cpjackson.co.uk

A few months ago, my wife and I moved from the UK to a small caribbean island (Grand Cayman) – she had been offered a 2 year work contract. People from the UK (and I suppose other large countries) don’t comprehend the issues with living somewhere only 40,000 people live… The main one being products and produce for people to consume – it can rarely be produced locally and is instead shipped in from nearby (in this case, Miami).

Postage can also be a major problem – not least that there isn’t a delivery service in Cayman; you have to go to the post office to pick your mail up and if it’s from overseas, you have to pay any applicable import duty.

My wife teaches Law, so she has to read and reference a lot of Law books and keep up to date with the latest cases etc – she also enjoys reading fiction… Unfortunately this means that she needs to buy quite a few books throughout the year. Buying books in Cayman isn’t difficult; but it tends to be fiction and mainstream stuff rather than the latest employment law ‘chart-topper’ (OK – I was kidding about chart-topping)…. And even if you do find the book you want, it’s generally very expensive.

So the other day she was moaning about the problem in that she needs books, but it’s very difficult to get them here, either by post or by buying locally, and I just so happened to mention about the kindle and/or ipad. She looked at it – and realised what it did and decided to take the plunge – we bought a Amazon Kindle!! The price is now fairly reasonable, rather than absolutely stupid (£100 instead of $450+), and there is quite a lot of sources for mobipocket documentsif you’re able to convert them yourself. I’m pretty glad of my/our purchase – and we’re just waiting for it to arrive!

Anyone got any tips for using these things – getting books from cheaper places or converting from other formats? Just leave a comment below!!