Interested in Kindle books in translation from around the world?

Amazon is giving away nine books in honour of World Book Day.  See the particulars at:

Amazon announces several free Kindle books for World Book Day

The free books are:

1. A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa, translated from Japanese by Risa Kobayashi and Martin Brown
2. The House by the River by Lena Manta, translated from Greek by Gail Holst-Warhaft
3. Still Waters by Viveca Sten, translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy
4. The Great Passage by Shion Miura, translated from Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter
5. Last Train to Istanbul by Ayşe Kulin, translated from Turkish by John W. Baker
6. The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan, translated from Russian by Yuri Machkasov
7. The Question of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak, translated from Indonesian by Laksmi Pamuntjak
8. The Light of the Fireflies by Paul Pen, translated from Spanish by Simon Bruni
9. Ten Women by Marcela Serrano, translated from Spanish by Beth Fowler

I had already purchased the Turkish one, but I got the other eight for free during the promotion, which runs through April 24th.  All sound very good, although I am particularly intrigued by The Great Passage and The Gray House.  We'll see.  I thought I'd pass this along, though.  If you need a direct link to the giveaway, go to their Read the World page.  To explore more to do with Amazon Crossing, which aims to bring world literature in translation to a wider audience, you can check out the Amazon Crossing page.

Enjoy!  😀

Well, I made it home

which is remarkable, as I'm on mile 16 of my gas light, and the car was idling a little funny while sitting in traffic. YKWIA wanted me to help him with something, but I won't have any gas money until tomorrow and couldn't take a chance of getting stuck somewhere, so hopefully he'll be okay. We do have plans together tomorrow, though. I had a fairly slow day at work, although I did help a co-worker who was having some trouble in Microsoft Excel by finding a partial solution in an e-book I have on Excel on my Kindle. I came home, opened the last of the tuna, and ate it with some mustard and dressing on crackers. Terminix is coming tomorrow, so I'm going to work on the dining room, which is covered in clean, folded but as-of-yet-not-put-away laundry. Most of the rest of the apartment is fine, except the bedroom, and I'll just shut the door to it. :) But I may work on that, a bit, too.

I'm having a little trouble with keyboards. See, on any given day I type on an ergonomic keyboard at work, a normal one at YKWIA's (although his has almost all the letters rubbed off, and even though I touch type, that can be an issue), a swiping 'virtual' keyboard on phone or tablet, a small Bluetooth keyboard for phone or tablet, the laptop keyboard, which is smaller than a normal one, but larger than the Bluetooth, and then there's the rudimentary keyboard on my Kindle. I think all of this typing on many different platforms is affecting my ability, because the placement of the fingers is different for each one. So if you notice any typos, you'll hopefully understand. Actually, the 'backspace' and 'delete' keys are reversed on the Bluetooth and laptop keyboards, and if I am at an odd angle (like now) on the bed, I touch the touchpad of the laptop accidentally with the heel of my hand, and bad things happen, indeed.

One last thing, for now: I want to wish my Uncle Ed and Aunt Sharon a wonderful 53rd anniversary. You make a great couple.

While I am somewhat mechanically inclined

it is sometimes a bother that I'm single and live alone. At first I thought my mattress was sunken on one side because, well, I haven't turned it in a long time, mainly because it's a pillow top so you don't flip it. On closer inspection, the middle strut that goes across the bed as a support has come off on one side (at least), and the bed rails are carrying the weight of box springs and mattress, which they're not really designed to do. This has happened before. The bolt and slide sometimes come off. My bed is almost thirty years old, after all, and in the past I've put things underneath it to help keep it stable. I can fix the problem, I know how, but lifting up the mattress and box springs on my own is not as easy as it once was. I should grab a friend and make him help, in return for all the rides I give him. Maybe I can do that this weekend.

For a moment today I thought it was Wednesday, which would have been great, as I get paid very late Wednesday night (officially Thursday), but, alas, it is merely Tuesday. My gas light keeps going on and off, depending on how it affects the sensor. I'm eating crackers, and I did find a pouch of tuna, too. One more day. One day more, as the song goes. Let's hope I can get to work tomorrow and back. Our cafeteria has been letting me get things because they know I'll keep track of everything on my phone and pay on Thursday. So I'm not in terribly bad shape. But aside from the crackers, a little oatmeal, the tuna, and some pasta and sauce, things are pretty bare, so it's a good thing I get paid soon, even though most of it will go towards bills.

