Here’s a draft from 2011 that never made it to the blog…

If anyone were to take notice of my Now Reading Widget (you will find it in the left sidebar if you ARE interested) they might think I’ve stopped reading books. While not presently  up-to-date  it was my way of recording, for my own benefit, what books I had been reading.

Well the news is I haven’t stopped reading books; my ink-on-pulp consumption has slowed to a crawl it’s true (Patti Smith’s Just Kids being the only one since May that I can recall) however my e-reading has rocketed.

As someone with a relationship-denting number of books I would never have bet on me becoming an e-reader of books. Newspapers yes. Since acquiring a smart phone (no, not an iPhone) I’ve been taking the daily papers by phone with my morning cuppa since early in the year. The free (key word here) AG Newspapers app has been delivering all the UK and World dailies in one handy package since February. I can remember buying a newspaper 2 or 3 times this year.

So I’m an e-reader. Next stop the Aldiko eBook app, again, free. In this case I’m thinking is there anything worth downloading that’s free? Well yes there is.

In a matter of moments I am downloading the works of John Buchan, Conan Doyle, the Greek Philosophers and amazingly the complete works of H P Lovecraft. After I work my way through the Lovecraft ouvre, it’s RL Stevenson, Will Catha (check out Death Comes to the Archbishop), Ayn Rand, bales of 50′s science fiction, Meade Faulkner, Ambrose Bierce, Jack London et al.

Bookshops can be fun and secondhand bookshops even funner but books that once furnished a room now threaten to fill the room.

So what happened? Simply put, I’ve been enjoying the company of a small hand-held device (insert lewd joke here).

You wouldnt expect a ‘phone to change your habits that much would you but it has.