Long before the Kindle, iPad, Nook, etc., I started reading e-books (reading ‘electronically’) with what I think was the first quality device, a Sony Reader. For reasons not worth detailing, I moved on to the Kindle, and now I use the iPad for virtually all of my e-reading.

Probably about 70% of my reading is now on an e-reader. But what I want to highlight in this post is not the reason(s) why I am an advocate, but rather how it is now possible to use e-books and still support your local independent bookstore.

One of the concerns I always had about e-books was that I felt I was abandoning Politics and Prose, our local, wonderful independent bookstore that has grown from a small, one room store to one of the truly unique places in Washington, DC for folks interested in books, authors, and everything connected to them.

Yesterday, I took my iPad to P & P, and in about 20 minutes, I learned how to order books through P & P so that they would benefit from what I pay for my e-books (they get 40% of the cost of the e-book).

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Those of you who have read this blog for some time now know that each year I post a list of favorite books recommended by readers of MillersTime. I will call for your best reads in the next few weeks and post the results in early January.

In the meantime, I don’t want to wait to write about the non fiction book I have enjoyed the most in 2011. I finished Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs just yesterday and have no doubt that this biography will stay with me long after 2011 passes.

Near the end of the 571 page book, Isaacson quotes Jobs’ wife Laurene Powell: “Like many great men whose gifts are extraordinary, he’s not extraordinary in every realm.”

That’s an understatement.

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Here are two films we’ve seen recently in our Sunday morning Cinema Club which have (young) love as a central theme, one of which belongs on a ‘to see’ list when it hits the theaters shortly.

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(The nine photos below were all taken at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau by Maria Jesus Verdugo during the recent trip Ellen and I made to Poland. We traveled with Andrew Rasiej and Maria, who is on her way to becoming an accomplished photographer. Click on the picture to see it in its larger version.)

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(Note: If you have not read but plan to read Joan Didion’s newest memoir, “Blue Nights,” be warned that the posting below contains ‘spoilers,” and it might make sense to wait to read my thoughts until after you have read her book.)

Joan Didion, an icon to many, has followed up her The Year of Magical Thinking, the memoir about the year she struggled to exist following the sudden death of her husband, with a second memoir.

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Walking out after viewing the film J. Edgar, I said to my wife that something seemed wrong about the movie. Despite it being captivating and worth seeing, I was bothered.

The early reviews have been mostly positive, particularly about the directing, by Clint Eastwood, a director I’ve come to admire, the acting, of Leonardo DiCaprio, an actor who I’ve grudgingly come to admire also, and the writing, of Dustin Black (Milk).

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