This year, for my birthday, I got an unexpected surprise: my friend Walter sent me an Amazon gift certificate. In the amount of a Kindle. Get yourself one, he said. Or, if you'd rather, spend it on books instead.
Cue dilemma.
I love physical books. Can't imagine life without them. Can't imagine me without them. And yet I find e-readers fascinating. Hundreds of books at one's fingertips? The ability to travel without half my luggage weighted down with paper? (Because of course I can't take just one novel. There are the two or three I'm currently reading. Plus an old favorite, in case I need a comfort read. Plus the one I always buy in the airport bookstore, because no matter how resolved I am not to buy a new book, invariably one will beckon from the shelves, cooing, "See how shiny I am. How intriguing. Come to me, and discover in my pages a new world of depths and delights," and it's not my fault that Powell's Books has an outpost in the Portland Airport, and yes I suppose I could just not go in, but then this blog would be written by a completely different person in an alternate universe and that seems, I dunno. Unlikely.)
So back to what I was saying. Fascinated. And yet torn. Because of course when you get a Kindle, you need to download books onto it. E-books. From Amazon.com. Now, I don't dislike Amazon. In fact, I harbor a kind of distant fond admiration for it, the way you do something that's all gee-whizzy and technical and really, really good at what it does, and yet is essentially soulless. (Like Avatar. But that's a whole different post.)
And yet...
...every e-book I might buy would be one less actual book bought from a real, live, independent bookstore. And I love indie bookstores. I adore the hand-written shelf cards telling me which books are staff favorites. I look forward to seeing the same people every time I go in, and getting to know them, and picking their brains for book recommendations. I love the sense of timelessness that envelops me as soon as I walk in the door. The feeling that all cares and worries belong to another world, and here, in this small place, the only important things are the stories. Best of all, though, is noticing a cover, or a title, and I've never heard of the book before or the author, but something about it catches my eye so I lift it down. Turn it over. Scan the blurbs and the back copy. Open it and read the first sentence. Sometimes I think "meh" and I move on. But sometimes that first sentence flicks over me like a noose and cinches tight and I'm thinking yes yes yes I must find out everything now please and I buy the book and take it home and immerse myself in its world and then go out and rave about it to everyone I know.
How would I have found A Suitable Boy on Amazon.com? Or Babe in Paradise? Or An Instance of the Fingerpost, or A Northern Light, or Wives and Daughters, or The Man in My Basement, or The Once and Future King? How do you stumble across a gem that's not in the top 50 in sales rankings and not by an author you've previously read and not the latest book club fad? When you don't know a book exists, how can you type its name into a search box?
You can't. Which is why you go to your local bookstore and wander the stacks to discover the next unknown book you're going to love. Which means that the bookstore has to be there, and the only way it can be there is if people keep going and buying books.
And yet...
And yet...
Back and forth. Up and down. And finally Walter was like, what are you doing, and I'm like, I dunno, dude, and I realized I just had to decide. So I did.
When the Kindle arrived, it happened that I was re-reading one of my favorites, a 1946 edition of Pavilion of Women by Pearl Buck. I'd bought it used from an indie bookstore a few years ago. The dust jacket is long gone. Some previous owner had amused herself by penciling over parts of the cover illustration. Its edges are worn and dented in places. It feels handled and much, much read, and its pages have that sweet, dusty, woody scent of old book paper. (Old book is like puppy breath--one of the great, immortal aromas of life. Whatever happened to it? I miss it.)
The Kindle isn't flashy; like the book, it doesn't draw attention to itself. I charge it, turn it on, and navigate to the Kindle store. There on the home page, practically the first thing I see: Margaret Atwood's latest, The Year of the Flood.
IwantIwantIwant. I click. Less than a minute later, the book is here in my hand. I won't lie to you: that is beyond cool. I start the first chapter, but it's hard to lose myself in the flow; I'm too aware of what I'm reading it on. But after a while, the words catch me and I go under, immersed in Margaret's world, and it's not until I finish the second chapter that I realize: the Kindle has disappeared. The same way a physical book disappears, when the story takes hold and we slip into the dream the author has created.
So here I am: a lifelong book lover, with overflowing bookcases and teetering stacks all over my house, eleven novels on my nightstand right now, a passionate believer in bookstores...and a Kindle owner. The Atwood novel is the only one I've bought. All the others I've downloaded are free. They're works in the public domain--classics--that I've already owned or already read.
If we vote with our dollars, I've decided that mine will continue to vote for bookstores.
