ilovehungary

Hi everyone, I am a new member to this site and I must say it is the best ex-pat site I have seen. My husband and I moved to Hungary in 2005 to (retire) yeah, so we bought a small farm in a nature reserve on a National Park and have never worked so hard. Anyway we love it here and will not be leaving anytime soon. We have just got our permanent residancy,(that was a breeze) as is nearly everything else here. I reiterate what "anonimouse" says about the health service, we have found it to be excellent. Anyway I just thought I would let you all know that I have had many a chuckle over some of the threads here, only because I have found similar problems, vinegar, Kumin, luggage. My biggest problem is that I am an avid reader, but in my rural location cannot find any books in English and they are so expensive to buy and have posted here, does anyone know of a book club, or market where I can buy English books, I really would appreciate some help with this as it is nearly time to hunker down for winter again and it would be so nice to read something I havent read at least 6 times before.

Shotgun

What sort of books do you read?
Perhaps anyone coming from UK could bring some if they are in your area.
Where abouts are you?
What else is unavailable?

Sue

Hi ilovehungary,

I don't live in Hungary (I am in the US) but I wanted to pop by and say hi. I hope you enjoy being part of our community. We've got wonderful members here and I'm sure you will have fun getting to know them all. Rural Hungary is a Concierge for the Hungary forum so please feel free to give her, or myself, a shout any time you have any site questions.

Welcome again!!

ilovehungary

Hello Shotgun, Thank you most sincerely for your reply, we live in the Bacs Kiskun National Park, around 30km from the city of Kecskemet. on road 52. I read mostly biographies, in an ideal world, but I have got to the point where I read anything that comes my way. I can buy second hand books on e-bay and amazon, but the postage is what makes this type of purchase so prohibitive, especially when the poor books end up lighting the furnace in the winter. If any member has an overload of books though, please don't throw them out, we could set up an exchange system. Or I could simply buy them off you if you are close enough to me. Everything else we need, we can get really, but if anyone else has any wants or needs, I would love to help if I can.

ilovehungary

Sue,
Thank you for taking the time to welcome me to this site. I am very pleased to have been accepted as a member. Sometimes it can get a bit lonely out here in the sticks, although we are usually too tired to take any notice of the fact that we havent seen another human for a few weeks. Ha Ha we love it here and have made many new and loyal friends.
Hopefully we shall make even more friends now that we belong to this site. I have a feeling of friendship already, that is so nice. Thank you again.

Rural Hungary

Hi ilovehungary and welcome to the forum. Which part of Hungary are you from as if you are near Keszthely, the expat club has a huge selection of English books which are free to borrow

An alternative is the book depository - www.bookdepository.co.uk prices are comparable with Amazon yet they offer free worldwide postage and the service is excellent.

Hope this helps

Rural Hungary

Hi again, I see you have already replied as to your whereabouts :-) Quite a distance from the club so not a practical solution. I can't promise anything but.... were you willing to pay the postage via Paypal or similar, I could ask Brian (who runs the club) whether I could borrow a selection of books on your behalf and post them to you, when you have finished with them you could post them back and I will return them, perhaps every month or so?
In the meantime, I have quite a selection of biographies and books on China, Afghanistan as well as most of the classics; if you wish to borrow some

FenTiger

Have you thought of buying an e-reader? You can download English books from various websites. Amazon have got this amazing (pardon the pun) e-book called Amazon Kindle. From what I have read on reviews the format of reading the pages is like a book. If you have a note-book you may also be able to download books too. Though I doubt if a note-book would be as comfortable as the Amazon Kindle. There are also other e-readers on the market. The Amazon Kindle comes with wifi or 3G (more expensive though).

Rural Hungary

No, no, no Fentiger, that is just sooooooo wrong

I am firmly in the camp that nothing compares to snuggling up on the settee with a "real" book. The feel and smell are something that no electronic reader can ever replace

Only kidding, I do however prefer a real book but have on occasion downloaded ebooks and wondered whether kindle would make them more enjoyable to read, the price however has put me off finding out!

ilovehungary

Hello Fen Tiger,

My husband keeps on to me to buy an e-reader, but I just cannot help but feel that it will not feel like I am getting the feel of book, author etc. I did investigate the kindle a couple of years ago, but found that you had to have a contract with them to download books, also I found at the time that because I have remote (GPS) internet (microwave or something, I would not have the download speed required. However, it may be worth looking into again, perhaps things have moved on since then. Thank you so much for your message, I really do appreciate these replies, it is giving me options I hadn't previously thought of.

andyg73

Hi
If Szekesfehervar is easier to get to, I can sort you out with some books from the Comenius library - I set up an English section there, which includes a whole bookcase of novels and a shelf of biographies. There is also a second-hand shop in the town centre with lots of English books for 300 forints each.
Cheers
Andy

FenTiger

Rural Hungary & ILoveHungary - okay, okay, I see what you mean by liking the smell of well thumbed books! But surely would this not solve the problem? The new Amazon Kindle is so much better than previous versions and has had rave reviews. It doesn't seem to be good enough for downloading newspapers. And it's true that there are some issues with the Amazon Kindle, i.e. limited choice of books but as I have not got one I could not tell you whether this is true. However, it's well worth looking at if you are desperate.
The only alternative is for this Hungarian forum to list books you have read and want to pass on to others who might like to read them.
I have been tempted to buy one but I have quite a few books which I purchased in a book sale for 50p and have yet to read them because I haven't got the concentration to read all the way through! Also I have enough gadgets here at home I don't think my wife would be thrilled for me to buy another one! Eeekk!

ilovehungary

Well I have to say that I am overwhelmed by all these caring responses, my brain has gone into overload. (not difficult at my age I assure you) You have all given so much valuable information that I am fair buzzing with excitement at the prospect of reading something new. The thought of this site listing books for give away at only the cost of postage, seems to be a very good one, perhaps we can persue this, I would be happy to build a database of everyones books and receive and pass on requests. It would however mean giving addresses to each other I don't know if that is outside the forum rules, but hey I only been here a day, what do I know.

ilovehungary

Andyg73
How kind you are. What a lovely gesture. I will get out the map and see where you are. Thankyou

ilovehungary

Andy it looks like you are around 130 miles away, not just a short hop for this time of year, but for a summers day out it would be lovely, if your offer is still open next summer, I would love to take you up on it, thank you, I could also visit the second-hand shop in the town.