Ditto

I am bringing my kindle over to do a house sit next week, I have preloaded it from the Amazone store already, I just hope my "books" don't disappear when I hit Spanish soil. it's been hard not to get stuck in before my trip

There is no reason at all why you should have any problems with your Kindle. Remember to bring your charger though or you will have your reading time limited.

Great to hear that you are getting over fairly regularly.

Enjoy your visit.

Rosemary

Will I be able to load books up in Spain onto kindle from my rural internet connection which comes in via a small dish on the roof ?

Thanks Rosemary, I only wondered as on my laptop I had saved some films to watch over there, but when I went to play them I couldn't as they were only available in the UK... I was not best pleased, but I have now become a member of the internet Scrabble Club which can be played worldwide so I am at least assured of something to do should I get bored. I am looking forward to my trip, what's the weather like in Feb over Alicante way?? also coming back over in April.
Jan

You are supposed to be able to log into your Amazon account and download as normal as far as I am aware. Not tried it myself so hopefully someone else will be able to tell you for sure.

Feb can be a mixed bag really. Lots of really lovely warm days but I think that it can also have the last of the winter chillier days and some rain.

Rosemary

I suppose there are two completely different aspects to any book. One is in its role as a medium for delivering content, they other as a thing of aesthetic beauty.

Regarding delivering content, the Kindle (IMO) is much much better. It saves space when travelling, it is lighter in the hand (which is important for anyone with dexterity problems who may steer clear of weighty tomes normally), you can increase the font size (for those with eye sight problems), you can more readily look up words in the dictionary (good if you're reading something in archaic English or are a non-native), and it allows some additional features (background music for blocking out noisy chatter on trains, for example). It definitely beats a traditional paper book hands down.

On the other hand, who wouldn't rather smell, touch, and look at a row of dusty old books on a shelf or browse around a bookshop rather than scouting the torrent sites for freebies?

The same sort of argument has always cropped up when technology has changed formats. People still go on about vinyl being superior to the CD. The main different with books is that the quality of the content of the book is in no way affected by the change in format, whereas I suppose there is an argument for there being tonal differences between various musical formats. A good read is a good read, regardless of the delivery medium.

Personally there is room in my life for both. I prefer the Kindle for novels. It's a pain getting hold of books here in Romania and you either have to order them from Amazon (works out expensive for novels as the discount is lower than on large books, and the postage costs are the same) or buy them from local bookshops, which generally only have bestsellers or classics, but nothing in between. Now I have literally thousands of e-books to read and it has rekindled my love of sitting down with a good book (or rather, with a good read). I still spend the same amount of money per year on books, but mostly on reference books (cookery books and the like, where you want to see photos or diagrams).

How do people feel about 'lending out' e-books? On one hand, I think 'why shouldn't we?' as it's no different to a group of friends sharing a good book. On the other hand, it's not really 'lending' as a new copy comes into existence. In bygone years, if a friend told you that he had just bought and read an excellent book, you would naturally ask him if you could borrow it after he had finished with it. Only the lowest scrub would refuse and tell you to go and buy your own copy. But these days there seem to be a lot more high horses on the cyber plain.

Azarel, there is nothing better than a physical old book to read and a bookshelf weighing with the load of a collection.

I am so happy that Kindle will make out of print books accessible through the work of various transcribing sites, and have always found the ownership of recent publications nothing out of the ordinary. There are exceptions. I have a real world copy of a 'The Battlefields of the First World War' from the Imperial War Museum with its texts and photographs on CD. Online it would not be the same. It is just better to have some things in your hands, literally.

One good thing about lending an ebook, although I didn't know you could, is that the borrower can't bend pages or drop liquid on them

Plus if they don't return it, you've still got a copy.

I've had a few good books in the past but sadly most have disappeared over the years for various reasons. I had a complete series of bound Punch magazines from around 1880, another set of magazine from the Boar War detailing the campaigns, dispatches, and so forth (forget the name of it but I think it was 'Union Jack'), an early edition Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and a few others.

Hi Doris,
If you download Expat Shield Free (it's OK & SAFE, you can ignore any warnings from your antivirus prog.). With Expat Shield connected, you will be able to download progs on BBC iPlayer and watch them on iPlayer Desktop. How long it will take to download a BBC prog. depends on your internet speed.

that's brilliant Saxy, many many thanks for that info... I'll give it a go.. do I download it now while in Britain or when I get over to Spain? (sorry to be so dumb)

Give it a go now, then when you come over you will be used to using it!
Doris you aren't dumb, you just want to get it right!
I will PM you with my email address, so that if you have any problems we can sort them out pronto.

Thanks for that... I'll try it later today xxx

How did you get on Doris?

Ive downloaded it but not sure about what to do... do I search for I player and Blinkbox through expat shield when I am in Spain?? It's also asking me to make it my search engine so not sure about what to do there either, I usually use google for my searches... thanks in advance for your advice