I'm still reading two to three books at a time, but now, one of them is on the Kindle. (Current pick: Tess of the D'Ubervilles.) Every time I turn it on, the idea of reading 19th century literature on a 21st century device makes me smile. But then the words appear, everything in the real world vanishes--including the device that brings me those words--and I'm in England, on a summer evening, slipping into the dairy with Tess.
P.S...Many thanks, Walter, for the shove into the future!
Showing posts with label geek alert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geek alert. Show all posts
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Optimize Me, Baby!
You may remember (or not, it was a tad bit ago), me rhapsodizing about a character-naming website called the Baby Name Wizard. Although why they call it the Baby Name Wizard and not the Character Name Wizard, I'm not sure. It might have something to do with wacky people using it to name actual living humans instead of figments of their imaginations. Sounds crazy, I know, but hey--I don't make this stuff up.
A character's name is of course enormously important. For example, if your protagonist is a half-feral, demon-killing maiden of the Sacred Sword of Arnooth, who has sworn bloody vengeance against the spawn of Beezelbub who slew her mother lo these many years past (now, that I made up) you don't name her Pickles. Actually, you don't name anyone Pickles. That's a Rule. Write it down.
I hear you whispering back there. You think the example I just gave is easy. Because obviously the perfect name for a half-feral, demon-killing urban fantasy protagonist is Shzaghatha of the Rampaging El. What novelist worth her salt needs a website for that?
Well fine, smartypants. Name me this: a boy's name that means warrior.
With no more than two syllables.
In Arabic.
Ha! Not so easy now, is it, my pretty?*
And yet--it is. Writers,** say hello to the Baby Name Optimizer. Make your choices among 17 variables--not only ethnicity and number of syllables, but style (trendy, timeless, exotic), popularity (Top 100, less popular, unusual), origin (Biblical, Buddhist Zen, Muslim, Sanskrit, Saints, Shakespearian, among a slew of others). Want a celebrity name? A name that conveys your character is athletic? Dark? Graceful? A name that is associated with animals? A place? A gemstone?
The Optimizer, it is a veritable garden of geeky delight, my friends. A garden! We're talking wild climbing roses and birds of paradise and lilies of the freaking valley here. Not to mention, it's a procrastinator's dream.
And remember: Once you've optimized your character's name, pop over to the Baby Name Wizard and find out how popular it's been in every decade since the 1880s.
Sigh. And they say we can't find heaven here on earth.
Okay, enough geeking out (although really, can one ever truly get enough?) But I gotta get to work. Just as soon as I plug in a request for a four-syllable Teutonic girl's name meaning "peacemaker" that does not end in the letter a.
Axelle. Ah well--four out of five ain't bad.
*I have got to stop watching Wizard of Oz late at night. Oh, BTW, the Arabic boy warrior's name? Shamar. Nice, huh?
**Yes, I suppose you expectant-parent types can use it, too. But don't you dare take Axelle. That name is mine.
A character's name is of course enormously important. For example, if your protagonist is a half-feral, demon-killing maiden of the Sacred Sword of Arnooth, who has sworn bloody vengeance against the spawn of Beezelbub who slew her mother lo these many years past (now, that I made up) you don't name her Pickles. Actually, you don't name anyone Pickles. That's a Rule. Write it down.
I hear you whispering back there. You think the example I just gave is easy. Because obviously the perfect name for a half-feral, demon-killing urban fantasy protagonist is Shzaghatha of the Rampaging El. What novelist worth her salt needs a website for that?
Well fine, smartypants. Name me this: a boy's name that means warrior.
With no more than two syllables.
In Arabic.
Ha! Not so easy now, is it, my pretty?*
And yet--it is. Writers,** say hello to the Baby Name Optimizer. Make your choices among 17 variables--not only ethnicity and number of syllables, but style (trendy, timeless, exotic), popularity (Top 100, less popular, unusual), origin (Biblical, Buddhist Zen, Muslim, Sanskrit, Saints, Shakespearian, among a slew of others). Want a celebrity name? A name that conveys your character is athletic? Dark? Graceful? A name that is associated with animals? A place? A gemstone?
The Optimizer, it is a veritable garden of geeky delight, my friends. A garden! We're talking wild climbing roses and birds of paradise and lilies of the freaking valley here. Not to mention, it's a procrastinator's dream.
And remember: Once you've optimized your character's name, pop over to the Baby Name Wizard and find out how popular it's been in every decade since the 1880s.
Sigh. And they say we can't find heaven here on earth.
Okay, enough geeking out (although really, can one ever truly get enough?) But I gotta get to work. Just as soon as I plug in a request for a four-syllable Teutonic girl's name meaning "peacemaker" that does not end in the letter a.
