Tag: ebooks

#oneaday Day 440: eBooks are a good

Considering my predilection for collecting physical releases of video games, I'm kind of surprised at myself with how readily I took up eBooks in favour of a physical library of books. I still have some physical books — mostly nice "coffee table" ones like the Bitmap Books stuff, plus a number from my childhood that hold sentimental value — but over the years, a huge pile of books I used to own have ended up in the book banks or charity shops. Some of them I've replaced with electronic versions; some I haven't. At this point, there are some books I've only ever owned as eBooks.

I enjoy reading; always have done. I grew up being supported and encouraged by my parents to read, and quickly established a "reading age" well ahead of where I was "supposed" to be at any given point in primary school. I vividly recall spending time reading books from the Ginn 360 Reading Scheme that were much higher in "level" than those of my peers, and being given special "reading comprehension" tests further up the school to test that my proficiency with reading was, in fact, the real deal. (It was.)

I had a lot of books at home, too. I collected the Roald Dahl books for quite a while, and read many of them repeatedly — including the two volumes of his autobiography, which were much more challenging than his work that was explicitly for children. I remember reading the Chronicles of Narnia books. Blade of the Poisoner, of course. Enid Blyton books. Choose Your Own Adventure books. All manner of different things — including some quite challenging titles as I grew older, like the complete Sherlock Holmes stories, recreated as they originally appeared in the Strand magazine, but slightly smaller and thus in obscenely tiny print. Bram Stoker's Dracula. The works of H.P. Lovecraft.

At secondary school, by the time I got to GCSE and A-levels, I was getting extra assignments in English Literature classes encouraging me to read beyond the standard syllabus. (I wasn't thrilled at having to read more John Steinbeck — Cannery Row, as I recall — after having just suffered through Of Mice and Men, but being pleased at being singled out for praise and attention by my teacher counterbalanced that somewhat.) At university, I enjoyed reading some of the books we were assigned, but found myself bouncing hard off anything that involved what I still regard as the "absolute bollocks end of philosophy".

As most of us do, once I was past compulsory education, my rate of reading for pleasure slowed somewhat, but I still enjoyed the odd novel here and there. But I moved house a lot over the course of the years between starting university and getting to a point where I felt vaguely "settled", and moving a big pile of books every time was getting increasingly tiresome. So, eventually, over time, I gradually shed those books, making sure they went to what was hopefully a good home rather than just throwing them in the bin. While I wasn't especially attached to the books themselves as collectibles, I at least wanted to show them the respect of passing them on to someone else rather than discarding them. To me, a book had meaning and value, and even if you didn't want it any more, someone else might still get some pleasure from it.

I can't remember when I got my first Kindle offhand. To my shame, I didn't use it all that much, and I felt a fair bit of guilt about that. A good few years later, I upgraded the Kindle I didn't use all that much to a newer Paperwhite model with a built-in light, and found myself reading a whole lot more. Even more recently, I splurged on a Kindle Scribe, primarily for its "endless notepaper" facility and lovely electronic pencil, but was pleased to discover that the Scribe's form factor is great for reading manga.

Now, while I don't read every single day, I wouldn't want to be without some form of e-reader. I know folks quite rightly have mixed opinions about anything Amazon related, and I don't begrudge them that. Not only that, but Amazon (and the Kindle store) is becoming increasingly filled with AI-generated slop, making "just browsing" for something new to read more of a pain. But if you have at the very least a rough idea of what you might want to read, it's hard to beat the experience of being able to look something up, hit the "buy" button and be reading it a moment later.

I'm honestly not really sure why I'm 100% fine with this when it comes to books, but much more precious about wanting to keep physical releases of video games. Both are essentially "collectible" in the same way, but I guess at some point my brain has just decided that for me, it's the contents of the book that is the most important thing, whereas with video games, the physical package and the tactile feeling of putting in a disc or cartridge is as important a part of experiencing the thing as it is actually seeing the thing on the television and interacting with it.

I suppose it doesn't really matter. I don't have room for a library of books and a library of video games in my house, and the video games have, to date, won. But that doesn't mean my Kindle library isn't bulging with cool and interesting things to read! Now, I just need to pick what I'm going to read when we go on holiday, because that seems like some prime reading time.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 592: Little Miracles

I finished another book… well, ebook today. I shouldn't really make that distinction because a book's a book whatever medium it might be "printed" on — or perhaps it might be more accurate to say "a novel's a novel".

Anyway, I read a second book by Giselle Green as I rather enjoyed Pandora's Box, despite its slightly convoluted ending. Also, like Pandora's Box, it was only 99p on iBooks. I'm all for the bargain hunting, especially when I've just blown a large chunk of cash on the deposit for the house I'm writing this to you from.

Anyway. Little Miracles tells the story of Julia and Charlie, and their young son Hadyn. Julia is a stay at home mother, having given up a career, while Charlie is a plastic surgeon who does charity work, particularly with African kids whose faces have been disfigured by a disease I can't remember the name of.

A short distance into the book, Hadyn disappears. (That isn't a spoiler — it's plastered all over the novel's blurb as the central premise of the story.) The remainder of the tale explores Charlie and Julia's different attitudes towards the tragedy as they attempt to come to terms with the possible death of their son.

Structurally it's very similar to Pandora's Box, jumping back and forth between the dual perspectives of Charlie and Julia, both of whom are well-defined, interesting characters with their own backgrounds which come to light throughout the course of the story. And, like its predecessor, it's in possession of a somewhat frustrating ending, albeit for slightly different reasons.

This doesn't diminish the fact that it's once again a highly readable book based on in depth explorations of Charlie and Julia in particular — but through them we find out plenty about the supporting cast, too. Ironically, the only character who doesn't get fleshed out much is Hadyn, but since he's under the age of two there's only so much you can say beyond "he likes his cuddly elephant called Bap-Bap."

It's a well paced book — perhaps slightly too long if I'm honest — and eminently readable. Green's prose flows well and she has a skill for writing in markedly different voices when narrating from the perspectives of different characters. By the end of the story, Charlie and Julia are like old friends — a good way to be given the lengthy journey the reader is expected to take with them. Both have their own tragic flaws, and both come to terms with the situation in their own way. It's interesting to "watch" — though at times frustrating as you will the pair of them to communicate more.

All in all, though, it was an excellent read and one I'm glad I took the time (and the vast expense) to read. While it won't appeal to those who need a little more sex/murder/explosions in their novels, it's a compelling tale that tugs at the heartstrings without being overly melodramatic.