Booking it!

I wrote earlier about how much I love the FREE Amazon Kindle app for iPhone.

I read somewhere that someone immediately went to Amazon and to the books in their wish list (or maybe shopping cart) and downloaded all the free samples from those books. I recently did the same thing -- kind of. I have way too many books in my wish list and cart to download all the free samples (usually the first chapter), and many of my books are old or out-of-print and thus aren't available for Kindle. But I got a batch! And then I read a bunch of the samples and if I wasn't interested in the book, deleted it from the Kindle and from my wish list. Fun!

Some of the books I sampled:

Speaking For Myself, the autobiography of Cherie Blair, wife of former British PM Tony. The Blairs fascinate me, and I will probably buy the book.

The Nine, Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. Believe it or not, I scooped this sample chapter up before the Sonia Sotomayor nomination, but that only made me more interested.

The Diana Chronicles, by Tina Brown. Now that Princess Diana has been gone 10 years, her life has faded a little bit in my memory, and reading about her doesn't feel as overdone as it did before.

Harriet Spies Again. Yes, Louise Fitzhugh has been dead for decades now, and this sample chapter didn't feel like her writing as much as the publisher perhaps tried to make it. But Harriet M. Welsch is one of my favorite YA characters, and being in her life again is almost worth it. Haven't decided yet if I'll buy this, but eventually I hope Kelly reads "Harriet the Spy," and then I will take her to New York to see Harriet's old stomping grounds. (Carl Schurz Park, anyone?)

The Sixth Wife. I really got into Jean Plaidy's series about the wives of Henry VIII, and this is one I have yet to read.

Grotesque, by Natsuo Kirino. I loved this Japanese author's "Out," about four women working in a Japanese box lunch factory who end up embroiled in murder. I have heard Grotesque is not as good -- that it's a little, well, grotesque -- but I like the writing style, and love reading about Japan.