7 Quick Takes Friday – Treadmill edition

Yes, okay, so everything in my life this week revolves around the treadmill! I can’t help it!

Take, the First
So. Treadmill desk. I believe that as of yesterday I have walked 20 miles this week. It’s going swimmingly (walkingly?). The only thing I find I can’t do very well on the treadmill is anything graphics or design-based. It’s like that part of my brain is needed for walking and can’t be spared to manipulate graphics. Plus, it’s hard to be precise with a mouse when you’re moving. But writing, blogging, tweeting, Facebook, reading other people’s blogs… those can all be done very easily. In fact, if I’m in passive mode–Facebook, for instance–I amp up the speed a little. I haven’t gone more than 2 mph yet (which is pretty slow–if I were on the treadmill without the computer I would typically be walking at 4 mph), but I don’t think I will as long as my laptop is wedged into the keyboard tray.

I know that I for one was very interested in seeing actual data from people who use treadmill desks, so at some point I will gather some together in case anyone is curious.

This post, ironically, I am writing from my desktop. Why, you ask? No good reason. *grumble, grumble* Fine! I’ll go get on the treadmill. *sigh*

Take, the Second
(Yes, I’m on the treadmill now.) I am SO excited, because I am very close to being able to announce the title of Book 2! I just need to register the domain name first, because that’s how life is these days. But any minute now, I’ll be popping out with it.

Take, the Third
How excited am I about Mad Men? VERY! I love that show. It’s like a waterfall of soothing elevator music that just flows over you in a wash of lazy hipness… unlike the other show I love, Big Love, which is starting to feel like a waterfall of crazy lemonade poured on your head while you sleep.

Take, the Fourth
I am working very hard on another Semi-Secret project that I will probably unveil over the weekend. It’s something very exciting that I have been planning for a while, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do! So stay tuned for a post about it tomorrow or Sunday.

Take, the Fifth
July is turning out to be a DISMAL reading month. Not because of the books I’m reading, which are not dismal, but because of how few of them there are. I read 13 books in May, and I’ll be lucky to make it to five in July. Yikes. I think it’s because I’m trying to read about six at once. So maybe within the first week of August I will have finished six books.

I just have a really hard time prioritizing, you know? Certain library books can’t be renewed, so those are at the top of the list. And then there’s my philosophy of not reading the same genre/category all in a row, which has kind of gone out the window (I’m thinking of adopting the term “JulYA” so it seems like I planned it). Plus, I have tons of great books on my bookshelves, but I feel guilty reading those if I have library books. But every time I go to the library I get more books.

And don’t even get me started on the audiobook backlog!

Take, the Sixth
Anyone going to the SCBWI-LA conference? I am! I have no idea what to expect. I was just told that it will be fun, and I hate being on Twitter and seeing hashtags for something I’m not attending when it’s a ten minute drive from my house.

If you are going, you are hereby ordered to say hi to me and be my friend, because I will be wandering around like a lost goat in the mountainside.

Take, the Seventh
For years, Winston has been trying to eat dead bees and getting stung in his mouth. This is not just a heartbreaking habit but a costly one. I’ve often wondered what it would take for him to actually LEARN from the experience–”dead bee = pain”–but Winston is not the most intuitive fellow and the lessons have gone unheeded.

Until now… kind of.

The other day, just as he was getting ready to go up the stairs to the street, he picked up a dead bee (which I had ignored, thinking it was a dead beetle) and got stung (a little sting, I think, because the stinger didn’t leave the bee). “Will he ever learn?” I once again wondered. This time, the answer is YES! He learned! He ate a dead bee and got stung and now… he is afraid of the stairs.

Happy Friday!

1 comment July 23rd, 2010

2010 reading update: June

Well, June didn’t turn out to be quite the reading month that May was! The reason, of course, was that I was having to devote time to WRITING my own book and not just reading those written by other authors.