Axelle. Ah well--four out of five ain't bad.
*I have got to stop watching Wizard of Oz late at night. Oh, BTW, the Arabic boy warrior's name? Shamar. Nice, huh?
**Yes, I suppose you expectant-parent types can use it, too. But don't you dare take Axelle. That name is mine.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Geek Fun
Wanna write a novel but the idea of slaving for years over deathless prose leaves you cold?
Baby, welcome to NaNoWriMo.
If you're a writer, you probably know what I'm talking about. If not, then consider yourself hereby informed: NaNoWriMo is shorthand for National Novel Writing Month.
National Novel Writing Month is not, as some people assume from the name, a month set aside for the appreciation of novel writers. (Although that would be nice--can we talk about that? I nominate the month of May, and further stipulate that said appreciation be in the form of cheese popcorn and/or Skittles. But that's just me.)
NaNoWriMo is about writing. Specifically, writing an entire novel (minimum 50,000 words--which is actually a pretty skimpy novel, but I digress) in the month of November.
Is it a contest? No, because there aren't any judges. Are there prizes? No, except for the glory and honor of completing a novel in 30 days. Am I participating? No, for a variety of reasons, mostly because I'm already deep in a novel and that doesn't lend itself to the kind of madcap seat-of-the-pants invention you need to write 1,666.67 words per day, every day. But hey, just because I'm a stick-in-the-mud doesn't mean you have to be. Limber up those fingers, put on the thinking cap (never mind, forget the thinking--there's no time for that!), click here for some inspiration, then let `er rip!
_________________
In other late breaking news, one of the Words of the Day this week (courtesy of A Word A Day, a site so insanely geeky it makes my heart flutter):
acnestis
(AK-nis-tuhs)
Noun: meaning the part of the body one cannot reach to scratch.
Pull that one out of your linguistic hat the next time someone asks you to scratch their back. Instant awe and admiration! Right? Am I right?
Um...hello?
Baby, welcome to NaNoWriMo.
If you're a writer, you probably know what I'm talking about. If not, then consider yourself hereby informed: NaNoWriMo is shorthand for National Novel Writing Month.
National Novel Writing Month is not, as some people assume from the name, a month set aside for the appreciation of novel writers. (Although that would be nice--can we talk about that? I nominate the month of May, and further stipulate that said appreciation be in the form of cheese popcorn and/or Skittles. But that's just me.)
NaNoWriMo is about writing. Specifically, writing an entire novel (minimum 50,000 words--which is actually a pretty skimpy novel, but I digress) in the month of November.
Is it a contest? No, because there aren't any judges. Are there prizes? No, except for the glory and honor of completing a novel in 30 days. Am I participating? No, for a variety of reasons, mostly because I'm already deep in a novel and that doesn't lend itself to the kind of madcap seat-of-the-pants invention you need to write 1,666.67 words per day, every day. But hey, just because I'm a stick-in-the-mud doesn't mean you have to be. Limber up those fingers, put on the thinking cap (never mind, forget the thinking--there's no time for that!), click here for some inspiration, then let `er rip!
_________________
In other late breaking news, one of the Words of the Day this week (courtesy of A Word A Day, a site so insanely geeky it makes my heart flutter):
acnestis
(AK-nis-tuhs)
Noun: meaning the part of the body one cannot reach to scratch.
Pull that one out of your linguistic hat the next time someone asks you to scratch their back. Instant awe and admiration! Right? Am I right?
Um...hello?
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
All A Writer Needs Is A Little Freedom
All over everywhere, folks are squeeing about Freedom. Apparently, this is a computer program you download from the internet that gives you freedom from...
(wait for it)
...the internet.
Freedom from checking your email every few minutes. Freedom from checking the comment trails on your favorite blogs. Freedom from Twitter, Facebook, your book's Amazon.com ranking...
not that I ever look at my books...umm...hardly ever, I mean...*cough*
...in short: Freedom to do some actual work. The way Freedom works is, you set it for a specified time and during that time, the program prevents you from accessing the internet for any reason--even to check March Madness results (Cher bracket) on Go Fug Yourself. You can't argue with it...you can't reason with it. It knows no mercy.
If that's not a writer's godsend, I don't know what is. It's just too easy, when hitting a bump in the fifth circle of hell known as the First Draft, to say I must know, at this very instant, how to say "hurry up" in French! Before I even know it, Google is activated and I'm knee-deep in French-to-English translation sites. And then I remember that I wanted to know what sort of fabric is crepe, exactly, and by the way, wasn't The Road with Viggo Mortensen supposed to come out last November? Where hast ye been, Viggo? And then...
