Getting into Reading

Ever since school, and as long as I can remember, I never read books. I used to like factual books, picture books and encyclopaedias, but I never read stories.

In the last year though, I’ve started to get into reading proper novels. I’ve taken advantage of offers in shops like The Works, three selected books for £5, not really knowing what to expect. Admittedly, there are several I haven’t read, but I have read a few, an they’ve been enjoyable. I seem to be drawn to crime novels, and have been unable to put them down.

More recently, I’ve discovered the free iBooks app available on the iPhone and quite a large number of free books available. I’ve already read a couple that have made good reading, and I’m in the middle of a third one.

I’ve also discovered Goodreads, where I can rate books that I’ve read and discover new ones. I haven’t yet rated enough to get recommendations, but they have a great app where you can scan barcodes of your books to add them to your goodreads library. You can then say whether you’ve read them, what rating you give them, and once you’ve read and rated 20 books, you will start getting the recommendations.

If you have an iPhone, download iBooks, and browse through the bookstore for free books. You’ll be surprised what books you can get that you don’t have to pay for. Many of the classics whose copyright has expired are available for free, along with a surprising number of modern books in all genres.

I used to really want the Amazon Kindle, but now I just don’t think there’s any need. On an iPhone you can also download the Kindle app so you can use the Kindle bookstore.