This photo was taken in Stroud at St John the Evangelist’s Anglican Church in New South Wales, Australia. It is an old grave with an inscription no longer able to be read.
For more on the church visit:
http://www.stroudfriends.org/
read
From My Armchair: 4 August 2012
I am into my last days of annual leave, so it is doubtful I’ll be able to read anywhere near as much as I have this last week. I’ll probably have the Kindle out at lunch for a bit, so I’ll still be getting some reading in even while I’m at work. The Kindle has certainly made it a lot easier to have good reading material available no matter where I am. Loving the Kindle.
Social Networks, Web Applications & Other Tools
Not a lot has happened with the social networks in the book/reading niche over this last week, except that I have been updating Goodreads on a regular basis as to what I am reading, progress and cataloguing the books as I go.
I did do a quick addition to Quotista, which has a lot of potential but doesn’t appear to be being developed any further, which is…
View original post 446 more words
Read Today: Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
I finished reading this book today.
Treasure Island was the first major novel of Robert Louis Stevenson. It was first published in 1883 and has remained a much-loved book. First penned as a story for boys, it was as a young boy that I first came across Treasure Island. It was the first real book that I ever read – certainly of my own choice. If I remember correctly, the copy I had was a small book, not much bigger than my hand and illustrated throughout. The illustrations weren’t coloured as such, but I think I may have started to ‘colour them in’ as I read the story several times. The name of the ship, ‘Hispaniola,’ came back to me in one of my first compositions at school. In that early attempt at writing I wrote a story about piracy and a ship called the Hispaniola. I believe I was written into the story, along…
View original post 434 more words
Reading: The Bourne Identity
Today had been quite unpleasant outside. It has been pouring with rain at times, then not. When it hasn’t been it has been blowing a gale and it is also quite cold. It’s bucketing down yet again. So very little has been able to be accomplished outside today. No great outdoors for me on this wet and miserable day.
I have been spending a bit of time, as a consequence of the weather, reading ‘The Bourne Identity,’ by Robert Ludlum. I haven’t read the Bourne series of books before, but have seen the movies many times. I’m a big fan of the Jason Bourne movies. However, having seen the movies it has been difficult to some degree reading the book. The book is very different to the movie, more so than what ‘The Hunt for Red October’ was to the film version. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still enjoying the book and will try and work my way through the other nine books (I believe there are now 10 books in the series).
So I’m making good progress through the first book and as I said, enjoying the read. I’m hoping to complete it before the end of the week, which I think I can achieve relatively easily. I’m approaching halfway through now – on the Kindle. I was only 10% through it a couple of days ago, so progress is going very well.
Instapaper: Saving Articles to Read Later
Reading: The Hunt for Red October and Jason Bourne
I am a big fan of Tom Clancy novels and in particular the Jack Ryan series. A number of years ago I read all of the novels published in the series up until the time I moved house and so for the last 5 years I haven’t read any new ones. When I moved I decided I needed to clean out some of my books (and I have a huge library), so I figured the majority of my fiction books could be cleaned out. I always regretted moving the Tom Clancy novels along, though I figured that at some point I could reclaim them as ebooks, which I am now beginning to do.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to start reading the series again – right from the beginning. I hesitated as to what order I should read them, given that Patriot Games really was set before The Hunt for the Red October, but then settled on the order of the novel release order – so Patriot Games will be next. So I purchased a copy of The Hunt for Red October from Amazon. Of course I decided I might as well watch the movie again, as something of a comparison/contrast. That sort of thing intrigues me you see. I own a Kindle, so I purchased the Kindle version (which can be purchased via the link above).
So having read the first few chapters of the novel I decided to watch the DVD movie (which I have watched a number of times since purchasing the DVD some years ago) again. Now have refreshed my mind by re-reading the entire novel, it is not so much a comparison as a contrast. Certainly there are common threads and similar plots, but there are a large number of differences between the book and the movie. Still, both are quite good in their own right.
So Patriot Games was going to be the next book in the Jack Ryan series and this was to be read next. However, having read something about the 10th book in the Jason Bourne series of novels I thought I must read those also. So to break up the Tom Clancy books I’m going to be reading the Jason Bourne novels also. In fact I have just started the first in the series (again, quite different to the movie), The Bourne Identity (by Robert Ludlum).
BookYap: Book Recomendations
I am about to start using a new web application called BookYap. Put simply, BookYap is an application that recommends books based on criteria you enter. There are over 650 000 books in its database, so chances are it will find a book for you.
You can search for a book by using keywords or the filters it has available (based on personality types). By becoming a registered user, the application learns more and more about you and your reading habits, improving the recommendations it makes for you.
Books appear with thumbnails of their covers and book ratings. A brief description appears by hovering over the thumbnail. You are able to interact with the application and associated community by sharing books you have read and your reviews of them. There is connectivity with both Facebook and Twitter also.
You are also able to add books to a reading wishlist if you like. Books can be purchased from Amazon when you choose a book to read.
Visit BookYap at:
http://bookyap.com/
PDFse – Ebook search
If you are looking for a book and want to see if there is an ebook version, you should probably try PDFse, which is a search engine for ebooks. These days you can read ebooks on a reader or on a laptop with pretty much the same convenience as that of a normal book. That’s my view anyhow.
Have a look at:
http://pdfse.com/
How to Use StumbleUpon
The link below is to a tutorial on how to use StumbleUpon. It could be a useful read to some people. I use StumbleUpon quite a bit – very useful web application and social network.
How to Use Usenet
The link below is to a tutorial on how to use Usenet. It could be a useful read to some people.
Kevin's Daily Photo, Video, Quote or Link 
comments