An odd Kindle surprise!

I also have the Kindle app on my phone, for those quiet moments while you are waiting to see the dentist or, more likely in my case these days, the physio!

But I have encountered an unexpected drawback with both the Kindle itself and the phone app.

Let me explain.

Back in time, yes I have had my Kindle so long it appears to have been an age since I actually picked a book up, if you were sitting on the train or in a waiting room people could see the book you were reading.

That may cause a remark or two from strangers, especially those determined to tell you who dunnit!

Nowadays nobody can see what I am reading.

But that does not stop the remarks, questions and general chit-chat while all I am trying to do is read the latest offering from one of my favourite authors.

I was recently reading, on my phone, a fast-paced thriller by an author new to me when the other person waiting to have aching muscled look at asked what I was reading.

Having had nothing else to spoil my day at that point, I told him and explained I had never heard of the author but the book was highly recommended.

End of conversation until a minute or two later when he started texting someone. I asked him who he was texting only to be rudely told to mind my own business. Sauce for the goose, and all that!

More recently I had half a dozen different people in the space of four trains and six tubes in one day ask me what I was reading.

The first five were treated as nicely as possible, but in a manner which suggested I wasn’t looking for a long conversation.

The last one, I was obviously getting tired by then, was simply told: “A new book called ‘How to commit the perfect murder on a train and get away with it’!”

That turned out to be a true conversation stopper!