(no subject)

[bluflamingo]

I'm going up north (of England) in a couple of weeks for a few days' holiday, and will be flying because it's much cheaper and quicker than taking a train. I'll also be going with only what I can get in my cabin bag, since I refuse to pay half the cost again of the flight to check a bag.

As a result of this, and because my parents owed me a birthday present, I just bought a Kindle.

And realised that, although I own a lot of books, I don't really read books all that much any more, and hence have no idea what to throw onto it.

Help?!

I mostly read non-fiction when I read, especially the sort of pop-science/pop-history stuff that got popular a few years back. I've just finished Bill Bryson's account of a year in US history (and lent it to my dad, so I can't check what year!) and I've read some good stuff about women in the second world war, especially the spies. I like stuff about explorers, and women who take on physical challenges, and anything about science or language written for a lay person. Also histories of gay and lesbian people, and books about equality and feminism and women's rights movement. Fictionwise, I'm really picky, but I mostly like fantasy and crime. Or crime-fantasy. Police procedurals generally over private detectives, and definitely no little old ladies solving crimes. Female characters over male generally, and LGBT characters (or heavily sub-texty) if I can get them. Fantasy, I'm about halfway through the Temeraire series and loving it, re-read Garth Nix's Sabriel series until the books fall apart, and loved Trudi (Tracey?) Canavan's magicians academy stuff the first time I read it (then realised the main character is the classic girl who's special cos she's like the boys, and that all the characters except her are men).

Any suggestions for what I might download? Books you've loved? Good sites for searching for ebooks - I tried Amazon, but are there others?

And if you'd like to leave a couple of character names and a prompt with your suggestion, I will very happily write you something short in return!

Comments

[via_ostiense]

For nonfiction, I've been reading Barbarians at the Gate, which is about the RJR Nabisco takeover. It's engaging, but financial world shenanigans aren't everyone's cup of tea.

For fiction -- well, tbh, mostly I read fic on my Kindle. All hail AO3's .mobi downloads, as well as the local public library's e-book lending!

[via_ostiense]

Also, I read And the Band Played On last year, and it was gripping and infuriating by turns. It's a history of the AIDS crisis, and a history of the infighting in the medical establishment, New York and San Francisco gay communities, and apathy by the government. Fascinating and appalling at the same time.

[bluflamingo]

That sounds really interesting, I'll look it up. Thanks for the recs!

[shinya_diey]

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anna Frank
Dressed To Kill by Charlotte Madison
Memoirs Of A Geisha by Arthur Golden
Mercedes Lackey and her Heralds of Valdemar series
Lightening by Dean Koontz

I don't know how much is it to your taste (it's mix of the things you mention above) but I enjoyed those books. Unfortunately I don't know which sites are good for searching ebooks, usually I know what I want so I search for certain titles.

[bluflamingo]

Thanks! I've heard of Mercedes Lackey before, so I'll look her up now you've recced her as well

[sian1359]

It's a little unclear if it's actually free through the Kindle cloud on a kindle app for a mobile, since it doesn't actually list as available on kindle (and I'm a prime member, so a certain number of books are free a month regardless, which may be why it came up).

http://www.amazon.com/Infographic-History-World-Valentina-DEfilippo/dp/0007506155

And Baen has some of the their books available for free (changes every so often).

http://www.baenebooks.com

click on Free Library or Baen EBooks.

Current offering Agent of Change which is a long time favorite of mine that's science fiction/space opera story with romance (het but still enjoyable), and wonderful aliens and world building that's the first of a quite involved series.

There is also a Kindle community on lj (I think lj and not dreamwidth) that used to have posts about free offers of eBooks, but it's been pretty inactive lately (which is why I don't remember which comm or what it's actually called).

As a kindle owner, you should also get daily offers from Amazon (if you sign up for it) for super cheap book offers (usually .99 to 2.99) that are normally in four genres including non fiction, plus they'll let you know about big sales and free books as they come up.

[bluflamingo]

Awesome, thank you so much for all the links!