That is, 5 experiences on kindle that convinced me to renew Prime
The subscription to Amazon Prime until a few years ago was a must, for those who regularly bought on the portal: about ten euros a year to have the guarantee of receiving their orders the next day, comfortably at home. Life was simpler before Amazon Prime Reading and Prime Video.
But then the story got complicated.
A first increase - which brought the offering to the threshold of € 20 per year - was followed by the arrival of Prime Video, practically a sort of Netflix methadone. And a few months ago the same thing happened: Amazon announced a new price increase for its subscription and then, deferred - because it was too easy to do things at the same time - pulled Prime Reading out of the hat.
But what is Amazon Prime Reading?
It would be improper to say "the Netflix of books" - which still exists, always in the Amazon house, looking at the parts of Kindle Unlimited.
But the idea is more or less the same: ten slots available, to be filled by borrowing as many books from the ebook catalog that bear the wording "Prime", with the possibility of returning them at any time to make room for more. After bullying the bookstores, Amazon in short decides to take it out on libraries as well.
And I couldn't be happier.
Clearly the catalog is not as crap as that of Kindle Unlimited - which for the record * self-promotional moment * also includes our Io, Videogame. But the unmissable is not lacking, and in these months of using the service I have rediscovered with pleasure books that I had already read and - above all - works, series, and in one case even an author I am fond of. Translation: for which I then spent more money.
And Amazon couldn't be happier - the purpose of Prime Reading is essentially this.
And here we are at the umpteenth plank that is not a plank of things that you could read thanks to Amazon Prime Reading.
Harry Potter it is a must-readAnd let's get started with something that if you haven't read yet, you should be ashamed of it. London, about thirty years ago, an express train that leaves from an unlikely track and travels to a Scottish castle (which Hogwarts is in Scotland? Damn Statute of Secrecy ...) and in short, or you will have understood that I am talking about Harry Potter or you missed what it probably is the manifesto of our generation, the equivalent for literature of what was Star Wars for the cinema and more generally a seven-book saga of the Madonna. Plus a few extras, because Prime Reading in addition to making the main books available in rotation (until recently La Pietra Filosofale was in the catalog, while I am writing you can "rent" The Chamber of Secrets) a little at a time it is also inserting the material collateral published over the years.
Things like Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts: Where to Find Them, which are a way like any other not to leave that world that I don't really think you will leave anymore. For those who were lucky enough to read Harry Potter while growing up with the protagonists they were real coming-of-age novels, but also to reread them today - with the eyes a little more disillusioned and practical than those who, even if they did not want to, eventually grew up - among those pages there are real pearls of philosophy and lessons that make you think. In short, it is a series that lets itself live line by line even now, and that you cannot miss.
After all this time?
Always.
If, on the other hand, you have already read the work of JK Rowling, Prime Reading also hides something it has among its shelves virtually the same taste. And it has it because the original idea was born as a fan-fiction set in that world, with an (unlikely) story of love, power and control between Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy.
Glitch (Wired Vol. 1)On amazon: 2,99 € buy Wired: the saga you don't expect
Ma Wired then at a certain point it has grown and has come out of this shadow, and although it is very easy to still find parallels and hear the Potterian echoes among its pages, the saga stands quietly even on its own. After reading Glitch, the first volume (the only one available on Prime Reading) is automatic to buy the other two and conclude the cycle, because it is the classic story about the predestined boy who must save the world - but it is told with the voice of a narrator not protagonist, no less important than the point of view of those who live the events on their skin. And because it is a story that in the end speaks above all of love and does so touching the right strings, even - if not in particular - when the first book is finished, we move on to the second and we find ourselves in front of the umpteenth revival of Dickens' Christmas Carol.
Would you ever think you could get excited with an adaptation of A Christmas Carol? It is practically the most abused makeup when it comes to telling a story, everyone and their sister have milked this Dickensian tit over the years and now her milk is starting to curdle. Yet Beta works great. If it's not the trademark of someone who can write, I don't really know what else it can be. Moreover, the author is Italian, so a certain self-sufficient bonus comes into play to which it is really rude to say no.
Sherlock Holmes should be read, especially if aggratis
But let's pretend for a moment that you can't care less about wizards or their hi-tech emulators from Mirya's pen. But that you still want to stay in London, thanks to having recently finished - and not yet having passed the end of - Sherlock. Well, jump right in All Sherlock Holmes, the omni-comprehensive tells of the deeds of the detective conceived by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (and in which Doyle was then trapped, even trying to kill him without success). A real icon, two novels and a series of (more brilliant) short stories that enhance and clear the deductive mystery, giving few elements to the reader to arrive at the solution before the end but on the other hand superimposing it to perfection with the figure of Watson. To fully appreciate Moffat's work, it is important to read its source: many quotes otherwise get lost in the background, and that hunt for references that always enriches an entertainment product is triggered. Because easter eggs are all about entertainment.
Let's completely change the scenario: you have just played The Witcher 3 and its expansions, you are looking for something vaguely similar to read but since Andrzej Sapkowki apparently wants 16 million dollars from CD Projekt Red it seems not very nice to show up on his door with two lire in hand, so you want to allocate your crowns elsewhere. You want a fantasy, but George RR Martin also this year made you the gesture of the umbrella.
Luckily there is Fabio Scalini.
Now, for some reason, only the third book of Mordraud on Prime Reading. The first, however, is part of that series of titles available on Kindle Unlimited (which also offers a free month of trial, in perfect Netflix style). So the result is that you have two thirds of the saga at no cost, with a fourth volume currently being written - or at least I want to believe it is being written, after the third ending (also because I'm waiting for that one to come out in order to be able to prepare an all-encompassing gamer on the series).
The story of three brothers who partly belong to another race, now forgotten by most, and who end up entangled in a chessboard where the game is played between those who want to understand the Limit and those who want to hide it. Another of the series that I personally discovered thanks to Amazon and that I can not help but recommend.
But what if you want something self-contained?
Mordraud - First BookOn amazon: 2,99 € buy
A few weeks ago I finished reading The Vampire of Venice, attracted above all by the title and by one of the rare attacks of attachment to the homelands that take me. But talking about my different Foscolian exile aside, Il Vampiro di Venezia really immerses you in the atmosphere of the Serenissima, telling a little about its uses, superstitions and elements. And ending the events practically 300 meters from the house where I grew up, so staying on me for that too. The setting has charm, and as rational as one may be when reading, one is more likely to give in to the suspension of disbelief, to believe that vampires and other monsters of the kind can exist - at least for the purposes of the story we are experiencing - and the what makes suspense play.