I did get a nice surprise today in that the Apple e-book settlement has finally been approved, and that works for other vendors as well, so in addition to the $15 I've had added to my account in the past, I just got a $60 and some change credit at Amazon to buy Kindle books with. That's quite a bit in Kindle books. I think it automatically deducts from that balance before taking anything out of my normal 1-Click form of payment, but I'm not sure, so I'll wait until I get paid and there's money in the account before I buy anything. As far as I know, I can just buy e-books with it. It's set up as a gift card balance. Thank you,  Amazon,  and I guess thank you to Apple,  too,  or more appropriately,  the people who sued over e-book pricing.

We had a brief storm today that knocked the power out briefly at work, shut down the computers, which rebooted, took out the phones for a couple of minutes, and took down our time clocks. Fortunately by the time I had to go to that appointment, the rain and lightning had stopped and the sun was back out. I just couldn't clock out, so they'll have to put it in tomorrow for me. I took YKWIA to his appointment and then to the store to get a few things, and because, I suspect, I took my umbrella, it didn't storm any more. Yay! But it was nice to get a little rain, and the wind didn't take out my geraniums or anything.

Okay, I think I'm going to do a little web surfing and see what's going on in the world. I may write later, I don't know. What I should do is go for a walk, as it's nice outside, but I'm already in my sleepshirt and fairly comfortable, sitting in front of the fan, so I'm thinking, no.

UPDATE:
I read an article that said that the Amazon credit could be used for most things (not gift cards or subscriptions,  but Kindle books,  music,  and physical items are fine.). So I used most of it on a DVD of the Miss Fisher Mysteries,  series 2, a bag,  and a phone case,  all from my wish list.  It was enough that there was no cost for shipping.  I still have $1.92 left,  and when I get paid I have a couple of Kindle books that are $2 each that I want to get,  and that will go towards that.  And it does come off your balance first unless you choose another method.  Yay!

Today I:

• Finished The Epic of Gilgamesh.
• Downloaded some free bestsellers from Amazon onto my Kindle.
• Explored the Flipster magazine application through the library.
• Downloaded some songs from the library's Freegal catalogue.
• Hatched a Shade Wolf in Habitica, which likes chocolate.
• Went to PT, and I'm feeling much better than I had been, probably because of the work the therapist did and the fact that I'm doing my exercises better.
• Watched "The Empty Child" episode of 'Doctor Who', which introduces Captain Jack Harkness. :)

Now I'm home, it's after 1 am, and I need to go on to bed, plus my phone needs to be charged and it's the thing powering the hotspot I'm using to get online. So until tomorrow, good night!

I am glad I stopped by the library

after getting my allergy shots, as I had about a dozen books to take back, and they had a book in the new section that I've really wanted to read, but haven't been able to buy yet. It's called Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Pamela Smith Hill. I always loved the Little House... books by Wilder and also the television series, so I was happy to check it out. The checkout system was a little different this time; they've upgraded the screens and software for the self-checkout. I liked it, once I got used to the different setup (I continued when I should have scanned the book; fortunately it let me go back).

Once I got home, I immediately watered the plants inside and out, which were looking a bit peaked. Speaking of water, there is a large hole in our parking lot with caution stuff all over it that I presume has to do with the water pipes, because I received a notice that our water will be turned off between 10 am and 3 pm on Monday, which is fine with me--I'm at work. But for the night shift folks and others who are home for the day, that's going to be an annoyance.

Work today was very satisfying. I ordered 20 books for the library, about 10 for the family resource centre, and a bunch of children's books for the early literacy project. I'm glad I didn't have any trouble with the ordering software, which runs through Internet Explorer. I had to have them upgrade to IE10 yesterday because I couldn't run any search, even simple ones, in PubMed on IE8, and they said it could cause an issue with our purchasing system (hence why most people are on an old, old version of the browser), but everything went through alright. After lunch I got through all my sheets, OR charge reconciliation, and got the referral queue down before the report comes out on Monday. On Tuesday I have a couple of reports due regarding grant programmes, so I'll be very busy on Monday, finishing that up. :) On Thursday there's my ergonomic assessment, where they'll check out my desk and work area for problems that may be causing or contributing to some of my issues.

I don't have a lot planned this weekend, but we are going out to the Indian buffet at Masala in Beaumont tomorrow. Then there will be the store, and working on the game notes (although I may try to do the latter at least partly tonight). Sunday is the game. We're on a new adventure set in 16th-century Spain.

