Kindle surprise…

I’ve gone on about my Kindle before, but as I’ve been working from home for a few weeks, there’s a few books that I’ve read over that time which have been a break from the norm in terms of what my normal reading matter is.

Book of the Year so far is still My Autobiography by motor cycle road racer/television presenter Guy Martin, It’s sheer coincidence that the latest series of Speed with Guy Martin finished at the weekend, but as I’ve taken a good look at what’s on television for the next week and found the selection of programmes to be even worse than what’s been aired over the last three weeks, then it’s probably a good job that the Kindle has been loaded with a few books that I haven’t got around to reading yet!

So, the TV has been switched off several times over the last few weeks. There have been two or three nights when I’ve fed the DVD player with Terminator, Terminator 2, Total Recall, Young Montalbano or Julien Temple’s London The Modern Babylon, but for the most part, the Kindle has come into play big time.

I may have taken (and failed!) an A-Level in English Literature, but I’m not an avid fan of fiction, yet Starter For Ten by David Nicholls and The Montalbano Mysteries by Andrea Camilleri have whiled away a few hours. The former was made into an enjoyable film with some fine talent in early roles by producer Tom Hanks a few years ago and the Inspector Montalbano television films have been one of BBC 4‘s success stories in recent years.

The book versions of Starter For Ten and the three Montalbano Mysteries definitely differ from their screen counterparts. Some deride screen versions of books, but I’ve found that out of all of the books I’ve read after seeing the film or television version first, only one has disappointed – Bridget Jones’s Diary!

Caroline is a fan of both the book and the film version of Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, whilst those who have known me for a few years know that I have a certain affinity with both the book and screen versions of High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.

So much so in fact that it’s probably the film that I’ve seen on the big screen most times – in either the UK or in Norway. (The last time I saw it in the UK was as part of a Q & A night with Nick Hornby in Newcastle upon Tyne when I made him smile by telling him that Climber magazine had just made it their movie buy of the month rather than Vertical Limit!).

What’s next on the agenda given the state of play on TV? The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stephenson, A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan and The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.

The first is the most recent, but it is a known quantity thanks to the recent Helen Mirren film of the same name. The others are all classics of course. I switched off the modern film adaptation of The Three Musketeers on Film 4 recently, but the others have been read (and seen before in the case of the Robert Donat version of The Thirty Nine Steps and the Robert Newton take on Treasure Island) and they all are long overdue for another reading.

Will it be at home or elsewhere? Who knows, because there’s a week’s break in the diary for next week, but no plans have been made – yet! One thing is for certain – some of these books didn’t cost me anything to download onto the Kindle!

Freebies, don’t you just love them!