A year in Kindle

It’s been a year since I bought my Kindle. I wondered at first how much I would use it, if all the books I would want would be offered, and if I would end up like a kid, discarding my new toy after a few months.  Well, I used it a lot, it seemed that 99% of the books I wanted were available for download, and I never discarded the toy. I love it. I will say, unlike others, that it didn’t stop me from buying traditional paper/hardback books, though this happened less and less as the year went on. And by mid year, the only non-Kindle books I bought were for school.  When I am writing papers, I need to be able to flip pages, have many books open at once, etc. and the Kindle isn’t the best tool for me during this process.  I did have some design ideas when I first got my Kindle which now seem to be integrated into the new Kindle.  Oh well..that happens.

I have 89 books on my Kindle and thought I would share some of what I have read over the past year. I would love to hear your recommendations!

The books I would recommend most from the past year

1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  – read my book review post here.  Or my review from Amazon: I read this book faster than I normally do (and I read fast). This is the most amazing book I have read in a long time. I found it similar in style of the books And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts or A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr. This is not a book about cancer (although I have it) but a story to me about love and the medical community. I learned a great deal but thought it was all presented so easily for understanding but also in equality to both the medical community but also to the Lacks family. If it had not been for Entertainment Weekly’s profile, I may not have found this book. It is a must read!
2. The Emperor of All Maladies: A biography of cancer  .. an amazing book and so much more than just a biography of cancer.
3. The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest… loved reading this about various pockets of centenarians and their commonalities
4. The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun… Gretchen Rubin’s blog into a book. Incredibly honest look at personal change
5. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School .. I love books like this.  Cerebral but interesting.
6. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose .. from the CEO of Zappos.com Tony Hsieh.
7. Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat… pets do more than we know.

Some others ..

1. What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures — great Gladwell book. Not been the biggest fan of his other work.  I read Outliers this year as well and found it incredibly lacking.
2. Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America — usually her work is laden with research and interpreted facts. This book seemed like one big complain fest. It was awful and the lack of research was shocking. If I know studies she is referring to and she is consistently getting the facts wrong, well, I have a big problem with that.
3. What’s Next, Gen X?: Keeping Up, Moving Ahead, and Getting the Career You Want – such a waste of time to read. Don’t even bother.  A rehash of GenX stereotypes and other nonsense.
4. The Truth about Leadership: The No-fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know — I am a huge fan of Kouzes and Posner but this book lacked a lot of what made their prior works so brilliant.  It was a disappointing read.
5. Drive by Daniel Pink —  I loved Pink’s A whole new mind. I have read it 3 or 4 times.  But Drive, well, it just didn’t captivate me.
6. The Book of Awesome — was not awesome at all.
7. Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It — usually a Goldsmith fan (loved What got you here won’t get you there) but this book was just, blah. I never got into it.
8. Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?– what an awful Seth Godin book. I know many liked it a lot, but I found it incredibly repetitive, so repetitive that I wondered if I was reading pages and pages over and over again. Sadly, I wasn’t.
9. Quirkology by Richard Wiseman — another great book that made you think despite all the research etc. (which I love anyway)
10. Switch — by Heath brothers. Another fun read!!

Books from my book club that I joined late in the year

1. The Help – loved this book.  To find out later it is being made into a movie, well, that is just icing.
2. The Glass Castle – disliked this book a lot for so many reasons, I won’t even start.
3. Eat, Pray, Love – good book the first time I read it a few years ago. Second time, not as much.  Pairing it with the movie, which I thought was awful, even less enjoyable.

Books for escaping .. pure beach reads .. I actually read more of these than I thought I had after I started looking at titles

1. Deception: An Alex Delaware Novel – by Jonathan Kellerman. This is my go to guy – my favorite author of all time. He writes about one book a year and I gobble it up as soon as it is published.
2. James Patterson – Postcard Killers, Don’t Blink, Cross Fire, Private, Worst Case, 9th Judgment, I, Alex Cross.  Second favorite author for a little escapism.  It seems like a new book comes out every few months (can’t you tell?)
3. The Lost Symbol – read Dan Brown’s latest in one sitting, over the course of a day. Later, I realized how seamless reading on the Kindle really was and knew that I would be in trouble.  And 89 books later, books are still one of my biggest material weaknesses.
4. The Velveteen Rabbit. It was a free download and a great little book of love.
5. This is where I leave you by Tropper.  Random download based on a recommendation.  Great book – honest, real, and a bit heartbreaking at times
6. Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel – I can’t remember much about this book. Sad huh?
7. Sh*t My Dad Says – hilarious book!  I enjoyed it. The translation to tv? Not as good but a nice success story for the author.
8. Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman – I used to read Scottoline for her mysteries, but then they lost their appeal. This book was a fun departure and enjoyed the stories.
9. Open – Andre Agassi was definitely Open in his biography and I found it honest and unflinching.  The scuff he got for being honest was ridiculous but then again, everyone has an opinion.
10. The Scarpetta Factor – I hadn’t read a Cornwell book in at least a decade or so. The series started so amazingly and then, poof, it’s like she was phoning it in and I lost interest. This was a great read for Scarpetta fans but not sure I will pick up another.  The magic is gone.