Book Log 5/2011 - Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice

[jacey]

5) 3/3/11
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
Ebook (via Amazon Kindle app for the iPod Touch)

This is it - I'm all caught up with my 2011 book logs now. You'll have noticed a Regency theme running through my recent reading, so after the last Georgette Heyer, which was pretty banal, I thought I should go back to where it all started.

Though knowing the story of Pride and Prejudice well enough from various TV and film adaptations I don't think I've actually attempted to read this since my school days, when I hated Jane Austen with a passion. I can't even remmber if I ever got through it (the one I had to read for school was Northanger Abbey, so maybe not P & P) Though I can't pretend to love it unreservedly, as so many of my friends do, there's a lot to recommend it and I enjoyed it immensely for what it is. It's too well known for any review I might add to cast any new light on it, so I'll spare you.

This was the first full length book that I've read on the iPod. Unlike the Kindle it has a backlit screen, which makes it perfect for me to read in bed at night. BB is disturbed by light, even relatively innocuous (to me) book-lights, so a small, lightweight backlit screen (as opposed to a real Kindle) is very useful.

I do wish that if you have a legitimate print copy of a book that you could buy the e-book format for a nominal price. I'd love to be able to read the print copy in the day time and read a chapter in bed at night on the iPod. Unfortunately with the Amazon price of ebooks being extortionate (in some cases more than the print book) I won't be abandoning print books any time soon.

Yay for Project Gutenberg. I've currently got Captain Blood loaded up for bedtime reading.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

iPods are brilliant for reading in bed, aren't they? Advantages include only needing one hand outside the duvet on cold nights and being able to read under the quilt if necessary (avoids disturbing light-sensitive sleeping partners).

I've actually read more novels since getting it compared to when I was just reading paper books. Project Gutenberg is a wonderful source of classics. I actually use the Stanza ebook reader for epub format books. It's free and there is a desktop version that converts a number of formats from .doc and .txt to .epub, which means that you can read all sorts of stuff really easily.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've downloaded Stanza as well and was wondering how to get doc files on to my iPod to read. If nothing else it's a good way of reading my own stuff with a fresh pair of eyes while I'm finetuning it. Thanks for the tip about Styanza desktop. I've just downloaded it.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I've used the Stanza desktop program to convert documents to epub so I can read them for critiquing. There is also a app called Office² for iPhone and iPod Touch which will open MS Office files. More information here.

It's not free, but it's useful if you want/need to be able to read Office files on the iPod.