Books

What was your first Amazon purchase?

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Inspired by @mikko I just looked at my first ever Amazon order and: yup, that’s 14-year-old me. pic.twitter.com/cAuNzAoKAj

— Alex Hern (@alexhern) July 4, 2017

I saw this tweet on Tuesday about your first Amazon purchase. Amazon, of course, remembers your order history going back to when you first registered an account.

My first purchase was in May 2003, a few days before my 19th birthday. I actually blogged about it at the time. I bought Just for Fun (sponsored link) by Linus Torvalds, the memoirs of the creator of the Linux operating system. Although I wasn’t, and still am not, a great reader of books, I did actually read this book – it kept me occupied whilst on holiday with my parents over the summer. I remember a few things from the book, but not much.

The rest of my purchases from 2003 were a couple of textbooks that I needed for my undergraduate degree course in Computer Science. One was about TCP/IP networking, and the other on software engineering. I’m sure they’re significantly out of date now. Oh, and I bought Shrek on DVD (sponsored link).

So what was your first Amazon purchase?

Goodreads

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Screenshot of my profile on Goodreads

I probably don’t need to tell you about Goodreads, the social book recommending web site. After all, it’s used by millions of people, including over 50 of my own friends. But I am anyway.

I only recently joined Goodreads – recently being a year ago. For many years I didn’t read books; I didn’t have the time or the inclination to do so. But since restarting my Audible subscription last year, I’ve become more interested in books again. The advantage of an audiobook is that you can listen to it whilst doing something else, such as housework or commuting. This gets around the issue of not having time to sit down and read.

Goodreads became a good way to catalogue the books that I’ve read, and find new books to read. As you read and review books, Goodreads can recommend other titles similar to those that you’ve read. You can also see what your friends are reading, and what they thought of the books they’ve finished.

Goodreads integrates well with Facebook, and so you can see what your friends are reading without having to add them as friends separately. Friends can also be imported from Twitter.

Whilst originally independent, Amazon purchased Goodreads in 2013. Consequently, you can link up your Amazon account, and this allows you to import your previous Amazon book purchases. This is quite helpful if you’re new to the site, as it allows you to import your books in bulk.

As you’d expect, there’s also an app for iOS and Android devices. This includes a barcode scanner for adding books to your lists.

You can find my profile here. If you know me, feel free to add me as a friend if you haven’t done so already. I’ll continue to review books on here from time to time – right now, I’m listening to The Long Earth (sponsored link) by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.

Getting started with Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books

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The Discworld Reading Order Guide 3.0 - a chart showing all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books and what order to read them in

Last Monday, I posed the following question to my Facebook friends:

Let’s imagine that you have a friend who has read a few Terry Pratchett books, but none of the Discworld books, and would like to start somewhere – which book would you recommend?

This friend has also seen the Sky TV adaptions of Colour of Magic, Light Fantastic and Going Postal.

And this friend may also be me.

27 comments later, and I received a useful list of starter books:

  • Guards, Guards!
  • Wyrd Sisters
  • Pyramids
  • Equal Rites
  • Mort
  • Reaper Man
  • Going Postal
  • Soul Music

Of these, ‘Guards, Guards!’ was the most popular suggestion, and so that’s my next audiobook on Audible. I’m about 30% of the way through it already. It’s okay – it’s narrated by Nigel Planer (aka Neil from The Young Ones), who does a good job. However, the breaks between scenes could be handled better. I think I found Good Omens to be a funnier book.

Discworld is a bit like the Marvel Cinematic Universe; there are lots of books that follow different groups of characters. There are several books with which you can start with, and some of these coalesce into a larger story. There’s even a diagram, which I’ve included above.

You could, of course, read the Discworld books chronologically, starting with The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, but I gather that these aren’t Pratchett’s best works. That, and I’ve already seen the TV adaptations so I know the plot.

I will probably read another of the starter books next, before delving into any particular pathway through the Discworld universe. However, I have a couple of other books to listen to first, thanks to some recent Audible daily deals. These include The Long Earth, another Pratchett book which was a collaboration with Steven Baxter, and is more science-fiction than fantasy.

Listening to books, part V (Fiction edition)

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It’s time for another update on the audiobooks that I’ve been listening to. As mentioned last time, I’ve been listening to a few fiction books lately, rather than just yet more celebrity memoirs. As someone who hasn’t read (or indeed listened to) fiction in many years, this was a bit of a departure for me. Indeed, Mitch Benn’s book Terra was the first in a long time.

