Mellowing out with classic books and some great sounds

There can be nothing more relaxing than flopping into your favourite armchair when you get home, putting some soothing music on and getting stuck into a good novel for the evening. If you have a large collection of vinyl albums from your younger days then you can enjoy them all with a new turntable, models of which are available at surprisingly good prices. Classical music is a nice accompaniment when you are reading, and old jazz records are also good. You can rig your turntable up to the amplifier of your choice and hook up a pair of decent speakers to the system - pretty much how people used to construct their own hi-fi systems a few years ago. It still gives you the advantage of being able to choose the best maker of each component and create the perfect blend for your needs.

As far as the reading material goes, there are sites online that specialise in classic books, and you can browse through their catalogues of poetry, novels, plays and short stories by all the well known authors. You can also discover some that you may never have come across before and find yourself with a whole host of new material to enjoy reading through on those long winter nights by the fire. There are plenty of rack mounted CD players available too so you can make yourself a music centre that is capable of playing all your new discs in addition to your old vinyl collection. For those who have built up a library of mp3 tunes, there are media players that you can add to your rack to take advantage of these as well. There are many great classical pieces that you can download from the internet at the moment and these media players make it easy to listen to them with a quality set of speakers and amplifier. Otherwise you can be stuck using tinny computer speakers which is about as enjoyable as trying to read classic books on your PC screen, hunched in front of your desk all night.

Although there is plenty of reading material available for free on the internet it will never be the same as being able to take a book to bed or reading by the fire, or perhaps in the bath after a hard day's work. There is something about the texture and smell of a new book that makes the whole experience that much more enjoyable than the sterile feeling of reading on your laptop. It is possible to link your computer up to your new stereo system if you prefer; then you can enjoy the music that you have downloaded as it was meant to be enjoyed, through high quality speakers using a powerful amplifier. It is probably easier to get a separate, quality media player though, as it just looks nicer and is ultimately more convenient. Another member of the family can then use your PC while you enjoy classic books and great music without interruptions.