First, Amazon pioneered online bookstores so people can purchase books without visiting the bookstores. Then, they redefined reading by enabling people to read books without the books through the Kindle 2 ebook reader. And if those privileged with the initial Kindle are still gaga over it, wait till they catch sight of the Kindle 2. In a nutshell, the Kindle 2 is the original Kindle with a big step further into the future of reading. Like many other things, new-wave reading is electronic. If the eBook Reader is Oprah’s current favorite gadget, so will it be for many of her fans. Sure enough, the Kindles have been flying off the shelves. And why not, all-in-one shopping, purchasing and immediate downloading of books online anytime anywhere in the US and you don’t even need a computer for that as it’s done on the reader itself. There are quite a few brands of electronic book readers in the market but only a handful of them are generally considered to be up to mark. The two heavyweights are the Amazon Kindle and Sony PRS and they split bragging rights over various factors albeit not exactly in neck and neck fashion. If independent review sites are anything to go by, the Kindle has an emphatic overall edge and is powering away with its second edition – Kindle 2. To get hold of the Kindle 2, you have to act fast. Stock-outs especially during peak seasons are nothing new with the Amazon eBook Reader Kindle 2. For back-to-back Christmases, they sold out long before the holiday proper. Quoted delivery lead time continues to be volatile due to all the rage that it is now. EBay may be an alternative marketplace for the red hot e reader but price premium may be needed to circumvent the crunch. Analysts estimate that the original Kindle eBook Reader sold in excess of half a million units. Going by the current rate, the Kindle 2 is poised to sell lots more. That means it’s not only good for readers, it’s great for the environment. Electronic book readers can substitute the need for books so the Kindle 2 can save quite a few trees from being turned into paper for them. Yes, Buy Kindle 2 is green. The Kindle 2 Electronic Book Reader is also easier for your pockets. Although somewhat pricey, it essentially pays for itself pretty quickly especially in the case of avid readers. Amazon ebooks cost half that of their paper counterparts. Shop, buy and retrieve books online through Whispernet directly on the reader itself and bypass the hassle and expenses of driving around and waiting in line. Free sampling of Amazon ebooks is also a standard practice.

Avid book readers, especially Sheldon fans, will be in agreement – that Master of the Game is one of his best works. So ht does not come as a surprise when Tilly Bagshawe, writing as Sidney Sheldon has published a sequel to the epic masterpiece, which all began with Jamie McGregor daringly stealing diamonds in Africa.

Mistress of the Gameis a riveting fare, but is not a patch on the master’s fashion, finish and flamboyance. As in the prequel, we were introduced to the scheming, scandalous and sensational Blackwell family. The trend continues and we closely meet the next generation who are as zealous and corrupt as their predecessors.

The stakes are high and among the players maybe the survivors only will be the winner of the game. The prize is mammoth, the ultimate multi-billion dollar international ‘Kruger-Brent Ltd’. Unforgettable characters like Jamie McGregor, his daughter Kate Blackwell and her twin grand daughters, bitter rivals though, Eve and Alexandra have stayed fresh in the minds of the readers over two decades. That the author spanned the decades and picked up exactly where the masterpiece finished has to be applauded. This novel is about the younger generation of the rich and powerful Blackwell family.

The paparazzi are always trailing the family for crumbs of scoops which are amply provided by the notoriously scandalous and shocking deeds of the blackwell’s. The character sketch of all the Blackwells is shockingly a deep black.

The novel has all the ingredients of page-turner. There are secret murders, kidnapping, molestation, addiction, fraud, love, passion, jealousy and betrayl. The two leading characters, Lexi and Max, are well-etched but appear superficial and lacking in substance.

Glamorous and on the edge ‘Mistress’ is quintessentially a leisure read. There are disjointed the zones which stifle the speed throught and cause the connection to the characters to unlink. Things slow down when least expected, and some of the characters are distinctly diverse and difficult to assimilate even as expectations are much more from them. A glaring example is Peter Templeton. The novel lacks the Sidney Sheldon touch, the precise and mesmerising twists, but nonetheless Tilly Bagshawe manages to recreate the Sidney Sheldon magic, though strictly in bits and parts.

Amazon has sent-out press releases for a big announcement on February 9th in New York City hosted by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Since the event is being held in the Morgan Library, the big rumor is that the new Kindle 2 will debut. For Amazon this is big news since the Kindle was one of the big bright spots of the depressing 2008 holiday selling season.

One of the other interesting reasons that the Kindle is great for Amazon is that it appears to be incremental sales for the company. During a recent earnings call, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos claimed that for every physical book Kindle owners purchase from Amazon they also purchase 1.6 to 1.7 e-books for their Kindle. It seems that the Kindle really gets owners even more involved in reading.

So what’s in it for people like you and me that might buy a new Kindle 2? We’ve done a little research on the rumors and some sites like The New York Times and The Boy Genius Report have some interesting details.

1. According to The New York Times the big feature is the improved responsiveness of the display on the new Kindle. One of the key irritants owners of the Kindle 1 have is that when you click the “Next Page” button the Kindle screen goes dark for a second before the next page displays. The new display uses a new microchip and digital ink technology that – reportedly – does away with this issue.

2. In addition to improving responsiveness for reading, the new display also improves responsiveness for doing things OTHER than reading – for example browsing the Web and working with e-mail. The Kindle 1 Web browser was an “experimental” feature that handled text-based sites best. You could use G-Mail for example, but in the “mobile phone mode” which is primarily text vs. graphics based. The new screen technology seems to remove this barrier.