Here’s what I’ve listened to:

Battlemage by Stephen Aryan

The cover of Battlemage by Stephen Aryan

I’ll disclose a minor conflict of interest here: I used to work with Stephen’s partner. At the time, I remember hearing about how he was struggling to get a publisher. This was when self-publishing on Kindle and the like was becoming more popular. I’m pleased to see that Stephen’s persistence paid off, with this book being published by Orbit in September 2015. It’s available as an actual paperbook in real shops (or Amazon – sponsored link), and an audiobook on Audible.

Battlemage is among the longer books that I’ve listened to – roughly on a par with a typical Game of Thrones book. It tells the story of several battlemages, powerful and feared wizards, who are recruited to fight in a war against the ‘warlock’. It’s firmly in the ‘sword and sorcery’ subgenre of fantasy.

I really enjoyed this book; whilst I chose it principally to support someone I know, the story was good and the characters had depth. The narration by Mark Addis on the audiobook is good as well. It’s the first in a trilogy, and I’m looking forward to listening to Bloodmage, the next book in the series.

Dietland by Sarai Walker

I listened to this book on a recommendation from Sofie Hagen, formerly one half of The Guilty Feminist podcast. I didn’t really know what to expect, other than that it would likely criticise the diet industry.

Dietland (Amazon link – sponsored) tells the story of Plum, a fat girl who doesn’t want to be fat. She signs up for a weight loss scheme called ‘The Baptist Plan’, but is left looking for other options when the company is closed by its founder’s daughter. Considering bariatric surgery, she’s recruited into a secretive collective and finds out the truth about dieting.

The reviews of this book are mixed, perhaps due to its controversial second half where the story takes an interesting twist. For me, I found the second half much stronger than the first. Initially I almost wrote this book off as being typical cheap ‘chick lit’, but I stuck with it and was rewarded. Drawing parallels with real-life events, it’s hilarious and empowering.

Lauren Henderson narrates the book, and whilst she does so well, she wouldn’t be my favourite voice actor.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

I listened to The Alchemist (Amazon link – sponsored) because it was available as a freebie on Audible back in November. I had run out of credits, didn’t fancy paying full price for another audiobook and saw that it was a relatively short 4 hour listen, which I completed in a week thanks to a few long car journeys.

It’s certainly not the sort of book that I would normally listen to, and it was okay, I guess. The story follows a young Spanish shepherd, as he travels to Africa to find treasure. The revelations he has on his journey end up changing the course of his life.

There’s a lot of religious imagery in the book, even if it isn’t overtly Christian. The narration was good, but you can tell that it has been translated into English. There’s not the level of nuance that I expect it would have if read in its original Portuguese.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

The cover of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

As a child, I read a few Terry Pratchett books – namely the Johnny Maxwell trilogy, but as yet I haven’t dabbled my toe into any of Pratchett’s books for adults. Similarly, I’ve not really read any Neil Gaiman books apart from a couple of short stories. So I thought that Good Omens (Amazon link – sponsored), a collaboration between the two of them, would be a good introduction to both authors. It’s a standalone book that is not part of any wider series.

Good Omens follows Crowley and Aziraphale, a demon and an angel who live on Earth, and who aren’t very happy about its imminent destruction. As the four horsemen of the apocalypse gather, and the anti-christ goes missing, it’s up to them to save the world, with the help of a surprisingly accurate book of prophecies written by one Agnes Nutter.

There are some laugh-out-loud moments in Good Omens, especially in its comments about the M25, and how every cassette that spends more than a couple of weeks in a car becomes songs by Queen. Some of the pop culture references are a little dated – this book was first published in 1990 – but on the whole, it holds up well. Stephen Briggs offers an excellent narration in the audiobook.

Update (May 2025): This was written before the allegations about Neil Gaiman’s sexual abuse were made public. Also, the original Stephen Briggs audiobook has been replaced with a newer recording narrated by Martin Jarvis.

Up next

At present I’m back to celebrity memoirs, but will be listening to more fiction books in future. I’m considering making a start on Game of Thrones, and perhaps making inroads into Terry Pratchett’s Discworld universe.

Listening to books, part IV

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It’s time for another update on the audiobooks that I’ve been listening to, this time since December.