Here’s the scoop:

1) When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man by Jerry Weintraub
If you enjoy old Hollywood or show business memoirs or music business memoirs, this book will probably please you. I know I enjoyed it. It was one of those books where every chapter brings a new anecdote I’m dying to tell the husb (but I refrain because he immediately starts chanting, “SPOILERS!”). Jerry Weintraub began his career as a concert promoter and is best known currently as the producer of the Oceans 11, 12 and 13 movies. The best part about this book is his storytelling about some of the very famous stars of years past (Sinatra, Elvis). The worst part is the weird section at the end where he describes his permanent non-monogamous situation. (Which reads a lot like what it is–a man who has become used to getting what he wants justifying getting what he wants.) But you can always skip that part.

2) Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
I’d seen this around the internets, and I finally decided to give it a look-see. I must say, it really might be the last book I ever need. (I’m not a screenwriter, but I do enjoy books about writing.) It was really a great book with a very concrete and simple explanation of story structure. Highly recommend.

3) Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink
A dark and spooky YA about a pair of twins whose destiny is tied to an ancient prophecy. The first in a series.

4) Diane: A Signature Life by Diane Von Furstenberg
This memoir started strong for me and ended a little on the dry side. I guess I wasn’t aware that DVF was such a force in the 1970s. I always just associated her with the wrap dresses. Still a fairly interesting read about a woman who had a lot of connections and resources and used them to find success (which is more than can be said about today’s young celebutantes).

5) The Likeness by Tana French
I listened to the audiobook of In the Woods a couple of years ago and found that it ranged from excellent to maddening. I love French’s writing; it’s her plotting that can make you want to tear your hair out. There always seems to be a point about 2/3 of the way through where you want to chuck the book (or iPod) at the wall. (I wouldn’t normally say anything critical about another author’s work; the only reason I do is that for all of that, I’ll still gladly read whatever she writes.) Also, as a writer of mystery-style thrillers, I can relate very much to the problems and challenges of structuring a story that needs to unfold piece by piece.

1 comment July 1st, 2010

2010 reading update: May

Well, May was a pretty productive reading month! Here’s the lineup:

1. Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick (whom I met at the LA Times Festival of Books, and she is very nice!)
2. An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott
3. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
4. Perfect Nightmare by John Saul
5. The Dark Divine by Bree Despain
6. Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch
7. Rampant by Diana Peterfreund
8. Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
9. Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott
10. Milagros, Girl From Away by Meg Medina
11. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
12. Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block

What made this such a bookful month? Well, sending off a draft always leaves one with extra time on the old hands. Plus a trip to Hawaii with an immediate injury that forces one to sit in a deck chair for three solid days…

BREAKDOWN
5 YA (1,5,7,10,12–two paranormal (5,7), one magical realism (10), two “straight” (1,12))
2 classics (2,9)
2 very popular recent fiction releases (3,6)
1 sci-fi/war (8)
1 thriller (4)
1 non-fiction action/memoir (11)

This brings my total for 2010 to 42! That’s two more than my goal for the whole year, after 2009’s dismal 26 books.

NOTABLE:
* I read both Alcott books and the John Saul on my Kindle. I don’t love buying e-books because of the DRM, because I usually think of at least one person I want to share a book with when I’m done with it. But the classics are usually about a dollar (or free!) and you can’t beat that with a stick. Now I’m going to try to read more on the Kindle, although the age-old problem remains: I can’t go four days without losing the charge cord.

* I bought the John Saul book because I read an article about him in the Hawaiian Airlines magazine. The book was a little icky for my taste, but I’ve since read lots of reviews that say his earlier stuff is better. So I may give him another try at some point… but I can’t say I recommend the one I read.

* The Art of Racing in the Rain is narrated by a dog, who understands everything going on around him. I read this in Hawaii and ended up crying into my mai-tai at the end. Then when I came home, I sat down next to Winston and told him that I know he understands everything we say and I’m sorry that sometimes we treat him like he doesn’t. At which point he started scratching himself vigorously to show me he understood.

* I was very excited to read Milagros, Girl From Away, because the author, Meg Medina, was my creative writing teacher in high school! In the span of two weeks, I reconnected with two of my favorite high school teachers online and learned that one of them is an author! It was totally neat. The book is lovely–on the younger side of YA, a magical realism story about a girl who loses her paradise home and finds a new life in a new place. I recommend checking it out!

