Decline and Fall for 72p

I have been using a Kindle for a while now, mainly for reading documents and articles published on the internet that are too long to print off. Until the other day, I hadn't used it to buy books from Amazon. I was drawn to do so because I wanted to read the new edition of A Bitter Trial edited by Alcuin Reid which is not available on Amazon in the print version. That rather overcame my reluctance to read real books on the Kindle. I heartily recommend A Bitter Trial, by the way: it shows Evelyn Waugh as astonishingly prescient.

Whenever you speak of ebooks, people say that they prefer the feel of a real book and I have great sympathy with that view. I started seriously collecting books when I was 17 and have some wonderful volumes on my shelves that are increasing in value and interest over the decades.

In fact, I have too many books and need to do another purge of my shelves. For some time now, I have discarded any fictional books that I buy to read when on holiday or, like Fr Adrian Fortescue, to clear my mind towards the end of the day. (Much better than television.) I especially enjoy historical fiction but read quite quickly (though not as quickly as Fortescue) and get through quite a few of them. (I must remember to take a box of such books over to the school for their Christmas bazaar.) In the future, I shall simply stock up the Kindle with a few titles

For many years I have had the intention of reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and always ask for it in second-hand bookshops. On the rare occasions when a shop actually has a copy, it has been beyond my budget.

I just downloaded a copy of all six volumes for my Kindle for 72p.

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