I always wanted to belong to a book club so a year or so ago I joined one with a few local moms I met on a mom's site. The best part is they are now my good friends. We actually met today to discuss our latest book. We do have a few favorites that I want to recommend. They are all books that we were able to discuss at length, and they are books that have stuck with us long after we read them.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - we saw the movie together too
World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - we are going to see the movie together also

We go to Barnes & Noble, enjoy a coffee, discuss our last book, then look at the books on the tables to pick one. But we check it out from the library to save money. Besides reading good books, we get together for good conversation and eventually get around to talking about the book.

I just finished a great book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It's historical fiction about the lives of the people in Guernsey during the German Occupation during WW2. I loved it and couldn't put it down! Another favorite of mine is "Water for Elephants", it's about a man who is a circus vet during the depression. I'm about to start "South of Broad" by Pat Conroy, he's one of my favorite authors.

I am always reading so I'd love to have a book club to share books with!!
Karen

hulagrl - the one you just finished is one we looked at. I'll make sure to put it on our to read list!

Karosel - I just finished The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls!

I am now reading A Team of Rivals, The Genius of Abraham Lincolnby Goodwin(?).

I use a Kindle 2 and it does not give the entire title or author name after I purchase it. It does (so contradictory) somewhere, I am just too lazy to figure it out later to put it into long term memory!

I love my Kindle. It recharges with electricity, simply plugging it into one of the outlet in my home. I can only purchase books through Amazon Kindle Books. Easy to google to see the choices are huge and the prices for books are much less than if I bought them new. Some older books can be purchased for $1.

Might be comparable to getting them slightly used.

I can look online by computer or by my Kindle. WiFi is built in so I can look anywhere, in a airline terminal or in a park, etc.

It loads a sample for free to read the beginning chapter or so. At the end, I can either buy the book or not. That is a cool feature. It holds a crazy amount of books.

It also had a built in dictionary. My favorite feature.

Cost is initially high but book costs and lightweight and convenience. Really it is simply amazing. (Can you tell I am VERY happy with it?)

Thanks, Erin. How long does the battery last?

So it is like a phone, and it just goes to a nearby tower?
Our tower up North is only 2G so far, and maybe it won't work?
My husband's laptop was very slow this summer, for example with his 3G card.

I can see a distinct advantage for heavy big books...which hurt my hands.

I read the 4 huge books in the Song of Fire and Ice Saga...by George R.R. Martin. These were immensely interesting. And they had over 1000 pgs each. A Kindle would have been nice for them. It was quite the addicting series of books...far better than Harry Potter, and more adult IMO. The violence was bad at points, but still it was a neat thing to have for the long cold wet vacation, that the weather dished up for us. The magic was subtle, so it was rather like historical fiction. George Martin is really a good writer... you can imagine it all in your head easily.
I love books like this with easy visualization. This book series will be on HBO as a series starting in 2010. They are casting it now, and all his fans are awaiting book FIVE... its been 4 yrs in the making!

I read "The Lovely Bones" a few years ago and it was good.

Right now I'm reading "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan. It's a true story of a woman going through breast cancer and treatment. So far it's good. It was a New York Times bestseller and it's an Oprah book club pick so I figured it would be good. I've read several of the books she has recommended over the years and I've never been disappointed.

Another one I read not long ago is "Love in the Time of Cholera" another Oprah pick and very interesting and different.

I have another new book that I started but it's very disturbing, a book of short stories called "Say You're One of Them" about suffering in Africa from poverty, all short stories from different children's points of view. I got about 15 pages into it and had to switch to a different book, that one is very real and very disturbing. I will go back to it though, maybe next summer when I can get sunshine and it won't affect my mood as much.

The battery on my Kindle1 seems to last a long time. I probably charge it every couple of weeks, unless I forget and leave the wireless turned on. The wireless is a battery drainer, but as long as you're not downloading something, you dont need it turned on.

I do tend to leave my Kindle turned on a lot, sometimes for a day or two (it goes into a screensaver/power save mode) and not seen the battery life drop much. Not sure if the K2 is like that.

I'm not sure how often my dad charges his Kindle2, probably about every two weeks like I do.

I know I've been able to go longer than 3 weeks without charging my Kindle, but that was during a short time where I wasnt reading much (had double vision at the time).

I looked up that author you mentioned on Amazon. He's got some of his books in Kindle format. I might have to download a sample or two. (I love sampling books on the Kindle!)

The thing I really like about my Kindle, is that I can go to the Gutenburg Project on the internet, (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page) find a book there that's no longer in copyright, and copy/paste it into a Word document and then email it to my Kindle (wirelessly, or I can download the document to my computer so I have a copy saved) and then read it on my Kindle. I think if you have it wirelessly sent to your Kindle, there's a fee (looked it up, 15 cents a megabyte...not bad) or you can have the document sent to your email for free, and you just download it onto your computer and use the USB cord to transfer it over.

I mentioned that I read a lot of fanfiction on the internet. (fan fiction is fiction written by fans for the fans of particular tv shows...some of it is total crap, and kind of creepy, and some of it is really good, just as good as commercially bought books...just depends on the author and if you can find someone who's got talent that writes in a fandom you read) I've sent a lot of fanfiction to my Kindle.

I've even sent crochet patterns to my Kindle. I really like all the different ways it can be used.

about the question on whether it's like a phone. It cant be used as a cellphone...but it uses cellphone towers for transmitting the books between Amazon and the Kindle. I know my Kindle (the Kindle 1, which is no longer made, now that they've come out with the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX) isnt on the 3G network, but all my books that I've gotten have always arrived within a few minutes of ordering. I've ordered a book at the same time my dad has on his Kindle 2, and both our books arrived at about the same time. (yes, I'm geeky enough that I tested it)

I think, that I'll go read my Kindle now...or nap...which ever wins out first.

We have been watching the Kindle... for our purposes on vacation...where we are very remote, it would be handy.

How long does it take to charge? We have no electricity (it is an island 1.5 miles into Lake Huron), except for a little generator. We charge our laptops and MP3 and camera batts at the laundromat when we do our clothes. They have 3 outlets there. Anything past 2 hours would become a problem. We have a fast charge Sanyo charger for AA and AAA.
This year I am going to try Eneloope batts for the camera since they discharge so fast and are a pain. Or I might get the new Sony super 20x zoom with its lithium batt... it will depend on the $$ situation next spring.

Carrying boxes of books is a pain in the you know where.
So far I buy books at the book sales in town, take them up there and then donate them to the library up there. It can be alot of work carrying things back and forth, esp now since we are getting old and less physically capable.

I really appreciate the Kindle info, Erin.

You know, I've never timed how long it takes to charge the Kindle. I'll have to ask my dad if he knows how long it takes to charge his Kindle2. Since I think it has a different type of battery than the Kindle1 does.

I just read Debbie Macomber's 9th book in her Cedar Cove Series. Great Series!