* I tried to read Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven a few years ago and gave up on it as too inflammatory to be enjoyed as a non-fiction account. But Into Thin Air is his first-person account of climbing Mount Everest in the deadliest season since the mountain was first scaled. I found the book absolutely riveting; when I finished, I was surprised to see that a lot of reviewers find it boring and that many people consider it just as inflammatory and non-balanced as I found the other book. Made me think–but didn’t lessen the page-turniness for me.

June 1st, 2010

2010 Reading Update

So! I still managed a fair amount of reading in April, despite my crazy writing schedule. I did this by giving up TV completely during the day. (At night I had to watch because it counts as Quality Time With the Husb and I am interested in seeing this marriage into its 9th year and beyond.)

But breakfast and lunch and other breaks during the day were all book, no TiVo. I am quite used to it, actually, and I kind of like it. I find it very unsettling to sit down to eat lunch and finish ten minutes later but still have 12 minutes of a TV show to watch. I like the fact that you can set a book down anytime and get back to work. TV is quite a time-suck, who knew?

So, without further ado, here is my April reading:

1. The Liars Club by Mary Karr
2. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
3. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
4. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
5. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
6. Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
7. The Butcher and the Vegetarian by Tara Austen Weaver

2 memoir (#1 and #7)
3 YA (#2, #5, #6)
2 “modern classics” (#3, #4)

Total read so far in 2010: 31 books, a vast improvement over last year! And I really am enjoying every minute of it. The Los Angeles Public Library system is a continual joy to me. Their entire catalog is on their website and (with a few exceptions) any book can be held and shipped to your home library.

So you tell me… what have you been reading lately? Anything to recommend?

Happy Tuesday! (And happy reading!)

8 comments May 4th, 2010

Two-for-Tuesday: bloglet edition

Two random observations:

(1) I’m currently reading Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. It’s a YA novel dealing with eating disorders. The weird thing is that since I’m working on revisions all day, every day, the only time I have for reading is when I eat. It is very strange and incongruous to read a book about eating disorders while eating.

(2) As usual, trying to get a book out the door means everything else in my life suffers. This includes all kinds of correspondence that it is very bad of me to neglect. So if I owe you a reply or some other thing (Tom and Tracy, I owe you bags for the music meme contest, for instance), please forgive me and know that I have not forgotten. I am only behaving in a shameful manner that suggests I have forgotten.

And that’s all for today! Back to work.

k.

5 comments April 6th, 2010

Reading in 2010, end-of-March update

Happy Easter! I hope everyone is enjoying the day and not eating too many jellybeans and chocolate bunnies.

Just thought I’d give an update on what I read in March. I’m pleased to say that unless I forget how to read, my goal of 40 books in 2010 shouldn’t be a problem! In fact, I’ve almost read more in three months of 2010 than I read in the whole of 2009. Hurray!

Here’s what I read in March:

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin Doland
SuperFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (which immediately shot onto my favorites list!)
Evermore by Alyson Noel

Not as many books as in February, because these revisions are taking up most of my time.

And the good news is, the TBR pile is full of yummy books I can’t wait to get to. I must admit I’m a little scared of tackling Stephen King’s Under the Dome. Because I have a feeling it will turn my “what I read this month” list into a list of one.

Funny thing about that. I bought that book with Beautiful Creatures by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia. I set them on the shelf in the office and went back a couple of days later to get BC. I stood there, scanning the shelves, totally unable to find it. Finally, I located it–it was the skinny book next to Under the Dome. Yes, we’re talking about a 600-page book that looked downright scrawny next to the shoebox-sized Stephen King book.

Maybe that’s not funny. What is funny, to me at least, is that I loaned Little Sis The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. She devoured it, forsaking even reality TV to make time for reading. The husb and I went out to dinner the other night, and when we came home, Little Sis pounced on me and said, “Where is it? Where’s the sequel? I know you have it!” She was dying to start in on Catching Fire. Later, I asked her what she’d done that night, and she said, “I read… and then I spent an hour looking for that book!”

So, touché, Suzanne Collins, I’m pretty sure my little sister likes your book better than mine.