3. Keyboard is larger – based on “leaked” pictures posted on The Boy Genius Report, the new Kindle 2 keyboard is larger making it easier to work with the keys.

4. The scroll wheel is replaced with a track-ball. Again – checking out the “leaked” pictures of the Kindle 2 it appears the scroll wheel is replaced by a track-ball. We expect this means the way you might interact with the new Kindle 2 screen will be significantly different than the Kindle 1. Rather than using the screen in a “linear” fashion, the track ball will allow you to roam the screen and select text more easily for bookmarks, notes, etc. The new Kindle 2 track-ball might also make it easier to interact with web pages vs. the current scroll wheel.

Let’s think about what we’d like to see in the new Kindle 2 as well!

A. Better web browsing – this seems to be covered

B. Built-in Media Player – allow selecting and playing of mp3 files vs. random play

C. Built-in ability to read .pdf files – Adobe .pdf is a universal file format for a lot of e-books. You can now read .pdf files by e-mailing them to your Kindle e-mail address. Google will convert them for a small charge

And the big question – will those people who now have Kindle’s on back order get the new Kindle 2 when it is released?

We can only wait until February 9th to find-out!

Kavita Daswani’s A Girl Named Indie is a work of fiction that narrates the story of Indira Gandhi, a bubbly 15-year-old girl, who eats, drinks, sleeps and even dreams of fashion, since the time she understands its meaning! Indira, (fondly called Indie) is a fashion freak and is addicted to the best selling fashion magazine in the US. She aspires to cd a fashion journalist, but her age defies her dream. The book reveals Indie’s obsession with the glam world, that the author has described through a roller coaster ride in the teenager’s life.

Indie idolises Aaralyn Taylor, the fashion icon in LA and hopes to be like her when she grows up. She also wants to be a fashion journalist but there is no way which can lead her to Aaralyn Taylor, owner and editor of the magazine Celebrity Style. A notice board in her school mentions that Aaralyn’s institute is on for summer internships for fashion junkies and the first thing that crosses her mind is her application form on top of the pile. Av another instance, word spreads that the most successful career woman Aaralyn Taylor, is to deliver a guest lecture addressing the school gathering on Career Day, and Indie is the first one to attend it!

Aaralyn refuses to consider Indie for the coveted internship and the helpless girl ends up baby-sitting Aaralyn’s two-year-old son Kyle, much to the annoyance of her parents. Though she promises them to visit India, if she fails to make ht with the magazine, to work with the Missionaries of Charity for her vacations. While the girl faces initial problems with Kyle, she slowly gets the hang of her new job and finds herself in Aaralyn’s good books. That takes her on a journey to Milan – the Mecca of fashion – with the fashion journalist herself. On their expedition, Indie overhears woman gossiping in the washroom, and based on that, she helps Aaralyn clinch lucrative deals with the Italian head honchos – potential buyers of Celebrity Style. But there is a hitch – Celebrity Style is losing all gossips and scoops to an upcoming fashion portal gossipaddict.com, and Aaralyn is losing her credibility in the market.  some insider is pilfering the yet-to-be-announced news to them. This makes Aaralyn’s magazine run into great losses. Whether Indie succeeds to the up the magazine, forms the opt interesting part of the book in the end. This is a fun to read book in your Amazon Kindle. You can buy it from amazon and read it in Kindle or try to get a copy from the internet and convert it so it can be read in Amazon Kindle.

First, Amazon pioneered online bookstores so people can purchase books without visiting the bookstores. Then, they redefined reading by enabling people to read books without the books through the Kindle ebook reader. And if those privileged with the initial Kindle are still gaga over it, wait till they catch sight of the Kindle 2. In a nutshell, the Kindle 2 is the original Kindle with a big step further into the future of reading. Like many other things, new-wave reading is electronic. If the e book reader is Oprah’s current favorite gadget, so will it be for many of her fans. Sure enough, the Kindles have been flying off the shelves. And why not, all-in-one shopping, purchasing and immediate downloading of books online anytime anywhere in the US and you don’t even need a computer for that as it’s done on the reader itself. There are several brands of electronic book readers to choose from in the market. Having that said, don’t bother to look beyond the top of the pack as many of the rest are still in beta. By far the two most proven brands are the Amazon Kindle and Sony PRS. Both have generated running series and are already into their latter models. The consensus though, is Amazon with its Kindle 2 is fast drawing away from competition with Sony’s flagship PRS – 700 a distant second. If you’re in the market for an e-book reader, you must act fast especially if it’s a Kindle 2 you’re after. Quoted delivery lead-time averaged 10 weeks during the holiday season although you can also buy Kindle 2 ex-stock on eBay but that would likely involve a price premium. People are packing away their hard copy books and they are going digital with their reading. That seems to be both fashion and function these days. The Amazon Kindle 2 may come in an off-white color but it’s really green at its core. Given that it’s going to revolutionize the way people read and the scale of its impact based on the its projected sales volume, it’s not difficult to imagine the number of trees that would be spared from being turned into paper for books which in turn benefits the environment and then ultimately us all, readers and non-readers alike. Kindle 2 Reader save money too. Savvy readers would realize that Amazon subsidizes its Kindle book sales and provides free sampling of e-books so you are never mistaken about buying a book. That may be string attached to sell its electronic book reader but the bottom line makes sense at the end of the day. Even for occasional readers, this should be a no-brainer. That’s on top of all the other good stuff it brings.