Bossypants

Continuing my trend for listening to memoirs by female comedians, I spent December listening to Bossypants by Tina Fey (Amazon link – sponsored). Fey is a comedian and actress for whom I’m broadly familiar with – particularly her Sarah Palin impressions. Alas, having not watched 30 Rock, I missed some of the references in the book. This perhaps ruined my enjoyment of it slightly.

Fey’s advice on improvisation is something that has stuck with me – the ‘Yes, and…’ response when asked a question. It’s a key part of keeping improv sketches moving, but can be applied to many other situations too.

The book is now six years old and it sort-of shows. But it’s enjoyable and I recommend it.

Where am I now?

Growing up, I was a fan of Roald Dahl’s books, and enjoyed Danny DeVito’s film adaption of Matilda. The starring role in that film was Mara Wilson, and Where am I now? (Amazon link – sponsored) is her story.

Mara isn’t so well-known nowadays. As a child actor, she was in a string of well-known films, but she wasn’t able to continue this fame into adulthood. The book covers how she never quite fitted in, her battles with mental health and her sometimes difficult family life. It’s a charming book that will take you through many emotions, both happy and sad.

After listening, I bought this book as a Christmas present for Christine, as many of Wilson’s life experiences mirrored hers. That, and it’s a book that I really enjoyed.

Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies

I’m not a lady, but this book by Guardian journalist Hadley Freeman was recommended to me. Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies (Amazon link – sponsored) is part-memoir, part advice column, and partly an opportunity to rant about patriarchal oppression and the rubbish that modern women have to put up with.

Freeman’s wit livens up a book that I’d otherwise have stopped listening to partway through. Again, a lack of familiarity with the many TV series that Freeman references in the book made it hard to follow in places. And like her columns, this is a very light-hearted read that shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

As with Lindy West’s audiobook Shrill that I reviewed last time, Freeman isn’t the best person to speak her own work. This is especially noticeable at the beginning when her performance isn’t great. Again, I put this down to Freeman (and West) being journalists rather than actors and performers.

Update (May 2025): I wouldn’t now recommend this book due to Freeman’s transphobic views.

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

Making computer algorithms both interesting and relevant to the wider public is a hard task, but this book does it well Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions (Amazon link – sponsored) is by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths, and Christian himself reads the audiobook. It takes the concepts of various common algorithms and shows how these can be applied to real life. The collision detection algorithms used in computer networking are a good example. We use the concept naturally when talking in a group, to ensure that we don’t speak over others.

Because computers follow every instruction explicitly, the book shows how actions that we humans take for granted have to be unpacked for a computer, and how we can learn from this process.

Some of the concepts can be a little hard to get your head around, and having a background in computer science definitely helped me. Whilst it’s not your typical self-improvement book, I picked up a few tips for dealing with real life situations based on this book’s concepts.

In addition to these books, I’ve been listening to some fiction books, which I’ll write about later. Next up, is Steve Coogan’s Easily Distracted.

Terra & Terra’s World, by Mitch Benn

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Yesterday, I did another round-up of the audiobooks I’ve been listening to recently, save for two. I singled out these two as they’re both by the same author, and are both fiction. Now I’m not a big reader of fiction, as my wife, ex-girlfriend and parents will testify. So what made me read these books?

The two books are Terra (Amazon link – sponsored) and Terra’s World (Amazon link – sponsored), part of a series with recurring characters by Mitch Benn. Benn is best-known as a musical stand-up comedian. He has performed on BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show for many years and regularly tours his shows. Indeed, I’ve seen him perform live four times now:

  • In Leeds, at the wonderful City Varieties, with his band The Distractions.
  • In Leeds (again), at the rather less wonderful Carriageworks Theatre, with his show Mitch Benn is the 37th Beatle (also broadcast as a standalone Radio 4 show).
  • In Halifax, at the Square Chapel, with the Don’t Believe a Word show that he has just finished touring.
  • In Hebden Bridge, at a comedy club night at the Old Gate where he was the headline act.

I also follow him on Twitter, where he is very active. So you could say I’m a fan.

Anyhow, as well as being a successful stand-up and radio performer, Benn has also written the two aforementioned books. I would probably describe them as ‘young adult science fiction’ – not too challenging to read, but enjoyable stories. And they’re good books, with good reviews of them both.