5 comments April 4th, 2010

Lovely, lovely

I’ve just spent the past 24 or so hours completely entranced by the novel Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. I’d heard of it mentioned in passing over the years, but I never really knew what the story was or anything else about it (such as that it won the veddy veddy prestigious Orange Prize).

I saw it on the shelf at the library a few weeks and scooped it up, since I was feeling naughty and going against my “read what’s on the shelves at home first” policy. Then it sat in the library-book-bag, sad and untouched, while I removed and read or rejected other books. When I went online to see when everything was due, I offhandedly renewed it. Then it waited at home while I returned its siblings and picked up a fresh load.

But yesterday I picked it up.

[What follows is just my opinion. I gather there are people out there who didn't like this book, just as there are books out there that I don't like, and I look at the 5-star reviews and think, "What the heck am I missing?" If you didn't like this book, just pretend it is some book you do love, and come along with me.]

Oh, I got lost in this book. I got lost in the language, in the sentences. I felt that every phrase was like a down comforter I wanted to curl up under. The characters were so gentle, the action portrayed with such beautiful plainness, just what was necessary and no more. The pacing served the story perfectly. The book seemed to me like some perfect, regal thing. All dignity and beauty and music.

I am reeling from this book and sort of struck by that, “Why would I bother trying to write anything?” feeling while at the same time feeling inspired and driven.

Is there anything more delicious than finding a piece of art that will stay with you? Feeling your affection for something unfold like a flower blooming?

9 comments March 17th, 2010

And for my next trick, I will undisappear

Okay, I’m resolving RIGHT NOW that I am going to blog every day–at least every weekday–for the month of March.

(Cut to: March 18th post apologizing for not blogging. No, no! Mustn’t think that way!)

To be honest, I don’t expect the blogosphere to be hanging on my every word (although if you were, I would use a lot of delicious words like “mellifluous” to reward you), but I myself could use a little bit of public accountability as I tackle my revisions for book 2. So, here goes Day 1 of my official… 31 Days of Blogging at Least on the Weekdays or Else effort.

If you stick around, you will find that I am going to give away prizes, etc., and tell a lot of amusing stories about my dog. Which is TOTALLY worth it, right?

…Right?

Well, let’s see if we can have a good time, anyway.

Today’s post will be about one thing I am doing right this year: reading more. And I mean a LOT more. To paraphrase Stephen King, part of your job as a writer is to read a lot. Since in 2009, I read only a miserly 24 books, I decided that 2010 would be a 40-book year. Now it seems like it is shaping up to be a 60-70 book year, and I am pleased as punch. Not only because I love setting random goals and meeting them, but because I am reading some fabulous stuff and it has me very excited.

I urge you to befriend me on GoodReads and then you will be able to see what kind of reading I’m up to. My basic rule is not to read the same type of book twice in a row–no two YA books, no two memoirs, no two pop pscyhology books or women’s fiction or what-have-you. It keeps things varied and keeps me moving through the bookshelves.

So without further ado, here is the list of books I finished in 2010, as of yesterday:

1. Jane-Emily, by Patricia Clapp
2. The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx
3. The Lucky Guide to Mastering Any Style: Creating Iconic Looks and Making Them Your Own by Kim France
4. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar: And Six More, by Roald Dahl
5. Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, by Michael Pollan
6. Child of My Heart, by Alice McDermott
7. Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey among Hasidic Girls, by Stephanie Wellen Levine
8. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous (actually by editor Beatrice Sparks)
9. Lucia, Lucia, by Adriana Trigiani
10. Wasteland, by Francesca Lia Block
11. Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I’ve Learned, by Alan Alda
12. Silver Phoenix: Beyond The Kingdom of Xia, by Cindy Pon
13. Twenty Boy Summer, by Sarah Ockler
14. The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
15. Unhooked, by Laura Sessions Stepp
16. Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia and Margie Stohl

Look! Look at all them books! I am very proud of myself, not to mention enjoying my reading project immensely.

Now here is some information I’ll include every day. For lack of a better word springing to mind, I will call it “The Daily Plah”, as in, “You know, that word, plah, what word am I thinking of?”

