Amazon account. We cannot share books/magazines between our Kindles. The PC app isn't exactly "included" when you get a Kindle. You can download - for free - the Kindle application for your computer/laptop, BlackBerry, MAC, Android, iPad/iPhone; but, again, your content will only show up in your account so you can't transfer it to a Kindle registered to another account. But, I can take our laptop and read anything of my husband's just by going to his stuff on it. :-) If you read a few pages of any book on, say, your BlackBerry, then you go to the Kindle, the Kindle will be automatically set to where you left off reading on the BlackBerry. "Back-lit for easy reading, even in direct sunlight -- only reader with this feature." Yes, the Kindle can very easily be read in direct sunlight. Absolutely not correct that it is backlit. If you want to read your Kindle in the dark, you will need an accessory light for it. Regarding text-to-speech on the Kindle -- it is not available on all Kindle books. But, when you look at the description for any of Kindle books, it will tell you if the text-to-speech is enabled. So, if you have a book with the text-to-speech feature and you want to use it, you simply press the Aa key (this is the one you use when you want to change the font size). You will then get a window which, in addition to allowing you to change the font size as well as the screen orientation (portrait to landscape), allows you to turn the text-to-speech ON, and you can also select whether you want to use the default male voice, or the female voice. You can also accept the default speed, or make it faster or slower. There are little speakers built in (look at the bottom of the back of the Kindle), or you can plug headphones in (port is on the top). You can adjust the volume level by a toggle switch on the upper right side of the Kindle. When you are using the text-to-speech feature, the "pages" of the book are automatically turned. You can also load MP3 songs on your Kindle and listen to them, but I haven't done that because if I want to listen to music, I'll use my MP3 player...

Virtually all of the books I have read in the last few years have been recommended here. Just a few stand-outs, ones I certainly would not have discovered on my own: The Far Pavillions - M.M. Kaye Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner Cloud Atlas - I had tried to read it, put it down as inpenetrable, tried again for a discussion here and now it one of my all-time favorites Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - like many people, I was not going to read it because of the hopelessly twee title. Have read it twice and am busy looking up the many literary references in this beautiful work. Harry Potter series - another work I wouldn't have read if RP hadn't liked it. Just about everything by George MacDonald Fraser, particularly his MacAuslan stories PG Wodehouse - his work needs no commentary from me! A great deal of poetry that has been posted over the years Paul Gallico - I would not have run across his work on my own. I'm sure I'm leaving out a lot of great stuff. It's fun to think back and remember.

The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier (1969) I first read The House on the Strand the year it was published, 1969, not knowing or caring what genre or subgenre it was considered to be. I have since learned it is classified as science fiction/fantasy, neither of which I usually like a whole lot. It's a good thing that I was then ignorant of such classification because I might have passed over The House on the Strand, a story that has given me immense pleasure in reading and rereading over the years, as well as contemplating it at times between readings. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to write a full-blown review of THotS for this thread, so I looked through some of my earlier notes and writings about it and found a summary that I wrote in May 2005, something that I probably posted here at Reader's Paradise. I can't believe that was almost nine years ago! Reading through that piece again, I think it remains pretty much what I still think after yet another rereading. So below is what I wrote then: The House on the Strand has been classified as science fiction and fantasy, neither of which I ordinarily like a whole lot. Okay, I will concede that the story has elements of science fiction and fantasy -- after all, the main vehicle of the story is time travel. However, I will venture that the main theme is capturing the essence of a time and place in the past, in a way that we as moderns can never quite grasp even when we really and truly want to. Daphne du Maurier used her own house in Cornwall as the focal point for imagining not only its history but the history of the region and its inhabitants during the first half of the fourteenth century (just prior to the Black Plague) -- a brilliant stroke, in my opinion, and one that makes me trust her storytelling more. Not that I expect this story to be a "true" history, but I find that the details of the landscape, time, and characters have the right feel. So much so that I, as a reader, am right there with Dick Young, the twentieth-century protagonist, as we accompany Roger Kylmerth, our guide and the original 14th-century owner of du Maurier's "Kilmarth," on his rounds of the surrounding countryside. Roger, a steward to the widowed Lady Joanna Champernowne, the primary landowner of the region, has the advantage of being able to insinuate himself into all camps. Roger is not always a sympathetic character but he is all the more real for it. Likewise, our contemporary Dick is not always sympathetic: he's married to an American woman who has two pre-teen sons from her previous marriage. We get the feeling that although Dick might love his wife and he has a certain fondness for his stepsons, he would probably do just as well -- or be as happy -- if they just disappeared from his life. He's between jobs and is ambivalent about his wife's plans for him "on her side of the Atlantic." Thus, he accepts his old school chum's offer to take a breather at his family...

Sheri, I listened to the song and I like the singer's voice and the music, but I'm not sure that I would've ever picked up on the association of that song with Silverstein's book, except for the title. Was it something that immediately came to you? I'm wondering now if the book was actually aimed at children or adolescent readers in the first place. I know it was marketed as such and can be found in children's sections of bookstores and libraries, and the illustrations are cartoon-type drawings that might draw young readers to it; but somehow it doesn't seem like a story that would arrest many young readers I've known, except perhaps the most sensitive and perceptive ones. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems more to me to be a book for adult readers that just happens to look like a kids' book. After reading the synopsis and reviews of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, I think I'll give it a pass. Iris, I think leaving out Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a shame, but luckily his popularity isn't dependent on some snooty writers' list. I suspect that most of the lists by writers who claim such-and-such classics influenced them are disingenuous. If they weren't afraid of appearing less than well read, they might admit their main influences were more along the lines of pulp fiction. Ever notice how similar these danged lists always are? I think they just copy each other.