Terra tells the story of a baby girl, whose bickering parents accidentally leave her behind, when fleeing from the car after an encounter with an alien spacecraft. The spacecraft’s pilot, having seen that the baby had been abandoned, takes her back to his home planet. He names her ‘Terra’, and brings her up as if she were his own daughter.

Terra’s World follows the first book. The story is told partly from the perspective of Billy, a new character who befriends Terra after her return to Earth in her adolescence. The planet that Terra grew up on is in trouble.

For me, Terra’s World was the better of the two books, but you’ll need to read (or listen to) both in order to understand the plot and who the characters are. I would also recommend the audiobook – Mitch Benn read his own work very well, especially the pronunciation of the names of the alien characters. Plus, he has composed the music that accompanies the books.

The epilogue to Terra’s World implies that Benn plans a third book, although I understand from Twitter that he doesn’t yet have a publisher for it. I hope he’s able to find one – I thoroughly enjoyed these first two books.

Listening to books, part III

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It’s been six months since I last wrote about listening to audiobooks. In that time, I’ve listened to seven more books, and today I’m going to write about five of them.

Animal

Sara Pascoe’s book Animal (Amazon link – sponsored) is part-autobiography, part-anthropological look at the female body. It’s not a textbook – whilst Pascoe has clearly researched it thoroughly, it’s written with appropriate humour. Pascoe is, after all, a stand-up comedian.

More academic readers, especially those with an anthropology background, might take issue with some of Pascoe’s work, but I found it very enlightening. Reading… sorry, listening to it shortly after the birth of my daughter was timely, as it covers childbirth, and why human offspring are born so helpless when compared to other animals.

It can be a difficult read/listen at times, but I would heartily recommend it to everyone – not just to women, but to men and anyone who doesn’t fall into those two categories.

The Actual One

You will, by now, have noticed a trend – that I listen to a lot of memoirs by female stand-up comedians, and The Actual One by Isy Sutie (Amazon link) is yet another. Sutie, as well as doing stand-up, is probably best known for her role as the character Dobby in the Mitchell and Webb sitcom Peep Show.

The book’s title refers to Sutie’s search for the ‘actual one’ – the one person that she wants to spend the rest of her life with – but at the same time refusing to grow up whilst her friends get married and have kids.

Sutie reads her book well and it’s a charming story, but I didn’t enjoy this book as much as others.

Shrill

Lindy West isn’t a stand-up comedian, but she is a feminist and her book Shrill (Amazon link – sponsored) is a memoir about being a loud woman who isn’t afraid to take up space in society. Or, at least, not now – she wasn’t always like that and she discusses her upbringing in the book, as well as her career as a journalist.

It’s a good book, although not such a good audiobook. West is a great writer but I think her delivery could be better; I put this down to having listened to several previous books read by those who perform on stage.

The Girl with the Lower-back Tattoo

Continuing with American feminists, I listened to Amy Schumer’s book The Girl with the Lower-back Tattoo (Amazon link – sponsored) next.

I haven’t really followed Schumer’s career, but this book was recommended to me. It charts Schumer’s life, from being born into a wealthy family that lost almost everything, to living paycheck to paycheck in New York to becoming the household name that she is today.

I really enjoyed it. Schumer sounds like the sort of person I would love to be friends with – a definite guest at my imaginary celebrity dinner party, along with Felicia Day and others. Again, there are difficult sections that deal with non-consensual sex and abuse, and Schumer talks candidly about the shooting at a cinema in Lafeyette, Louisiana where her film Trainwreck was showing at the time. Schumer reads the book well and I heartily recommend it.

Bad Science

I bought Dr Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science (Amazon link – sponsored) last summer, when it was on offer on Audible but before I’d re-subscribed. It’s a long book – about twice the length of most of the other books that I’ve mentioned today – and it’s not autobiographical. Shock horror!

I’ve followed Dr Goldacre’s work ever since he was a columnist in the Guardian, writing a column of the same name. A number of the topics that he wrote about in his column crop up again in this book, with whole chapters on Gillian McKeith, Andrew Wakefield, various nutritionists and the media. Whilst it is about science, it’s an accessible read, and I say this as a relative layperson. You’ll even learn about how to spot bogus or overstated science stories in the media, such as the ‘most depressing day of the year’ story that seems to re-appear every January.

Dr Goldacre doesn’t read the audiobook himself – instead, it is read by voice actor Rupert Farley, who delivers a good performance.