The Daily Plah: Day 1
Currently reading: Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr
Book 2 starting point (as I cannot report progress as I have not yet started working today): page 34
Other notable facts: Household has reached critically low levels of clean clothing, clean dishes, and food. Will probably have to do something about this, especially as the husb has resorted to eating MY yogurt since he’s all out.

Happy Monday! See you tomorrow!

7 comments March 1st, 2010

I get it, I get it! There’s a gun on the mantle!

“One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.”
Anton Chekhov

Most writers (and probably readers) have heard this advice, although I’d always heard it as “a gun on the mantlepiece,” thanks to which I learned that I had no idea how to spell “mantle.” (Hey, I grew up in the sunny South. Santa came in through the front door.)

Anyway, I’m reading a book (okay, listening to an audiobook–audiobooks rule!) right now–which shall remain nameless–where the endless foreshadowing sans payoff is about to drive me totally bonkers.

Don’t get me wrong–it’s a really good book. I love the characters, the story, the setting, the tone, the language. Gosh. A great book. If only I could go through it with a red pen and remove all the guns and mantlepieces.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Blah blah 8 chapters of character development and story development about Donny and his friend Gordon, and so on… and then WHAM! Donny, the narrator says, “I had no idea that it would be the winter that tore apart our friendship forever.”

Oh, snap! No way, Donny! Do tell!

Blah blah 4 more chapters of really good writing and lots of interesting stuff–plenty of stuff, really, to keep me reading; I mean, really, what a taut narrative! I am so engrossed in this story! And then WHAM! Donny says, “If only I’d known that everything that has happened since that winter was telegraphed in that conversation.”

What can you possibly mean, Donny? (Because said conversation was about, like, running shoes.)

Blah blah for another 5 chapters, Donny and Gordon go on with their lives and things really start to get interesting. What amazing writing this is. I’m enthralled. Then–WHAM! Donny says, “In a way, what Gordon and I realized that morning was that some inevitable point was approaching for both of us, after which nothing would ever be the same. Of course, neither of us knew it until it was too late.”

COME ON, DONNY, THROW ME A FRICKIN’ BONE HERE!

By this point in the story, all I can think of is that something horrible is about to happen. I can hardly keep my mind on the primary storyline any longer. The mantlepiece is piled high with guns, and I am about one glass of white wine away from skipping to the end of the story to see how they’re fired and who gets shot.

I mean, yeah, foreshadowing is all well and good, but for heaven’s sake, you don’t have to start telegraphing the ending in every chapter. It’s like the old Nancy Drew serials–every chapter ends with a BUM-BUM-BUMMMMM, such as an ominous phone call or a body found in the hospital broom closet.

The dour predictions and hints are laid on so thick that the following actually happened: I accidentally had not downloaded the final segment (since audiobooks are broken up into multiple files). I was listening to the last one I had, and saw that there was an hour left. “Aha!” I thought. “Finally I will get to hear how everything fell apart and Donny and Gordon ceased to be friends.”

Forty-five minutes left… thirty minutes left… eight minutes left… I thought, “Well, it’s going to be a sudden ending, but at least I will get to know what the heck Donny was moaning about all this time!”

WRONG, of course. When I realized there were six more hours of what is otherwise a fantabulously well-written audiobook, I was SAD. That is SO BAD, my friends. I never, ever want my audiobooks to be over. They are my friends, and I want them all to be 45 hours long. I should have been so excited to learn that Donny and Gordon and I were going to get another 8 chapters together.

As an author, this is probably the second-worst thing you can do to your readers. (The first is to write a terrible book that everyone claims is really good and you’re a dummy if you don’t like it.) This crime–the second–is to write an amazing book that they wish they were done with, already.

(The third is to write a terrible book that they read anyway, because they want to know how it ends. The fourth is to write a boring book that wastes their time but is ultimately ditchable.)

So please, fellow authors. Maybe you’re planning some gunfire in chapter 26. But do me a favor and keep the gun off the mantle until chapter 22 or so.

