For your Monday's time wasting pleasure and entertainment, I'm writing two blogs.
I wrote a blog a while back somewhat denouncing e-readers, at least for me personally. Well, let me tell you, I have since drastically changed my perspective. After playing around with the Nook at Barnes & Noble, seeing the really comfortable reading screen combined with a nifty but separate touch screen, reading some reviews, and learning the they've now included a web browser, all for the price of $150 for the WiFi version, I'm pretty much sold.
Of course it's not for everything. I love books and will always want bookshelves filled with them. I will probably still want to own the books that are important to me. I'll purchase the physical "The Wise Man's Fear" wherever I can get my hands on it. When possible, I'll also be getting Roger Zelazny's novels, although I don't think there's much more that I don't already have. Side note, this is the only author I have ever really really really wanted to talk to because of his writing... fascinating and really cool mind. Sadly he's past on.
I spent hours and hours on my laptop today, 80% of it reading things. I've a love hate relationship with my laptop! I love the access to infinite reading material, I hate having to be glued to my chair and the effect on my eyes. My eyes are so tired from staring intently at the LCD screen and, even now, while I type, I'm intentionally relaxing and un-focusing my eyes to give them a break. Imagine being able to browse websites like wikipedia for information, get my news, and read blogs without going blind!!! Not to mention, how could I ever go back to not having access to buy my fantasy and science fiction novels after leaving the U.S. I'm not just talking about discovering new obscure (at least to me) classics from the 70's and 80's. If one can't even find an English copy of "The Name of the Wind" in Lebanon, it's just a crime against fiction reading!!
You see many months ago I was browsing Amazon for fiction books. I came upon "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. It had glowing reviews and a ton of them. At least 600. So I felt confident about buying it. Best money I've ever spent. It had beautiful prose, a gripping tale, and was just plain elating to someone like. Not just the storyline, but I felt genuine happiness while reading at the loveliness of the writing, something I've felt with few other authors like Zelazny and Tolkien. That opening one page prologue, "A Silence of Three Parts", was some of the best writing I've read in a while. So naturally, I turned fan, went to the author's website and subscribed to his blog. Unlike so many author blogs out there, this guy's blog isn't just a platform to sell more books. He actually keeps a nice entertaining blog. Through this blog, the author's personal favorites, and from occasionally reading the comments of other fans, I have recently discovered a plethora of writers whose work I want to sample. And, despite my excessive reading, I can only read so much at a time.
So the Nook it is for me.
I'll likely disappear now, as I've been putting off practicing my presentation. I'll probably spend much of Monday and Tuesday practicing till my voice gets hoarse.
Thesis defense on Wednesday. Wish me luck!!
I wish they'd have Internet access on the kindle here in Germany but apparently Amazon can't reach a deal with the local providers. So, you can just order it, and download e-books through a computer.
ReplyDeleteThe ipad is just too expensive for what it does.
THANK YOU for all the book recommendations. I'm starved for good reading and I have a few weeks coming up with a lot of free time on my hands. AND I'm tired of baby books.
Have you read "The God of Small Things"? The way the author writes is just gorgeous, she captures the detail in such a way that you feel you are there smelling the flowers so speak with the characters. And she really rounds her characters, I can imagine them as real people. A lot of the "novels" I've been across lately, the characters are hardly believable (I finally understand what people mean with one dimensional characters).
Nope but I'll put it on my reading list. Fair warning though, all books/authors recommended are fantasy/sci-Fi. I can recommend plenty of other types of books though.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I didn't want the kindle is because of their proprietary format. You can only read kindle books on kindle. So if you buy an ebook in the popular e-pub format from B&N or any other ebook store you won't be able to read it on the kindle. You also can't read the kindle ebooks on anything but the kindle program.
Then there's the whole issue with DRM media protection which everybody is using supposedly to protect their files. The ironic thing is that there are plenty of hacks and work-overs to remove DRM's for those who want to, they don't prevent pirating, and they just make the experience more annoying for the average user. I've already bookmarked a couple of sites, if I get into the whole ebook thing, I'll be buying them from stores that offer DRM free version. Or at least, remove the DRM myself.
Hmmm, I'll try a fantasy book but I'm more of a drama person, or a good crime book (but not the ones where they rely on making the plot so complicated to confuse you). The ones where the characters are so layer they keep shocking you. Agatha Christie was a genius in keep the plot and the character realistic and believable, and yet, I never ever figured out who did it!!!
ReplyDeleteGood points on the kindle. You're right. Maybe I do have to invest in an ipad, but too expensive :(
If it's reading you want, I wouldn't invest in an ipad. ipads use an LCD screen, so it'll be the same as looking at your laptop screen. ipad is basically a big itouch.
ReplyDeleteThere is the sony reader, the nook, and a bunch of others much cheaper. But they are *readers*. So grey-scale screens and E-Ink technology. News are that's there's color E-Ink technology in the works, and readers with color could be seen by next year. For the expensive in Germany issue, you could have someone in the U.S. order it and use it for a bit to make sure it's not broken or needs to be returned on warranty, and then ship it to you. Waaaaay cheaper, even with shipping. You could also wait a year for improved technology and entry of all the competitors to the German market.