In Which We Discuss eBooks

I've never really understood the romanticism of physical books. I've heard people go on about the pleasure of cracking a spine, or the smell and feel of the pages, and it just doesn't really do anything for me.

I put off getting an ereader because...well, I don't know why.  The cost, partly.  The fact that I'd have to buy all new books for it, and couldn't just magically import my huge collection (in the thousands).  I was a little squicked out by reading that you don't really own ebooks, and they can be edited at the publisher's discretion.  I like owning things, and having them in my control.  I also like sorting them.  I like being able to put an author's books together on a shelf, and to make piles of unread books, and so on.

I bought my Kobo (her name is Opal) last December.  I went away for Christmas, to work in a homeless shelter as I do every year.  In 2011, I took a bunch of point horrors.  I was able to finish one a day (actually, I can easily finish three point horrors in a day, but working in the shelter limited my time) so I had to take a lot.   It was a nightmare carrying that giant bag down to London (on a train, obviously, I didn't walk), and I worried about running out of books.  I think I also read Lorna Doone on my phone that week, but don't quote me on that.

Anyway, a week or so before I went, I was walking past a WHSmiths and saw that they had a sale on Kobos.  I don't think I'd ever heard of a Kobo before, but I went in and played around, and saw that the mini-Kobos were only £50, which was the cheapest price I'd ever seen for an eReader.  So I bought one, on a whim.

I love her.  I love that she fits in my pocket.  I like how she looks and feels.  I love the menu screen, which lets me indulge my love of organising things.  My brain doesn't work when things aren't organised, and a cluttered or badly designed menu screen would really put me off and ruin my enjoyment.  I like the Kobo Awards (post about that coming soon) though it annoys me that they're not as supported as they should be.  I like the Kobo website.  I absolutely adore the way that I can see exactly how many pages are left in a chapter; it splits books into little popcorn sized pieces, something I do with physical books by working out which percentage I'm at, and how long to the next third/quarter etc.  I like that I can put any kind of file on there (though it won't show the page count properly, so I prefer to read Kobo Epubs).

I'm planning to get a Kindle Paperwhite once I start work.  On that note, new job are now saying June.  This is my life right now.

...so I'll read a book, or maybe two or three, I'll add a few new paintings to my gallery, I'll play guitar and knit and cook and basically just wonder, when will my life begin?

The appeal of the Kindle Paperwhite is as follows; it has a bigger screen than Opal Kobo, and I think I'll like that, having a tiny eReader for ease of transport, and a bigger one so books seems like they have less pages.  It lights up, so I can read in the dark.  It works out how long it will take me to finish a chapter, and my brain likes the idea of this new data.  It'll show the page numbers in Kindle books properly.  And the menu seems less brain-irritating than in the normal Kindle (which I bought and returned; could not get on with that menu screen).  At some point I do intend to write a full review of the Kobo, so I might wait till I have both and compare. 

 This then gave me the incentive to start getting rid of my books.  That hurt at first.  I used to hoard books.  I'd read them once then keep them just in case I ever wanted to read them again.  When I moved here, I had something like twenty-five boxes of books.  It was a nightmare. 

From now on, I only want one bookcase of physical books, and that's mostly books that look pretty as a set, like the sci-fi fantasy masterworks and Series of Unfortunate Events, and books which are simply not available as eBooks.

As I said, decluttering hurt at first, but once I'd got rid of a few, it got easier.  I eventually reduced my books by two thirds.  Of those I kept, as you saw in a previous post, a good two hundred were unread.  I have my one bookcase, and the rest I intend to buy eBook versions of as soon as possible.  I don't ever want to have to carry around piles of books again.

I also intend to keep my unread piles more manageable in future.  I'm thinking something like only ten to fifteen unread books on any system (not combined, that's crazy talk).

On another note, I'd love to get a copy of Kim Newman's Life's Lottery.  It's a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story, essentially, but with a few interesting twists.  It's also aimed at adults, as opposed to the actual Choose-Your-Own-Adventure series for children, or the gamebooks, of which I have several (the latter, not the former).  I've borrowed it from the library several times.  Thinking about that book prompted this post; I was wondering if it would be possible for that sort of book to be on an eReader.  It might be, but I think this is one of the few books that I really prefer as a physical object.  I have a bad habit of folding pages over and marking choices with pencil just to make sure I don't miss anything.