PS – Next week is my first week blogging as a member of the 2009 class of The Debutante Ball, a wonderful group blog for debut authors. I start blogging Tuesday, and I’m joined by a bunch of other cool authors, whose books all sound very excellent and intimidating. I’m the first YA debut author, so please meander over there Tuesday and read my post and comment and be all, “Wow, Katie, you are AWESOME!”

8 comments August 28th, 2008

Amazon Kindle review… at last!

Ooh, I’m naughty. I have no excuse for my absence except that I’ve become obsessed with sewing quilts for Chinese orphans. I know that sounds weird, but it’s strangely true. Next obsession: find a way to get the quilts to the orphans.

To make it up to you (ha!), here’s a video featuring my favorite puppets… the Muppets! This was produced by someone who is near and dear to me, so spread it around, tell your friends, etc. There should be more coming out at some point, so I’ll post those as well.

Now, shall we begin our Kindle review?

I got my Kindle as a Christmas present, which means I actually put my hands on it in February (that’s a joke… I mean, it’s true, but read it in a jokey voice). Ironically, I had just decided to decrease the size of my personal library and utilize the public library more. I know we’re supposed to support our author brethren by buying books, but trust me–I buy a LOT of books, if given the chance. So one trip to Bookstar down the street will make up for six months of librariness for me.

Anyway, I can’t say no to a gadget, so I didn’t say no to my Kindle.

Digression: when I was growing up, Christmas stockings are opened first and contain things like dental floss, chewing gum, maybe some hair ties, a keychain, a few bags of candy… and an orange in the toe, always. The husb’s family came out for the holidays, and we were planning to do stockings. I bought the requisite collection of small-ticket items, even ranging as high as a new head for his electric toothbrush.

But the husb’s family does things differently–we opened stockings after the rest of the gifts. And as the husb pulled out a pack of orange-mint gum and a bag of Skittles, I found a printed sheet of paper announcing my Kindle and realized that his family puts items of a different ticket in their stockings.

Lesson learned. I actually ended up eating the Skittles and chewing the gum myself, by the way. Don’t tell the husb. He left them on the dresser for a month! What does he expect?

On with the review!

So, Kindle. I was waiting to write a review until I had a real “whole book” experience with it. Meaning, I bought a book and read the whole thing and got a feel for the device. I had thought this would be Eileen Cook’s Unpredictable, but it turns out that after I bought the Kindle edition, I met Eileen in person at a signing in NYC and bought a hard copy so she could sign it for me.

Fast forward to this recent trip: the book? The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory. I downloaded the whole thing and read it all on the Kindle, and as a result, I am pretty much a convert.

The Kindle, for those of you who don’t know of it, is a small e-book (“electronic book”) reader produced by Amazon.com. You buy e-books by downloading them from the Kindle Store section of Amazon.com, and they are sent through Amazon’s wireless “whispernet” to your Kindle. The whispernet, I think, borrows from cell towers in the area. It eats up battery power, so you can switch it off when you aren’t whispering downloads to your Kindle.

The books are downloaded as files, which allows you to read them on your Kindle screen and turn the page using the buttons.

Here are some broad sweeps:

It takes getting used to, but I did get used to it. It’s light and comfortable to hold, and easy to read. The screen is not backlit, which means you can’t read at night without a lamp, but also means there’s no more strain on your eyes than if you were reading any old book.

GOOD THINGS:

* It’s small and easy to pack. This is great for people who tend to load their suitcases, purses, bookbags, what-have-you, with books before taking any excursion. Right before I zip my carry-on, I tend to get panicky and throw books in willy-nilly, which adds about eight pounds of weight to my load. (Meaningless, since I always buy books at the airport anyway.) The Kindle carries many books at once, and until you actually get on the plane and have to turn off your wireless devices, you can download still more books.

* You can download a sample chapter of any e-book before buying it. This is really cool. It’s the e-version of loitering in a bookstore and reading the first few pages before buying the book–heretofore unknown in online book sales. There’s no charge, and once you download the sample, you can keep it or dump it or whatever.

* There’s plenty of file space on the Kindle, but if you need more, you can use a memory card. All of your books are listed on the home menu, and if you want to free up space, just remove the file–but Amazon.com has a record of your purchases and you can re-download any time.