I also want to do some reading tonight. I'm reading a book right now that is pretty interesting, on how our mindsets affect learning and success. My counselor had suggested it, and I finally got a hold of the book from the library. Then the other day I found out I had a credit from Amazon regarding the e-book class action suit, and used it to get the book on my Kindle, as I suspect I may want to refer back to it again. It's by a psychologist named Carol Dweck, and is called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. I'm finding it very insightful regarding my own mindset and life.

Okay, my back is hurting somewhat, so rather than taking some ibuprofen, I'm going to try to stretch out on the bed for just a little bit (without going to sleep). That often helps.

I just

Slogged through all of Amazon's top 100 free Kindle books,  plus 40 pages of other free ones,  and downloaded about 33, if you count the parts of bundles individually. Then I had to go to 'manage content' to download some of them,  because it won't do more than ten at a time,  apparently. I am now pooped. Good night!  :)

Not surprisingly

with the sun, and my feet up, and the timed meditation gong that I had on my phone, I got very, very relaxed. After the attempt at meditation was over (I am terrible at it, but the very attempt does relax me), I fell asleep for a little while. I woke up about an hour later, which wasn't too bad, but then struggled to actually stay awake and get up. So, I didn't make it to the library. I'll have to do that later in the week. I have a few days to pick up that book, which sounds interesting. It's called Snow-Storm in August: Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835 by Jefferson Morley. I have a flip desk calendar that suggests books to read, and this was the one for yesterday.

I also have a book out from the library on my Kindle called Shooting Victoria: Madness, Mayhem, and the Rebirth of the British Monarchy by Paul Thomas Murphy. And then a regular book out as well No Job For a Lady by Carol McCleary, which is a fictional mystery with famed journalist Nellie Bly as its protagonist. So I have a lot of reading on my plate for now. Plus I'd like to check out McCleary's Alchemy of Murder (also Nellie Bly, but with Jules Verne and Oscar Wilde in it), as well as a book I started but didn't get to finish before turning back in, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe.

So, to that end, I'm going to read until it's time for bed. Good night.

Whew!

I sat down at the computer and started finally compiling a list of all the books I have on the Kindle, or at least each file (several have books within a collection). It's taken a couple of hours to get the formatting and sorting right, but I'm finally finished. If you'd like to see, feel free to follow this link:

Eilir, the Rabid Librarian: My Kindle Books

The entire time I've been listening to the cable Celtic music channel, and I'm apparently pretty decent at recognising singers. For example, the Chieftains came on with 'The Lowlands of Holland', and even though Natalie Merchant was not listed on that, it was her singing, I realised, and I confirmed on the web. I also recognised a band I really like, Battlefield Band, playing their version of 'Ballad of Accounting' from their album Dookin'. I really like it:



It was written by Ewan MacColl in 1964, according to the website Ballad of Accounting. The lyrics may be found at the following page http://www.balladofaccounting.org/ballad.html. This is the version by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, which is excellent:

I'm looking at the forecast for tomorrow

and it looks like the weather will be warmer both during the day and night, with no chance of rain, so I think I will put off the laundry until then. I have something I can wear for tomorrow. So far the only other thing planned is I may go get a friend after work from the doctor's office so he can get to a meeting on time. So tomorrow night should be good for laundry.

Once the dishwasher is finished, I'm going to work on the plastic containers and other handwashables. Then there's the stuff from the car to put in a container (in the case of the air mattress) and some other things to go into the walk-in closet. I'll go ahead and get the laundry ready for tomorrow, too. I'll scrub the shower once I get back into shorts, as I don't want cleaner on my new jeans. That leaves the fish tanks. I can definitely work on vacuuming the large one, but my vacuum is too big for the small one. I need to get a tiny one for its gravel. But I can at least do a water change.

While I'm waiting for the dishwasher, I think I'll do some reading. Amazon has a special today only on several Kindle books that were less than $2.99 that are usually quite a few more, and so I downloaded a few. I got Neil Gaiman's American Gods, a collection of all of Agatha Christie's short stories, a collection of Ray Bradbury's short stories, and the digital version of a book I already own, Sophie's World a novelised history of philosophy that YKIWA introduced me to years ago but I didn't read completely and should. They also had The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, quite a few others. One I refuse to read, as I also refuse to watch the movie--Old Yeller. Anyway, if you have a Kindle, you might want to check them out, but they're only that price for a few more hours. Also, I found a Lucy Maud Montgomery collection that has all but two of the Avonlea books plus other writings of Montgomery's. (The two aren't licensed for electronic distribution yet). I figure I can pick them up later, when they are, and for 99 cents the rest of the collection was a good bargain.