In Which We Discuss My Unread Pile

This is my unread pile, in piles of twenty-five. Please note that this does not include unread books on my Kobo (nineteen) or Kindle (not sure how many; I don't even own a Kindle yet, just the app and some books for it).

Yep, that's two hundred and four books. And this is ridiculous. Some of them have been then for years. As much as a decade, in some cases.

So, my goal for May is to get rid of fifty of them; donate them to a charity shop, or read them and move them to another pile, it doesn't matter which.

So far, I've made a good start.  I've picked out five to donate, and read three.  I'm partway through another two.  Wish me luck!

In Which We Discuss People Who Confuse Me and the Ice Cream Girls

I've been reading a lot over the past few days. I've received the offer of a new job, but haven't been given a start date. The interview was about a month ago. I'd be more worried, but last Friday they invited everyone in my position to a coffee morning where we were able to ask questions and get to know each other a little. They told us they'd call this week; it's now 9pm on Thursday, and they've not, so I'm getting a little concerned again.

Anyway, to distract myself, I've been reading, and you can see what I've read in the image above.  That's from the 26th, with the top left being most recent and the bottom right being least. It's still a little too cold to laze about in the garden, but my room (I live in a shared house) has french doors opening on to it, which face west. I get all the afternoon sunlight. I also have a large window which faces east, so I should get the morning sunlight too. Unfortunately, that window also happens to face a busy road, so I never open the curtains.  Anyway, instead of lying in the garden reading, I've been building a nest of pillows at the end of my bed and lying there and reading instead.  All the sunlight and an electric blanket.  Genius.

Anyway.

 Elizabeth Buchan's Daughters had a lot of characters who really confused me.

Warning: Text Below Contains Spoilers for Daughters.

One character is a woman who married a widower with two children.  They have another child together, and, when they split up, she keeps them all.  That's the first thing that baffled me.  That makes no sense to me.  Why would she keep his children?  Would she have kept them if they'd not had a daughter together?  That's bizarre, surely?

I was going to say that I don't mean to belittle the bond between stepparents and children, but I guess I am.  I accept that adopted parents are just as true as birth parents, so why not stepparents?  If he'd died, they'd probably have stayed with her, after all. 

Thinking about it, I guess the thing that bugs me is; why didn't he want them?  Why would he marry someone, and then leave his children with her?

I have to wonder how much this has to do with stereotypical ideas of women as natural caregivers, and the whole myth of the mothering instinct.

This also reminded me of a similar event in Billie Letts Where the Heart Is, one of my favourite books.  One male character is hailed as a hero when he realises that his soon-to-be ex-wife doesn't want her daughter, and he trades his car for her, so the little girl doesn't have to live with a mother who doesn't want her.

The second thing that confused me; the middle daughter is planning a wedding, and chooses a date in the first week of September.  The youngest daughter has applied to Harvard, and, since she is British, will have to move to America.  If accepted, university will start, as it normally does, in the first week of September.  And the middle sister keeps going on about how utterly selfish it is that the younger sister will miss her wedding for the first week of university.  That seems like an insane overreaction to me.  It was an invitation, not a summons.  Secondly, I'm with the youngest daughter, Maudie; it's the marriage that's important, more than the wedding day itself.  It seems insane for her sister to want her to put herself at a disadvantage for one ludicrously overpriced day.  That said, my idea of the perfect wedding day costs less than £200, is in the clothes we wore on our first date, or some other sentimental item, and has only witnesses, no guests.  So there are many things about the wedding industry that baffle me.  Like wedding dresses.  Why on earth would you spend thousands of pounds - or even hundreds - on a dress that you will only wear once?  It's a bizarre thing to do!  If you want to look like a princess, get into Disney Cosplay, you can dress up all the time then!

Blaaaaaaaaah.

Anyway; third thing that confused me.  Several characters become aware that middle sister - Eve's - fiance is cheating on her.  And they debate with themselves about whether or not to tell her!

I've been in a similar situation before, but, in that case, the person I witnessed cheating was a very close friend of mine while her partner was a stranger.  I can understand reluctance in that case, from loyalty.  But, if you're the bride's sister, or (step)mother, then why would that be an issue?  Why would you debate with yourself for even a second on whether or not to tell her?  She has a right to make her own decisions on the matter, while in full possession of the facts.

