Book Review: Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman, and a review of my first experience reading on a Kindle

Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman is supposedly a "remake" of Wuthering Heights. Having never read Wuthering Heights, I can't make commentary about how closely it ties into the original...but I can say that it was just ok...I really like having characters that I LIKE in the book. It doesn't have to be every character--that would probably be boring, but at least one that I'm sympathetic with in some way...and to be honest I just didn't care if any of these characters lived or died, realized they were in an abusive relationship or not, or just got up and walked away. Maybe I'll feel differently after a couple of days' reflection, but I doubt it!

Recommended for readers who love Wuthering Heights and like to read remakes of the classics or for Alice Hoffmn fans.

The second part of this post is a review on my experience reading a book on the amazon.com's Kindle. (click on Kindle at the left to be taken to Amazon.com's information page about the wireless reading device. It's very interesting to look at.).

I love it...I'm getting used to it but I love it.

1. It's lightweight,
2. It fits in your hand like a book does, only it's smaller and lighter
3. very easy to navigate (perhaps too easy to "buy" with 1-click purchasing),
4. the screen is clear and you can adjust the font size (not type) for your ease in reading (this is something I thought I would have problems with because I don't see computer screens easily without getting serious eye strain AND I don't like reading in small columns, but the text is very clear and reads "across" like a book would rather than an article),
5. you can bookmark and take notes, which is really cool...and then you can somehow file them however you want, but I haven't figured that out yet.
6. AND you can create a list of quotes, which I think might be a fun experiment at some point.
7. Books are cheaper than in paper, but you can't "pre-order"
8. downloading takes about 2 minutes.

Kinks:

1. The "next page" button is on both the right and left side of the screen. I keep hitting the left one to go back a page and end up going forward...that's been frustrating but I'll get used to it (the back page is right above the next page on the left side)
2. some of the formatting and editing isn't as precise as it should be (something I care about and David doesn't. I think it's an English major thing). For example, in the book I'm reading only 1/2 of a title of a book was italicized.
3. I "flip" around in a book and this isn't something you can do. You can't really tell how far you are from the end of a chapter (something I was looking for the other night to decide whether to stop then or wait 5 min and stop at the end of the chapter), though it does provide you with a percent completion of the book.

------all-in-all though I'm very happy I bought it and don't know how many new books I'll purchase in print simply because this is so compact and portable. It will hold approximately 1500 books...and I don't have but 1/3 of that on my "to be read" list :) And now I have room for at least another outfit in my suitcase in December! yea!