I love my Kindle, I got it 4 years ago and was extremely lucky to get a leather cover with a light attachment with it. The first thing you need to do is link it with your Amazon account, this is quite simple to do just follow the instructions.

The controls consist of a 5 way square switch, which gives you movement right, left, up and down, select is in the centre. This allows you to scroll through the menu or your library of books. There is also a Home button, so wherever you are you can get straight back to the start page. The keyboard is a little fiddly to use, if you navigate to the Amazon site to search for a book you then need to put the authors name in, using the keyboard. To be honest I don't use this very often I normally search for books on my laptop and download them that way. To either side of the 'page' are 2 long buttons which allow you to turn the page over or go back.

The Kindle screen is similar to a book, it is not backlit and picks up no glare making it easy to read in the sun or with normal room lighting. The addition of the case with light makes it perfect for the bedroom or anywhere others may be disturbed but you want to keep reading. The fact that you can change the text size was invaluable to me, while on chemo I need it big but can reduce this easily when my eyes can cope better.

The battery life is excellent, I can easily get 7 days (and at times I read a lot) providing I turn the wireless off, it's about 3 days if you don't. Newer versions of the Kindle do not allow you to turn the wireless off and while battery life is impressive it is not as good as mine.

Your library can be arranged into categories this is quite easy once you get the hang of it. I found it easiest to have one category which was read, I popped all read books into here and then the Kindle can sort them either by date or author. Done this way any new books downloaded end up on the front page.

With the cover reading the Kindle is similar to reading a book, ok so maybe it is lighter/thinner than some books but it is easy to adapt to. Things that took time to adept to were; no new book smell/feel, not really knowing how thick the book was or how much was left till the end, the number of typos. Kindle have now converted so many books that they have introduced chapters or marks along a line that runs across the bottom of the reading screen and the typos have greatly improved.

One of the best things about the Kindle, for me, is if you stop reading it will shut off, but keep your place. This makes it so useful when attending out patients appointments, chemo sessions, scan appointments, seeing a theme here lol, it wakes up very quickly and you are up and running again.

Books can only be bought from Amazon, apparently there are ways around this but that is way beyond my brain. Amazon have improved their selection and offers over the last 4 years. Each day they have a deal of the day, usually greatly reduced. They have a list of 100 most popular books and 100 free books. As people generally don't like paying if they don't have to, these lists tend to reveal cheap reads. I have found some brilliant new authors over the last year and it has expanded my reading list considerably. I rarely pay more than a £1 for a book, though I have spent a fortune when I've found a series I like! It is not much different from the supermarkets do you buy straight away or do you wait for the price to drop. I confess to being very naughty as I still browse the supermarket books to find out what I fancy reading next or simply to make such I'm not missing something.

4 Kindles can be linked to the same account allowing books to be read by family members however I do miss giving my books to friends or passing onwards to charity shops.