What 5…

books have influenced you the most?
Frank McCourt – Angela’s Ashes
Geri Halliwell – If Only
Rhonda Byrne – The Secret
James Clavell – The Children’s Story
Enid Blyton (all)

movies have influenced you the most?
The Notebook
Days of Thunder
Top Gun
Glitter
LoTR Trilogy

albums have influenced you the most?
Westlife – Westlife
Christina Aguilera – Stripped
Mariah Carey (all)
Aaliyah – Ultimate
Dawson’s Creek – Vol 1

Can a movie be better than the book it was based on?

Yes and no. Back when I first heard The Hobbit being read to me at junior school, I could imagine Middle-Earth and how it should look, then upon reading the LoTR trilogy I had in my mind what I thought it would look like. Then the LoTR movies came about… they were exactly how I imagined it. Absolutely fantastic. Hope The Hobbit is the same… !

I’m trying to think of a book I’ve read that was turned into a movie that was bad, I’m sure there have been some I just can’t think of any.

Audiobooks: Where do you buy yours?

I was chatting to someone on a book forum I belong to, about audiobooks. I’ve been put off audiobooks in the past because of whoever is reading the story. Some stories (like my faves my J.R.R. Tolkien would have to be read by the characters in the movies, because those movies capture how I imagined those books to be when I first read them).

Has anyone else been put off audiobooks for that reason?

Back to actually buying them; iTunes sell them but I’ve yet to compare prices with shops or online shops. I know of one mail order company here in the UK that does them (Listen2Books – but whenever I’ve bought from them, the cases always arrive broken so that puts me off).

I’m happy to buy online because I don’t really have the shelf space for more cases.

So, where do you buy from if you do?

Organising library on Kindle?

I have been making collections on my Kindle of books. Even though books are in collections they appear underneath the collections as an entire list of books. There’s nothing I can do about that, I just have to move the books into different collections (like read/unread/currently reading).

But, I have a problem with sorting them on my PC. I download from Amazon itself as well as Project Gutenberg and a couple of other eBook stores. All my downloads go to one folder. I use Calibre to convert formats (if necessary).

I then add all books to Calibre (from the one folder) and sync with the Kindle. Last time I did this a few days ago, I ended up with two copies of a lot of the books.

Help? A friend suggestion this site Kindle Collection Manager, has anyone used this? Should I try it? How do you organise your books on your PC?

Name a book that changed your life.

1. Geri Halliwell – If Only
2. Geri Halliwell – Just For The Record
3. Paulo Coelho – (all his books)
4. Clive Stafford Smith – Bad Men: Guantanamo Bay and the Secret Prisons

eReaders…

Which camp are you… the Kindle or some other device?

I have a few eBooks and I’m a huge fan of Project Gutenberg which has over 33,000 free eBooks with more being added daily.

At the moment I am using two apps on the iPhone – iBooks and Stanza to read eBooks, but sometimes the screen just feels too small. I don’t know very much about eReaders but have been doing a little research and found a wonderful device called a NookColor from Barnes & Noble (those of you who jump on spelling, it’s American hence the color not colour!) but don’t know if it’s workable here in England with the magazines/newspapers or the books. I also looked up the Kindle by Amazon. It looks good but I’m surprised by the fact that it’s still in black and white.

We’re in 2011. Black and white has all but disappeared. Why is a 2011 device using a format from the 1920s? People mention eInk and the fact these devices can be read outside in glare of the Sun, but surely the technology is there to make these things glare-proof and in colour?

I know most books are in black text with very few pictures. But there are books available with pictures especially the covers. Children would sure appreciate seeing colour pictures in their books on an eReader.

Maybe the technology is coming out… if the iPad (extortionately priced) can do it then so can the stand-alone eReaders.