+1. And also everything by William Gibson. Stephenson and Gibson are two peas in a literary pod as far as I’m concerned.
+2! Looking forward to being able to watch the 3d series.
All the horse-racing-themed books by Dick Francis. “…in the six-furlong distance the dark green starting gates opened in unison and spilled out their brilliant accelerating rainbow cargo.” from Proof.
The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.
All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot.
The Cat Who… mystery series by Lilian Jackson Braun
LOVE the All Creatures books. I only keep physical books that I love and I have that whole series.
Another series I totally forgot about was The Book Of Swords series by Saberhagen. chef’s kiss
And of course…Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingles Wilder.
Mom read these all the way through to us (back to the audio books before audio books). When the power would go off in the winter in Northern NY, Dad would pull out the wire pop corn popper and pop some home grown pop corn in the wood stove that heated our whole house. Afterwards he would peel an apple or two with one long peel. We would all gather round the wood stove and mom would read a chapter of Farmer Boy (we grew up in the town the book is centered around). And then would would beg her to “read just one more chapter, mom”. Those were some of the great times of life!
Given that you like that wonderful series, you would probably like Sleepers, not the American crime drama, but a British dramedy set during the Cold War. Similar British wonderfulness.
Dang, I was fixing to mark this thread off my reading list until you mentioned an author that I read everything I could find on Amazon Kindle. Too many to list anymore.
Books that I’ve purchased on Amazon Kindle. Search Amazon using the titles which I copied directly from their pages. There are harder versions that one can buy and put on a shelf or store in a box until you decide to give them away.
Yes, I know all about Amazon and Kindle and etc. It is how I can read to relax in my old age.
Some of these books I was able to check out from a library in the ‘60s (when I wasn’t old-of-age.)
Most of the out-of-print/copyright stuff on Amazon comes from Project Gutenberg:
(though Amazon does (did?) have a division in the Philippines keying public domain texts and doing page composition for them, and hiring out to do page composition)
For folks who listen to audiobooks, there is also Project Librivox, through the quality can range through almost professional as mentioned above for Little Fuzzy through unlistenable due to technical issues.
There is also “Standard Ebooks”, which produce high quality proofread versions of public domain works, if you’re into that kind of thing:
For what it’s worth, the Kindle has had a measurable positive impact on my life in several ways.
Given the volume of books that I read, storing physical copies would be impossible.
‘Click to buy’ and always having a device nearby has also made it easier to read whatever and whenever I want.
‘Whispersync’ is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I live 40 miles from work so I’m in the car about 1.5 hours a day. I can listen to the audiobook version of whatever I’m currently reading, and my progress will sync to the ebook version (and vice versa).
So when I pick up my kindle in bed at night to start reading it remembers where I stopped listening, and when I get in the car in the morning and fire up Audible it remembers where I stopped reading. OK, I end up spending more than I would like buying both versions of a book, but you usually get a discount on the audiobook version or I just use some Audible credits. If you are a reader and have along commute there is literally nothing else like it.
I have been a member of Audible since its inception and had a deal where ai got 2 books per month for $12. They tried several times to get me to switch to one of their newer “better” plans that only gave me one per month. Just recently they simply canceled my subscription and told me I had no choice but to switch. They gave me a year of free service to soften the blow but it still sucked since I supposedly had a lifetime subscription but of course can’t find the 25+ year old emails to prove it.
When my brother died I inherited all his audible content as well. He was a much more serious sci-fi fan than I was but I am working through some of his content. One of his favorites that I have not tried yet is We Are Legion. Between the two of us I ended up with over 500 titles in my library now.
I used to have a 40 minute commute to work and actually looked forward to it so I could listen to whatever my current title was. Three years ago I switched to a job where I work from home and lost a lot of my listening opportunity. Much of that has been replaced by time spent taking my daughter to/from the barn which is 35 minutes away for her horse lessons.
Not sure when Audible first started buy I joined in 2010. The plans have definitely gotten worse over the years. I think I’m currently a “Premium Plus” member, which is 24 credits a year for $229.50, which is about $9.50 a credit.
A lot of times when I buy a kindle book there is a deal on the audible version for less than $9.50 so I go with that when I can.
Just counted and I have 700+ books in my library.
For a while I was also doing “Libby” for ebooks and audiobooks:
I would use this with my local library card and I also managed to snag a NYC library card during Covid as there was no residency requirement. Wait times for books aren’t too bad.
But Whispersync is just too convenient, so I’m pretty much on Kindle/Audible full time now.