And then, when they do tell her, she acts like they've done something wrong!  And they internalise this and apologise!  Someone telling you the truth about your partner cheating on you is not doing anything wrong, for god's sake!

Sigh.  I'm not saying that the book is unrealistic; I'm sure there are many people like that in the world, and they are equally bizarre to me.  But, rarr, these crazy illogical people.

Moving on.  I read The Ice Cream Girls, mostly because I didn't want to wait until the third episode of the televisation is shown next week to find out how it ends.  Incidentally, if you do want to watch the TV show (and you live in the UK), you can see the episodes here.  The first episode will be available for another 16 days.  The third and final episode will be shown on ITV tomorrow (Friday 3rd May) at 9pm.  I usually watch live TV here.

Warning: Text Below Contains Spoilers for The Ice Cream Girls.  

Warning:  Text Below May be Triggering re; Rape/Abuse

There's a lot more in the book than in the TV series.  Some characters are merged into one - Serena's two sisters become one, for instance, and so do her two children - and the plot moves a little faster.  One changed which improved the story was the idea that all of the past events had happened in Brighton, rather than in London.  In the book, it's coincidence that Serena and Poppy both end up in Brighton, having both moved from London.  It seems a little forced.  It's a lot more natural - and, I think, helps with the idea of them being linked to each other through the past events - if they end up back at the place where they grew up, where everything happened.

Earlier today, I was embroiled in quite an interesting conversation about domestic abuse, and here's a repeat of your trigger warning.  Someone posted the idea that domestic abuse is intrinsically linked to monogamy.  It's an interesting thought.  All of the details of domestic abuse that I know do require that people be cut off from family and friends, and from help.  Abusers typically tell their victims that what's happening to them is normal, that they deserve it, etc, and then cut them off from anyone who'd offer a reference point for how un-normal it is.  This also has the effect of cutting them off from anyone who can help.  Although this can and does happen in a relationship in which the abuser is polyamorous but the victims are not - like the relationships in The Ice Cream Girls, or as sometimes happens in marriages where, for example, one man has multiple wives.  It doesn't seem like that kind of abuse can happen in polyamorous relationships in which both partners have multiple secondaries.  However, it doesn't necessarily follow that another kind of domestic abuse can't occur, even if this particular kind can't.  I tried a few thought experiments, and the only one I could think of that would work was the idea of an abuser who was motivated by voyeuristic/'being caught' tendencies rather than jealousy/neediness.  For example, the abuser could be aroused or otherwise consider an unknowing third party to be an essential part of the abuse, and threaten the victim to stay quiet or otherwise hide the abuse.  It was an interesting conversation.  I will continue musing on it.

In Which We Discuss TV Adaptations

Recently, I've been watching ITVs adaptation of Dorothy Koomson's Ice Cream Girls.  I've embedded a TV spot which includes clips and interviews below.

I like Dorothy Koomson's books, though I've not actually read this one before.  I am enjoying the show, though. 

One thing I like about Koomson's work is that I can always rely on her to have a woman of colour in the lead role.  There's nothing wrong with white people, my mother was one, but it's nice to get away from constantly reading about them.

I have a shelf on Goodreads for books with non-white protagonists.  Yes, I know that I have full autonomy in what to read.  But you'd still expect more than nineteen books out of almost a thousand.  I'm quite strict with it, too; I only count it if the one main character is non-white, not if there's one non-white character in a quartet or something.

Another book I liked that was adapted to TV was Sophie Hannah's Point of Rescue (published as The Wrong Mother in the US) and The Other Half Lives, both from her Spilling CID series.  I have it on DVD.  I've had it for a while, in fact, but it took me several months to watch it.  Why?  I was scared.  I love those books.  I didn't want the tv series to suck.

Well, it didn't suck, but it wasn't all that great either, not compared to the books.  The adaptation of Point of Rescue was more faithful than that of The Other Half Lives, but both cut out a lot of the complications and twists of the books.  I did like Olivia Williams and Darren Boyd as Charlie and Simon, though.

In Which We Discuss the Dystopian City Pretty Committee

I bought a Kobo just before Christmas. There are a few posts about that on my gaming blog which I'll be importing over later.

Most recently, I've been reading Scott Westerfeld's  Uglies series.  I'm currently halfway through the third book, Specials.  There are a lot of things to talk about here, and I'm basically going to freestyle it.  In other words;

There will be many spoilers for the Uglies series beyond this point.  And probably some for Twilight and Labyrinth as well.

