During Lock Down Mark II and even before, I have been reading my Kindle a lot. I sit on the balcony for a time engrossed in my ebook, only occasionally looking out to note the lack of tram passengers, pedestrians and motor car traffic. The endless parade of empty trams is depressing, although it is good to see so many out exercise walking. It does get a bit cold at times so I don't stay out for too long. For some reason I don't really read Kindle books inside the apartment.
I am a serial reader beginning as a cereal packet reader at the breakfast table as soon as I could read. My maternal grandfather was pleased with my reading efforts and told me I would never be bored if I enjoyed reading, and I think he was right. While I don't do it, if I have a good book I could just sit and read and read.
My father was a great reader and as a lad would read under his bedding by torch light hours well into the night.
So what do I read? I used to read a lot of worthy books to educate myself but I enjoyed acquiring the knowledge too.
In Kindle days it is mostly novels. For a while I was hung up on spy novels set during WWII and later. For most of what I read I paid $1.99 per download.
Before that I started reading Irish writer Martha Long's at times distressing
autobiographical series starting with "Ma, he sold me for a few cigarettes". Each one in the series became more expensive and I was really annoyed and I stopped at about half way through the list. It is not so much that I object to paying, but the the increasing price that annoyed me.
Over the past couple of months I have worked my way through the detective crime writer
Helen H Durrant's books. I initially read some out of order, but I sorted that out by the time I arrived at the Calladine and Bayliss mysteries. I really enjoyed her books and amazingly I can download them for free from Kindle Amazon.
I have another crime writer now who I will work through, David Hooks. I've read two of his books and while initially I wasn't so keen, they hooked me in. These can also be read for free.
However, it was time for an interlude and for some reason the book
Mandingo came up as a suggested book. Was it is movie or a tv show? The book is really good, but I struggle with some of language of the south. No matter the context I still haven't worked out the word pizen? If the prices are correct, I am surprised at the price of buying a human. When was it set? Early or mid 1800s? Back then any kind of half decent mature black slave would cost upwards of $1,500. Undeveloped may have been cheaper. A fine and very fertile male specimen, maybe $5,000! That is an awful lot of money for back then. Perhaps this was near the end of slavery and prices were high. You really have to put aside your modern sensibilities to enjoy the book.
Then another free book popped up as a suggestion, local comedian and actor Denise Scott's autobiography All that happened at Number 26. I am really looking forward to reading it.
Ex MI5 or MI6 author writes great books, but I have to pay maybe $13 to read them. I am not sure why I baulk at the price when I used to pay $30 for a paperback.
I was looking at David Bowie biographies and there is one that sounds pretty good, the last one written. It too is around $13. For my October birthday I will ask R to buy it for me, along with a bottle of Scotch when the inevitable and normally unanswerable question comes, what do you want for your birthday? If I really wanted something, by my age I would have bought it already. The rest is just icing.
Yesterday I also relearnt how to record the tv to a memory stick and I watched a moving documentary about twin brothers who are doctors and work in infection control in London hospitals and one contracted COVID.
We went to Prahran to pick up medications, bought a salad roll and coffee and sat in Prahran Square to eat and drink. Later I went out for my exercise walk and bought another cup of coffee and sat on the steps of a building to drink it unmasked. The weather is warming up and masks are becoming uncomfortable. R bought shields a couple of weeks ago but we haven't used them and a tv story told us tonight they are next to useless. Must wear a mask!