This is my beloved Kindle e-reader. All my life I have been surrounded by books and I love reading. When I bought my Kindle nearly three years ago I wondered how I would manage the transition from paper to screen and, to my surprise, it was easy. In fact I have only read one `proper` book since the Kindle entered my life.
It is equipped with 3G and a keyboard which means I can go online to the Kindle store and order more books which are automatically downloaded. Using the keyboard I can search for volumes if required. I must admit I haven`t explored the keyboard facility much further.
I read in bed every evening – George says he doesn`t mind if I keep my bedside light on and, to be honest, he seems to manage to nod off fairly easily. I did buy a `cheapo` non-Kindle light that clips on the top but it caused great mirth one night when it popped off and hit a sleeping George on the face!
My sleeping pattern is very erratic and sometimes I will wake up after about an hour, switch on the light and read until I feel sleepy again. The light is not too good and I discovered (by accident) that by pressing a key I could enlarge the print. Great. I looked at the menu that had come up and saw `Speech enable`. Yes, I knew about that and thought it would be good to try it. This very tinny voice emerged immediately (with an American accent) and proceeded to read the page in front of me which automatically moved to the next page when the reader got to the bottom. Magic. The voice woke George up and he sleepily sat up and said `What`s that voice? Who`s talking?` I am always teasing him about his diminishing hearing but, to play a trick on him, I said I couldn`t hear anything. He got out of bed (it was about 1.30 am) and walked to my side by the window, still listening. He went on to open the window and listened again. By this time I couldn`t contain the laughter and `fessed up that the voice was coming from my Kindle. He grunted, got back into bed and was asleep again almost immediately.
I then hit on the idea of finding my small headphones in the computer case so went into the sitting room, rooted in the bag and fixed the headphones to the Kindle. Brilliant! I got back into bed really looking forward to be read to until I nodded off.
Oh yes! I nodded off indeed. At 5.30 am I woke up – voice still reading in my ears and, of course, the voice had automatically turned over goodness only knows how many pages in my Kindle!!! To be honest I don`t think I remembered a word that had been read to me before I dropped off and had to keep pressing the `Page back` button until I found my place again.
That will teach me to tease George won`t it? The voice enabled feature is being ignored from now on …
Gooseyanne's Blog 
I don’t have my own kindle, but I got my mom one for her birthday last years and she loves it. I sometimes fall asleep with music playing in my ears from the ipod. I really want to get myself a kindle too though 🙂
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Fine – just don`t fall asleep with it reading to you!
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I,ve had my Kindle about 2 years and would not be without it now. Like you Anne I always read before I sleep and if I wake up in the night. I too tried a light but I did not get on with it so ditched that….
Maybe it does not have the smell or feel of a ‘real’ book but once I have read a book I would rarely go back to read it again so buying hard copies is a waste of money..and via Kindle I have so much choice
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Yes they are brilliant. We have very limited space in our small home – mind you lots of art gear doesn`t help. So if I can reduce the space taken up by books so much the better. And our libraries are a shadow of their former selves.
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Poor George, being hit in the head by lamps and having voices talking in his head (thought that was only me 🙂 ). You are bad! 😀
What is the voice like, though. My Mom has lost most of her sight and the thing she misses most is reading. I was considering getting her the tapes for the blind but maybe a kindle would do the trick? Any thoughts?
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I have had books on tape – mainly used when driving long distances and the reader always reads with sensitivity giving intonations and meaning to the words – on the Kindle it is an echoing electronic voice with no intonations and has an annoying having of including quotation marks! I would opt for the tapes.
Yes, I am bad 😦 but it was so good to be able to fool George who is always teasing me and I fall for it, time after time. I suppose I have to catch him three-quarters asleep to get one over on him!
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Thanks for the input. Thought the voice bit might be as you said. I’ll still keep trying to convince her to go for the tapes.
Glad to hear the two of you get some good laughs in, even if George does have to be three-quarters asleep 😀
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By the way there may be other e-readers with better voices than my Kindle – might be work investigating.
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The Kindle Fire may have a better voice, idk. For the cost, it SHOULD have a better voice, lol. Frank had a problem with the Kindle voice too, and doesn’t use it — one would think they could get a better one for those things — he said it was too hard to listen to. Poor George — I was picturing the light popping off and hitting him and also you tricking him into thinking he was hearing ghosts, and I just had to laugh!
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Well you see Becky George is always teasing me and he does it so well that 9 out of 10 times he catches me out – and I don`t regard myself as gullible – so I was so pleased to get my own back! Mmm `ve looked at the Fire but don`t think I`ll go there yet – there are a whole lot of tablets and i-pads on the market so I`ll wait a while – no problems with my Kindle anyway (apart from the electronic voice).I
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Lol, glad you’re able to get a few good ones in now and then on George! You and Frank think exactly alike as far as the Kindle goes — he enjoys his as well, except for the voice.
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