A few days ago, Amazon announced two brand new stores for Kindle, bringing the total up to six individual destinations now. The two new countries added are Italy and Spain, via Amazon.it and Amazon.es. All three of my books are currently available in both, with any searches bringing up the results with Euro currency. Christine Blachford on the Italian store Christine Blachford on the Spanish store The two news stores join the recently introduced French site, along with the already existing US, UK and German stores.

As their Book of the Week recently, the iBookstore featured the new Michael Crichton novel called Micro. Except, it’s not really a fully baked Crichton book. I’m a massive Michael fan, Timeline is one of my favourite books of all time. Some of his later works turned out to be a bit hard work, but Jurassic Park, Congo and Sphere are all great pieces. I was very sad when he died and paid tribute to his back catalogue, before finding a new book of his - Pirate Latitudes. This one was practically finished and just had yet to be published before he died, so although I felt a bit weird reading it, it was understandable.

When Amazon announced their new line of products - ereaders and tablets all - we decided it was about time we became a Kindle-owning household. I’ve never really been fussed about the Kindle really, settling for the gazillion apps I have spread around the office. There’s never a time I’m very far from a book these days. Still, the new range of products made them more enticing, and as a Kindle book writer, we sort of needed one for testing. That’s the excuse I’m going for, anyway.

Amazon have launched a French Kindle store to go alongside their US, UK and German destinations. The new store allows Kindle users in France to purchase books from a dedicated .fr domain, rather than being redirected to their nearest store and purchasing in differing currencies. Along with the store, Amazon also launched a French-language Kindle, so that users can buy and read books in either language. You can find my three books on the French Kindle store here.

In the wee hours of the morning, I launched my latest book - Between the Lines. The book is the first in the new Formula Primo series - which you may know better as Life in the Fast Lane. It began as a simple ten part story, in which the readers could vote in which direction the next chapter would go. Now it has been expanded and improved to become Between the Lines.

When I formed my Life List reading goal, I decided the best thing to do was pick a list of books that would introduce me to new titles and authors. There are lots of lists scattered around the internet, but I selected one and got on with it. I set up a dedicated page to house the list, and link to the reviews of the books I read as I went along. Quite a lot of work went into that, particularly recently, when I changed all my reviews to exist on single posts.

Since writing my two-part F1 book and releasing it on Amazon as a Kindle ebook, many people have noted with disappointment that they don’t own a Kindle device. Yet one of Amazon’s best kept secrets is the many, many Kindle apps they have created offering the ability to read their ebook content on a variety of different devices. Even if you don’t possess a Kindle, you should still be able to read an ebook.

Fresh from my adventures with Shelfari, I’ve also signed up to Goodreads. I investigated them both and went for Shelfari simply because the website appealed to me more, but having had quite a lot of fun with one reading site, I thought why not double it? Goodreads does very much the same, although there are some things it does not do as well, and some things it offers that are far better. The basic review and rate, mark as read and collate your reading stats is very similar. Contacting and following other readers is a similar process and they both seem to have very sizeable book databases.

When JK Rowling announced Pottermore, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. The Harry Potter books are some of the few physical novels that I still own, and I haven’t wanted to dispose of them until I had an ebook copy to replace it with. It’s been driving me crazy, as I only own six of the seven books, and that gap on the shelf is hard to live with. However, I don’t want to buy the missing item, only to dispose of it later.

The second book of the 365 F1 Stories series was published over the weekend, and you can find more about it on the books page. It’s been quite the process getting these two books into being, and it’s not over yet. There are more things to do with those two, and more ideas in my head for further exploration. I hope to blog more about the process when I am able to think straight again.

A conversation on Sidepodcast briefly touched upon the subject of the best-selling business book Who Moved My Cheese? I remember reading it a while ago and being fascinated by the subject matter but having it suddenly brought to my attention, I thought reading it again would be a good idea. Luckily, Mr C owns a physical copy of this book, and you know why I say luckily? Because the thing is not available on the Kindle.

I’ve made lots and lots of New Year’s Resolutions before, both on the blog and in my head, and very few of them have worked out. This year, I changed the concept around completely and debuted the Life List - a long-term set of goals and things to aim at. Some are crazy, some are impossible, some are easy and most will take time. I figured a quick review for the year would be appropriate, with some thoughts on what is next.

Before today, I had brought my iPad to work with me three times, ready to read some books over lunch. I’ve been reading the Kindle App on my phone which is great, but it suddenly occurred to me that to other people, it probably looked as though I was staring at my phone for an hour every day. I was torn between being the type of person who stares at their phone for an hour, or the type of person who brings in their gadgety gadgets to show off.

I got to have a peek at the brand new Kindle today, and although I was expecting to want to steal it from my brother - who is the proud owner of the device - it actually turned out that I wasn’t that keen on it. I love the device from a distance, I love people that have a Kindle, and I encourage people to get one if they want one, but here are five reasons I wasn’t keen.

