Surfing the internet is great, but in my current pregnancy moodiness, I found Pinterest and blog-hopping becoming more and more depressing, since I can’t actually DO any of the amazing ideas I was finding.
So I took a break from those. At the same time, I came across a scripture that I love: “Do not spend…your labor on that which cannot satisfy.” Yeah. For me, right now, the internet is NOT satisfying.
So, of course, I turned to reading. Since I’m immensely lazy (and just plain immense at 33 weeks pregnant), I don’t make it out to the library much anymore. So I turn to free books for my Kindle app.
After reading a post by Shannon Hale on her upcoming Austen-ish book, I read Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen. Hilarious. The narrator is my favorite character in it.
Then I turned to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, I do imagine Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law as I read it, since I saw the movies first. There’s a ton of interesting comparisons between the two.
Sherlock Holmes is, in a lot of ways, an easy read. Simple story, same narrative structure almost every time, and interesting. But I kept tripping up on words and phrases I, not being from that time period, just didn’t understand.
And I LOVE the instant dictionary in the Kindle App. Highlight a word and the app will look it up for you. If that doesn’t give you anything, there’s a link to Wikipedia that usually does. I wouldn’t bother looking up half the words I did if I had to do it manually. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this feature.
The only drawback is that you can’t look up phrases. Which is a bummer, because there’s occasional lines of French in Sherlock Holmes that I never looked up. *See comment on immense laziness above.
I am very close to getting a Kindle myself, since I’ve been spending more and more time reading on my Kindle app and less time reading physical books. And since more books are available free through OverDrive at the library.
Alicia Brown the Writer 