* It’s easy to use. The controls are simple and intuitive.

* The battery life is very respectable, when the wifi is off (there’s an easy on-off switch for the wifi so you can read on planes and don’t drain the power).

* The screen is as easy on your eyes as any book. And you can adjust the text size.

* You can email or upload files from your own computer (using a cord that comes with the Kindle). I’ve seen agents’ blogs where they forward manuscripts to themselves and therefore only carry home a Kindle instead of several hundred pages of submissions. For them I think it’s basically ideal. I have also used it a time or two for my own work, which is fun. (You protect your Kindle from junkmail by specifying what addresses you can receive email from).

* You can also access Wikipedia (but I haven’t tried) as well as read non-Amazon e-books (but not those in a proprietary format, like Sony e-Reader) and even listen to audiobooks (but I haven’t tried that, either).

* You can take notes, add bookmarks, etc. It has a little keyboard at the bottom.

* There’s a very easy way to put the Kindle to sleep, so you don’t have to constantly reboot it if you’re reading in short intervals.

* Bestsellers are $9.99 (even some books that, in hardback, are $25) and many other books are less expensive.

* No more overstuffed bookshelves! A truly minimalist approach to reading.

“MEH” THINGS:

* The minimalism prevents sharing or passing a book along when you’re done with it. I’m a big fan of sharing the lit, but with a Kindle, you obviously can’t pass something on to a sibling or friend, unless you’re willing to part with your Kindle.

* There are no page numbers. I know this sounds trivial, but I like to always be aware of my exact position. Instead, they use “section numbers” (or segment numbers) that can go as high as necessary (a recent book I read was 10,000 sections). There’s a bar at the bottom that shows you relatively how far you are–like a progress bar– but I never realized how much I paid attention to page numbers until I lost them.

* Not every book, old or new, is available on the Kindle. Many are. But many aren’t. I guess that’s where hard copies come in.

* The reading area is smaller than a traditional page. This is mostly distracting when you are just looking at the Kindle, not when you’re reading. When you’re involved in a book, it doesn’t matter. But then you set it down and think, “Dang, that’s small!”

* Although the notes feature is cool, typing is a little tough.

* The screen doesn’t produce light, so if it’s dim, you need a book light. But it is a little shiny, so you need to find the correct angle to avoid glare (like reading a shiny magazine).

* One “previous page” control is right where I keep thinking a “next page” control should be. So I’m constantly hitting that and then getting confused about where I am.

* The case is kind of silly. It took me a little while to get used to how non-functional it is. Like, it looks like it has an elastic strap to hold the device down while you read, but that only works when the case is shut. I mostly read without the case at all.

* Occasionally, on documents you email to yourself, the formatting comes across wonky. Like, it will mash the paragraphs together or get rid of indents.

* Let’s face it–if you like having full bookshelves, or holding an actual book in your hands, the Kindle won’t be your favorite item. Which is to say, if you aren’t into minimalism, it’s probably too minimalist for your taste. Part of the joy of owning it is knowing that it’s a clutter solution.

* The home menu could be better organized, which is to say, could be more elaborate than just a list of your books. But I’m hoping a firmware upgrade will happen along soon that might add a few bells and whistles.

* Searching for books to buy from the Kindle is easy; browsing is a pain. If I know exactly what I want, I use the Kindle to obtain it; if I want to browse, I use my computer.

* The display is nice and readable, but it’s not really any fancier than a plain old book. Your reading experience isn’t more fancy or mindblowing. It’s just more convenient.

OVERALL:

I’m glad I have my Kindle. It’s great, great, great for travelling. The flash that occurs when you turn the page (and the e-ink, or whatever it’s called, rearranges itself) isn’t distracting at all once you get into your reading–you really don’t notice it. And it does have the feeling of reading a book. You take in the info the same way and get into the characters as well.

The price is a little high for something that doesn’t really save you very much money, unless you buy hardcover books non-stop. On the other hand, it can also play audiobooks, so if you don’t have an iPod, it save that cost.

It’s fun and convenient and compact. There are certainly worse ways to spend your money.

Cheers!

I’m off to work on more quilts.

10 comments June 17th, 2008