Secret Pleasures

I mentioned earlier that I received a Kindle for Christmas. It is a wonderful toy and I think it's absolutely the coolest piece of technology since the iPod. The page/screen is extremely easy to read in all lights - even in bright sunlight -- and it is really better than a normal book when you are reading in bed.

I have to say too, that I am not really an Early Adaptor by nature. When I first heard of the Kindle, more than a year ago in an article about Oprah Winfrey in London newspaper, (she's a fan) I thought it sounded like a silly, experimental gadget. But it really is cool. It can hold something like 1,500 books and once I started playing with it, I found myself jumping from one to another, each time straight to the place I'd left off reading the last time.

But like all good things, it has a dark side: You can buy books in secret without anyone knowing.

This is huge. For many years after I had children, I had a terrible time buying clothes. My body had changed shape, and being completely gormless about fashion and cut and shape, I was lost when my previously easy-to-fit figure changed. I spent many, many afternoons wandering around Kingston-upon-Thames, Guildford, and Chelsea, in and out of Hobbs, Next, Whistles, Gap, Muji, John Lewis, Esprit, Top Shop -- you name it -- trying on all the wrong things and getting frustrated. Most of the time I would end up in Waterstone's bookstore cruising their "3 for 2" paperback specials instead. I did read a lot of books, but we ended up with far too many lying around the house and most of them were only just worth reading the first time.

But with a Kindle, no one knows if you buy books. How amazing is that? You can even delete the book after you've read it. It's probably not surprising that one of the main categories on the Kindle book website is Erotica. It is the perfect vehicle for any surreptitious reading. So here's a confession. One of the first books I bought was: Cherry Ames - Student Nurse by Helen Wells, which was a fun read, but I didn't tell Phil about it.

I first heard of the Cherry Ames books years ago when a boy at college started calling me Cherry Ames (Amy --> Aim (nickname) --> Cherry Ames, he insisted, due to my cheery personality which matched the heroine's). There are dozens of Cherry Ames books - Cherry Ames 1st Floor Nurse; Cherry Ames Cruise Ship Nurse; and even, Cherry Ames Jungle Nurse. The books were published between 1943 and 1968 and claim to have inspired generations of women to go into nursing. The covers of the books tell all.

Department Store Nurse??? Helen Wells' style reminded me of Beverly Cleary's books for older children (The Luckiest Girl, I remember was one) that I read as a child, and the nursing details were very cute, especially when they describe washing out the rubber gloves, winding bandages and the new high-tech iron lung. Cherry gets into scrapes, is told off by the grouchy senior surgeon for wearing blusher (she has naturally rosy cheeks) and almost falls for a handsome young intern. At the last minute Cherry decides that really, she is in love with nursing, which is a good thing because it's pretty clear that if she got married she would have to quit.

I spent half and hour last night cruising around the Amazon website downloading books. Loads of traditional classics, 19th century poetry and histories are all available for free. "This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers." . Well I am very, very grateful to them all. In my mind I imagine a dedicated group of people keying in all of Thucydides, George Eliot and Twain, but I'm sure in reality it is done in a much more efficient manner.