Up next

I’m currently listening to From Frazzled to Fabulous (Amazon link – sponsored), the spin-off book to the popular ‘Man Who Has It All’ Twitter and Facebook page. Imagine a self-help book for women, telling them in a patronising way how to be successful whilst managing a family, but gender-flipped. It’s a comparatively short book, and was offered for free on Audible recently.

After that, I’ll be listening to:

Plus there are a couple of other feminist titles on my wishlist. Tomorrow, or whenever I get around to it, I’ll write about the two other books that I’ve listened to recently.

Listening to books, part II

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Back in 2012, I signed up for Audible and listened to a couple of audiobooks – ‘How to be a Woman’ by Caitlin Moran and ‘God Collar’ by Marcus Brigestocke. And then cancelled my subscription, as there wasn’t anything else that I wanted to listen to at the time.

Fast forward to the beginning of this year, and I started to realise that I was missing out on books that had been written by public figures that I liked. An Audible subscription made sense again, and there was a good offer on, so I signed up again.

You’re Never Weird On The Internet (Almost)

The first was You’re Never Weird On The Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day (Amazon link – sponsored). It’s a memoir that chronicles her life, but especially her early acting career, and how she came to write and star in the ground-breaking web series The Guild. I came across The Guild towards the end of season one, but enjoyed every subsequent season as the episodes came out, and I’ve regularly watched Felicia’s YouTube channel.

Felicia talks candidly about her issues with anxiety and gaming addiction, and how these have affected her career. Whilst I’m lucky to not suffer regular anxiety attacks, I found it enlightening how Felicia dealt with them. It was also interesting to hear about someone who was educated outside of the mainstream schooling system, but who subsequently went on to excel at university.

The audiobook includes PDF with photos from the book, so that you can get the references.

A Book For Her

I followed with Bridget Christie’s A Book For Her (Amazon link – sponsored). The title satirises Bic’s ‘For Her’ (sponsored link) range of pens that were also ridiculed by Ellen DeGeneres.

Like ‘How To Be A Woman’, ‘A Book For Her’ is a book about feminism that would sit in the comedy shelves of a book shop. It’s not a laugh a minute, and deals with weighty subjects like female genital mutilation with the seriousness required. Bridget talks about her life and upbringing – leaving school at 15 – and the difficulties she encountered in her early years as a stand-up comedian.

Bridget’s humour is very sarcastic, and this extends to her narration. As a listener, you are frequently chastised for being too lazy to read the book, and that you’ll miss out on some of its illustrations. For this reason, I would suggest reading the book and listening to the audiobook, as both offer some things that the other doesn’t.

And I think most people will come away from reading/listening to it having learnt something, like how feminists have never actually burned bras. They weren’t allowed to, due to health and safety.

Cheer Up Love

This book (Amazon link – sponsored) is subtitled ‘Adventures in depression with the crab of hate‘ and is about author Susan Calman’s issues with chronic depression. The aforementioned ‘crab of hate’ is the antagonist of the book, and is the manifestation of Susan’s bad thoughts. It’s also a memoir (you may be detecting a trend here) and chronicles Susan’s life and career, first as a lawyer and then as a stand-up comedian. (Christine and I went to see her in Hebden Bridge in 2014)

If you suffer from depression, then I think you’ll get some mileage out of this book, as Susan covers how she’s able to deal with her condition and her coping mechanisms. If you don’t, then you’ll still get something out of it – the title, ‘Cheer Up Love’, is a listed example of a phrase that well-meaning people say to her that really doesn’t help. But there are some tips for dealing with a friend or loved one who suffers with mental health issues.

Back Story

‘A book by a bloke, at last!’, you may think. I haven’t specifically gone out of my way to listen to feminist memoirs – it’s just happened that way – but the latest book that I’m listening to is Back Story by David Mitchell (Amazon link – sponsored). Yes, it’s another memoir; David tells the story of his life whilst on a walk from his flat in Kilburn, north London into the city. The title refers to the problems he has had with a bad back, and how walking has been one of the few non-medical interventions that has helped relieve the pain.

I’m only about an hour in so far, having started listening on Monday, but if you’re used to David’s monologues from his Soapbox web series or work on 10 O’Clock Live, then you’ll know what to expect. You’ll also find out that David isn’t quite as posh as he’s made out to be, especially on shows like Would I Lie To You? on BBC1. Yes, he was privately-educated, but his parents encountered significant financial hardship to be able to do so. And yes, he went to Cambridge and is on TV, radio and has a newspaper column, but at the time that he wrote the book he was still renting a flat and didn’t own a house.

