Category: kindle

How I am Going To Add Variety To My Reading This Year

I feel this year is going to be a slow reading year this year and being a compulsive book buyer I am always acquiring more than I read so I was doing some thinking about how to explore my library and get the most from it. I am a dual media reader having both digital (Kindle and audiobook) and phyiscal copies of books. The audiobook library is fairly easy to nagivate, as is the physical, but the digital library is a big pain to navigate through 6000 + (shocked me too!) books. You never remember every book you buy and most get lost in the shuffle.

I had a brainwave! I will make a spreadsheet of my library and from that use a random number generator to help choose my next read. To my surprise there is no quick and easy way to export your Kindle library. So for a few hours I had to scroll the entire library until it loaded every book and then select all, copy & paste. Unintuitively it pastes as a single column and for example the titles were odd cells and the authors even. So after a chat with AI (one of the few times I have used AI with success). I discovered how to create smart filters and be able to select the data and copy and paste them to be how i wanted it. To my surprise it worked.

I am happy with it and I have decided to colour co-ordinate my library with default black being purchased books, blue being docs (mostly books purchased elsewhere online) and red being manga.

I have tried it a few times and as you can see from my notes it has thrown up an interesting mix of books. Many I have forgotten about and not looked at since I purchased them. It will be fun to see what books it throws up when I decide to use it.

I will try to keep my library updated going forwards, it will only be laziness that prevents me.

Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books by Hwang Bo-Reum

First book of the year and an enjoyable and quick read, it took me a week because I have been dipping in and out of several others.

This book is interesting to see the authors relationship with books and reading and how it is a part of their life. Each chapter focuses on another aspect of the authors relationship with books, discussing the impact of title chapters title e.g. Reading Aloud vs Silent, Reading Several Books At Once or Reading Widely vs Depth. What I like is the author discusses the matter and provides quotes from other authors or books that made them ponder the question, as such there are lots of references and books. Being Korean it is a shame that not a lot of the Korean references are translated to English yet.

A nice little read and one that can make you think about your own relationship with books and reading.

A Maigret Christmas by Georges Simenon

Having read this one 4 times already and being very familiar with it. I still find it very enjoyable. The other stories are great introductions to Simenon’s non Maigret works. I do have to dip my toes into that, I’ll try to read some next year.

A Maigret Christmas
Maigret is asked to investigate a curious incident which happened Christmas night in the apartment block opposite his home. A very fun and enjoyable case, nice to see a more domestic Maigret and the case was very enjoyable and the ending is very bittersweet and heart warming. Festive with the typical Maigret humour.

Seven Small Crosses In A Notebook
A police dispatcher/responder has a night shift involving a murder/potential serial killer and lots of smashed police telephone boxes. An enjoyable story set wholely in the communications room where the dispatcher gets involved in the investigation of the crime. Very good story, characters and plot.

The Little Restaurant Near Place des Ternes
A suicide in a restaurant and a woman trying to stop a young woman being taken advantage of and used by a group of local toughs on Christmas Eve. A common story of Christmas collections, I have read this several times (also in Penguin Christmas Stories). Its a bit more darker than the others but a typical Simenon with excellent characters.

All in all a superb book and almost brings to a close my Christmas reading for 2025. I just have three books to finish before New Years Day (Anthony Trollope, Louisa May Alcott and Scandinavian novel).