No! No more! Where do I get this Freedom? I cried, cursor poised, ready to click through to my deliverance. And then I saw the fine print. (Why, why is there always fine print?)
Freedom is for Macs only.
*foam quietly at mouth for a moment*
Fine. Maybe it's just that Mac users don't have the self-discipline that we PC-ers do. So yesterday, I devised a little Freedom of my own: I disconnected my laptop from the internet. (I was surprised at how long I hesitated before clicking "disconnect." As if the mouse was a cleaver held over my sole supply of oxygen.) Every hour and a half, I allowed myself ten minutes surf time. (Okay, fifteen. And once was thirty minutes, but that was lunch.) Overall, I was pretty pleased with myself. And today?
Mm. Well. But look: the 2009 Go Fug Yourself March Madness champion, with video!
And cute cats!
And...and...Aarghh! I can't make it stop! Fred Stutzman, savior of Mac users, hear us! Are we not also helpless in the face of a strong wireless signal? Do we not also have work to be done? Where's our PC Freedom?!
(wait for it)
...the internet.
Freedom from checking your email every few minutes. Freedom from checking the comment trails on your favorite blogs. Freedom from Twitter, Facebook, your book's Amazon.com ranking...
not that I ever look at my books...umm...hardly ever, I mean...*cough*
...in short: Freedom to do some actual work. The way Freedom works is, you set it for a specified time and during that time, the program prevents you from accessing the internet for any reason--even to check March Madness results (Cher bracket) on Go Fug Yourself. You can't argue with it...you can't reason with it. It knows no mercy.
If that's not a writer's godsend, I don't know what is. It's just too easy, when hitting a bump in the fifth circle of hell known as the First Draft, to say I must know, at this very instant, how to say "hurry up" in French! Before I even know it, Google is activated and I'm knee-deep in French-to-English translation sites. And then I remember that I wanted to know what sort of fabric is crepe, exactly, and by the way, wasn't The Road with Viggo Mortensen supposed to come out last November? Where hast ye been, Viggo? And then...
No! No more! Where do I get this Freedom? I cried, cursor poised, ready to click through to my deliverance. And then I saw the fine print. (Why, why is there always fine print?)
Freedom is for Macs only.
*foam quietly at mouth for a moment*
Fine. Maybe it's just that Mac users don't have the self-discipline that we PC-ers do. So yesterday, I devised a little Freedom of my own: I disconnected my laptop from the internet. (I was surprised at how long I hesitated before clicking "disconnect." As if the mouse was a cleaver held over my sole supply of oxygen.) Every hour and a half, I allowed myself ten minutes surf time. (Okay, fifteen. And once was thirty minutes, but that was lunch.) Overall, I was pretty pleased with myself. And today?
Mm. Well. But look: the 2009 Go Fug Yourself March Madness champion, with video!
And cute cats!
And...and...Aarghh! I can't make it stop! Fred Stutzman, savior of Mac users, hear us! Are we not also helpless in the face of a strong wireless signal? Do we not also have work to be done? Where's our PC Freedom?!
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
A Word a Day...Here to Rock Your World
If you’re a word nut like me, you need to know about A Word A Day. Sign up for its newsletter, and every morning a new word arrives in your email inbox. (yay! hands clapping)
The subscription is free, and it runs forever until you tell it to stop. AWAD is a veritable fountain of verbal fun—plus, you learn stuff you never suspected. Take yesterday’s word:
skeuomorph
PRONUNCIATION
MEANING: noun: A design feature copied from a similar artifact in another material, even when not functionally necessary. For example, the click sound of a shutter in an analog camera that is now reproduced in a digital camera by playing a sound clip. (boldface mine).
That familiar, comforting click…is a sound clip?
My world is rocked. But...now I know the word for those useless metal rivets on my jeans. Hmmm. We'll call it a draw. (Apple fritters are still real, right? I can deal with fake clicky noises...just tell me the apple fritters are still genuine.)
The subscription is free, and it runs forever until you tell it to stop. AWAD is a veritable fountain of verbal fun—plus, you learn stuff you never suspected. Take yesterday’s word:
skeuomorph
PRONUNCIATION
MEANING: noun: A design feature copied from a similar artifact in another material, even when not functionally necessary. For example, the click sound of a shutter in an analog camera that is now reproduced in a digital camera by playing a sound clip. (boldface mine).
That familiar, comforting click…is a sound clip?
My world is rocked. But...now I know the word for those useless metal rivets on my jeans. Hmmm. We'll call it a draw. (Apple fritters are still real, right? I can deal with fake clicky noises...just tell me the apple fritters are still genuine.)
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