I’m a fan of David’s work and so it’s not surprising that I’m enjoying the book so far.

Up Next

I still have three more books to listen to after I’ve finished Back Story:

It takes 2-3 weeks to get through each one so it’ll be a while before I’m looking for any more books, but if anyone has any suggestions then I’ll be happy to hear them.

Listening to books

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Those who know me well know that I don’t ‘do’ books. I’m never find reading a book – it’s always either a magazine, or, most likely, a phone or computer screen. And I particularly don’t do fiction – what I read tends to be factual, news, or opinion pieces.

However, this does not mean that I completely ignore books. One or two books have come out recently that have intrigued me, but I don’t really have the time to read them. Thankfully, someone came up with the idea of the audiobook; you can listen to someone – usually the author – read the book to you, so you don’t have to.

This may seem lazy but there are times when having your head in a book is impractical – like walking to work, or at the gym. This is why I’m growing to like audiobooks – you can do something else whilst listening (although, in my experience at least, nothing that requires a large amount of concentration).

I’m only on my second audiobook so far, which I’ve downloaded from Audible, Amazon’s audiobook store. The first was ‘How to be a Woman’ by Caitlin Moran (Amazon Link). You may wonder why a heterosexual male like me has any interest in a semi-autobiographical feminist book, but I would call myself a feminist, since anyone who believes that men and women should have the same rights and opportunities can call themselves a feminist, whether they themselves are male or female. Plus, it’s a very good read – or, listen, in my case – and may have you laughing out loud.

Having finished that, I’ve started on ‘God Collar’ by Marcus Brigstocke (Amazon Link), another lefty-liberal book, but this time on religion and atheism in particular. So far I’m only around half an hour into it, but as someone who enjoys Marcus’ stand-up routines I’ve not been disappointed.

Both books are around the same length – about 8 and a half hours – and the first took me exactly a month to listen through. Unfortunately, some days I can only fit in around 20-25 minutes of listening as I walk to and from the railway station, so it’s only when I go to the gym that I get to listen in longer stints, which hasn’t happened as often as it should lately. In fact, Saturday was the first time I’d been to the gym since, um, February. Ooops.

With this in mind, I’m on Audible’s 1 book credit per month package at the moment, whereby you pay a monthly subscription and get one free audiobook included with it. Subsequent books bought in that month cost extra, and that can be a big extra cost – although there’s a sale on, to buy ‘How to be a Woman’ at full price would set you back over £20, as opposed to £7 for the dead-tree actual book and only £3.67 to read on a Kindle. That said, the 1 credit package is £8 per month – cheaper than £20, but still quite a bit of money to pay every month. If I’m able to get through one audiobook a month, and don’t run out of things to read, then I suppose it’s worth it, but it’s not cheap. I’ll see how I go.

Playing back audiobooks from Audible can be done in a couple of ways. Support for Audible’s .aa format has been built into iTunes for a few years now and so audiobooks can be played back on almost all iPods, including those that don’t run on iOS. For those that do run on iOS, you can either use iTunes, and play the audiobooks in the Music app, or you can install the Audible app which runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch (but not the iPad as yet). The app lets you manage audiobooks on the device without having to involve iTunes, and has a few advanced features like stepping back 30 seconds if you get briefly distracted. It doesn’t, however, let you purchase more audiobooks from within the app – presumably because Amazon doesn’t want to give a 30% cut of its sales to Apple.

So, that’s me and audiobooks. If you have any suggestions for other books that I should be listening to, let me know in the comments.

My first Amazon purchase

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The cover of the book 'Just for Fun' by Linus Torvalds.

Call me strange, but despite having been an internet user for over 4 years now, I have never bought anything from Amazon (sponsored link). Until now.

I ordered the book “Just For Fun” (sponsored link) by Linux creator Linus Torvalds last night, and it’s due to arrive tomorrow morning. I’ve read bits of it in bookshops (although nowhere in Bradford appears to sell it) and decided to go out and buy it. After all it is my birthday on Sunday.

Talking of money, now that I can get back into my PayPal account (after my two week hiatus), you can now donate money to me, if you are feeling generous. Although I’m on track to finish the year with at least £600 in my current account, any extra will be gladly accepted.

Okay, I’ll stop begging now 🙂 .