After a rather long week, Mr C and I decided to retire from our desks early last night and take to our respective books for reading. It was fun. Mr C is currently enjoying Joe Saward’s latest book - The Man Who Caught Crippen. At the moment, it is only available in paperback, and it’s the first physical book we’ve ordered from Amazon in a long time (and it may well be the last). Meanwhile, I am suffering through the final book of the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, via my Kindle app.

I’ve been a big supporter of the ebooks movement, but for some reason I haven’t actually been jumping on the wagon with the band until just recently. To start with, I had absolutely no time for reading, I wasn’t buying books, so although I flew the flag for digital novels, I wasn’t consuming them myself. Then I began to find time to read again, and now, I’m pretty much as converted as I knew I would be.

With the invention of the iPad pretty much scrapping any chance of me getting a Kindle any time soon, I’ve been starting to look at the concept of reading books on the iPod Touch. My first experience came only from seeing the words Doctor Who on an app in a top ten list somewhere. The Enhanced Editions, er, edition of Code of the Krillitanes by Justin Richards. It’s one of those Quick Read books, designed to encourage new or less confident readers to pick up books and get started.

Eight Songs The song choices are by far the hardest part. My mother left her choices on the previous post, and told me that it took her the best part of an hour to narrow it down to eight. I’m not sure how long I’ve spent thinking about this as I chose them over a period of several days, by writing one, then going away to ponder and picking it up again later. Here goes:

I watched the BBC dramatisation of Enid Blyton’s life yesterday, cleverly titled “Enid.” I thought it was a really good piece, and Helena Bonham Carter was fabulous - I adore the subtle aging process that I have only noticed now, watching back the trailer. I’ve seen and heard some comments from people concerned that the documentary has shattered their illusions of the books they read as a child. I can’t really see this, as all it does is show you that Enid Blyton was human. Perhaps that’s the problem?

Amazon have finally got around to offering up the Kindle to parts of the world outside the US, although at the moment it seems to still be a US Kindle. The UK site redirects to Amazon.com for purchasing, and you buy the device and subsequent books in dollars. It also ships with a US charger, which would need a converter. It seems as though this is a rush decision to capitalise on the markets eager to get their hands on a Kindle (ie. me). However, I’m not convinced. Buying in USD doesn’t really appeal, and I’m not sure how or if they’ll change that in the future.

Not only have I just uncovered a new site covering the world of eBooks, but it is a site that is asking for contributions. Yay! Starting from the beginning, I read the Random Acts of Reality blog which is written by an ambulance technician (I’m not sure they’re still called that, sincere apologies), and is a really fascinating read. The author, Tom Reynolds, also compiled a book on the same subject, and is now starting this new venture: Paper Not Included. There isn’t much on the site yet, but just the title got me excited.

An interesting thought about the Kindle that hadn’t occurred to me. I wonder how many people have not only fallen for the sheer alleged convenience of Kindle, but because it has filled their minds with works they would not otherwise have touched. Could Kindle be a way to re-educate the world? Could it help us to bypass those scheming, artsy book designers and finally be true to our own genuine interests?

_I was actually going to record this as a kind of video blog, but am missing a rather crucial USB cable that without it means I have to crawl around under desks and dismantle Mr C’s rather tidy cabling. I don’t think he’d thank me for that, but I feel the stories are worth sharing before they get too old, so I’ll post the transcript instead. _ This is also my way of teasing the fact that there may be more in the way of video coming soon.

LibriVox is an organisation with a simple goal - to make all public domain works accessible in audiobook form. I’ve been involved for a long while now, part of an enormous group of volunteers who record chapters, poems and entire books to attempt to reach this goal. My latest solo book has been catalogued: Grace Harlowe’s Plebe Year at High School. It’s one of those books that is probably aimed at young adults, but is secretly interesting to all. It reminds me of the Famous Five books, although perhaps the adventures are a little less mysterious and more humble. The story follows Grace and her friends as they navigate their first year through High School.

Sony has announced two new ebook Readers - the Pocket and the Touch. Specs, more pictures, and a brief review available on CNET. At least this one is available in the UK. Are you listening Amazon?

I was mega happy this afternoon after watching Tim Henman win his match - it had everything you could ever want, a Brit, some diving and some swearing, and a sulky Delta Goodrem, she’s famous you know! There was also a little bit of tennis going on as well… Now, I will talk to you about iTunes. I want to recommend it to each and every one of you. I scoffed when he first couldn’t sit still for the excitement about it, but now I couldn’t agree more. It’s fast, it’s easy and it’s relatively cheap (providing you don’t go mad). The selection leaves a lot to be desired but I think it has the scope to be massive.

The end of Friends - I’m stocked up with Doritos and tissues, just in case. I was driving home and it’s been a mega stressful day, there was nothing on the radio so I was flicking through all the stations. I have pre-programmed all of the available slots in my car, despite the fact that I never listen to them. So, I picked a completely random station and lo and behold, they began playing Backstreet Boys. I know I’ve grown out of them, but it was still kind of comforting to hear.