Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe and ???? ★★★
This is the first book that I have read in electronic format, on a Kindle. I have mixed feelings about the Kindle, and then comments on the book itself.
The Kindle is a great idea. I received the Kindle Touch about a month ago. I really didn’t wish for a microscopic keyboard and heard that there were problems with the color edition of Kindle, so opted for the Touch. There are problems with it. 1. The touch mechanism doesn’t always work consistently 2. if you accidentally bump the screen or try to clean off the screen to read it better, it will react. 3. since you always have to touch the screen to read, such as with changing pages, the screen is always being made dirty again. 4. After reading Foxe, the Kindle has shown a drastic reduction in speed, and multiple crashes, almost like it got a virus.  5. There is no mechanism for reading in dark circumstances, as you need an external light to see the screen.  6. Maneuvering through a book that you are reading can be a challenge, especially if the table of contents is not well constructed. They don’t have a reverse function like surfers have, so you can’t instantly go back to where you came from.  The advantages of the Kindle are 1. It’s a great idea, 2. when it works, it has great functionality, like keeping track of where you are in a book across all systems. My solution to the Kindle dilemma is to use Kindle on an Apple apparatus. I am just waiting for iPad3 to come out.
Now, for Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. I didn’t realize until I contacted my book resource David Davis that the original Foxe is about 7000 pages, and anything we read is a serious abridgment of that text. In addition, since Foxe died in 1587, any details after that are additions to his book. Thus, the hardcopy edition of Foxe’s Book and the Kindle edition do not resemble each other at all in their organization. Strangely, Wikipedia and most Google internet sources don’t clue you into this. The Kindle edition has multiple stories up to about 1830, many of which are quite rambling. At the end are very brief biographies of the main reformers, which are too brief to be of any value. The greatest value of Foxe’s Book is in his discussions of the martyrdoms around the time of bloody Mary. There is prolific language against the Papists and popery, all of which should NOT be forgotten by the present-day church. The Romish church has not changed significantly since the 16th century, and we shouldn’t forget that. The Pope and his minions have not made a kinder gentler church that has learned its lessons. It is a superb defense of the notion of Protestantism.
The book and its “editions” have left out much, including Savaranola, the Scottish martyrs, and persecution of the church by protestants on protestants. The revisions include lengthy details of the Quaker movement, which was unnecessary, and lengthy details of a person in Lebanon who was under pressure to conform by the Marionite church. The quality of the additions to John Foxe is low and should have been left out. So, read the book, but not the Kindle edition.