 

No one here who doesn't want to be?  Goodo.

The Uglies Series takes place in a dystopian future where everyone is given cosmetic surgery at the age of sixteen to make them pretty.  In the first book the heroine, Tally, discovers that the operation is not purely cosmetic, and, in fact, inflicts brain damage in order to control the population. A few times, Westerfeld draws attention to the fact that the story is a version of Sleeping Beauty, which I found fascinating.  My personal favourite fairytale archetype is Beauty and the Beast, and if you distil it down to the basic essence of 'powerful boy must make unwilling girl love him back', you see it everywhere.  Alicorn's Twilight rewrite, Luminosity makes it clear that Edward is completely within Bella's control.  Before she becomes a vampire she can choose to leave him; he cannot choose to leave her and forget about her.  Because he wants to make her feel a certain way, without invoking Stockholm Syndrome, he cannot overstep the boundaries of what she will allow.  Disney's Beauty and the Beast is similar; however much the Beast rampages and sulks he cannot step beyond the boundaries of what Belle will accept.  Labyrinth has some elements of this too; Jareth gives Sarah the big adventure that she wants.  To quote;

"Everything that you wanted I have done. You asked that the child be taken; I took him! You cowered before me; I was frightening! I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you! I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me. Isn't that generous?

I ask for so little. Just let me rule you and you can have everything that you want. Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave."

Off the top of my head, I cannot think of another story which uses elements of the Sleeping Beauty archetype without being explicitly a retelling or alternate version of Sleeping Beauty.

Tally is constantly being brainwashed and escaping.  At times the narrative specifically draws attention to her trapped and sleeping state.  She is metaphorically awoken by a kiss, on two occasions, and this has attention drawn to it too.  I'm not saying that the blatant signposting is a bad thing; I probably wouldn't have picked up on these elements without it, and it's fascinating to consider.

Another element I've been thinking about is how troubling it is to consider the books from a feminist perspective.  Is Tally a good feminist role model?  She does seem to be governed mostly by love, and she does manage to constantly betray her one female friend, Shay.

(On that note, I love the fact that Shay is seeing a totally different interpretation of efforts than the audience is, and that this is shown to us.  It makes the world feel more rounded and makes Shay seem more alive.  I found the same thing in Lisa See's Shanghai Girls, in the different interpretations and understandings the two sisters had, and I loved it there, too).

Tally manages to think her way out of being brainwashed, but, as mentioned, this process begins with kissing boys, both of whom take the lead in the interaction.  Tally is constantly lead;  she tries to follow Peris to New Pretty Town.  She is forced to follow Shay to the Smoke.  She is forced to come back to New Pretty Town, where Zane leads her in being bubbly.  And so on.

I'm sick of the question.  I'm not sick of feminism, and feminism absolutely is not the thing at fault here.  The fault here lies in the fact that so many heros are male that the few females have to be role models.  They have to represent women in a way that the male hero doesn't have to.  I like that Tally is flawed.  I like that she behaves like the sixteen-year-old girl she is.  I like the interaction between her and Shay, even though it's often negative.  I like the romances she has with David and Zane, I like that the majority of her close friends are male.  I don't want to evaluate her as a feminist role model.  I want there to be so many female heroines, I want it to be so normal for women to go about doing things without men, that we don't have to judge all strong or focused-upon women as representatives of all women.

A note here, about being a feminist; we don't wake up every morning going, "Yay!  We'll get to complain about being oppressed, and the wage gap, and people treating us all as pre-mothers/living incubators, and street harassment today!".  We don't want to deal with all that.  We want it to stop.  But, we can't pretend we don't notice, or that it doesn't happen because it does, and so we have to deal with it and try to change it.  We wish we didn't need to.  We don't enjoy having to fight for equality.

Anyway; another element I wanted to touch upon was the cutting.  In Pretties, some characters begin cutting themselves as a way of escaping their brain damage, as they find the pain makes them think clearly.  This has been highlighted as problematic, as it does seem to encourage cutting.  However, Trudi Canavan's Black Magician trilogy also uses cutting as a way to increase power, and, to my knowledge, has not come under similar criticism.  What's the difference?

In the Black Magician trilogy, the cutting is done so that magicians can pull power out of one another.  There are concrete, measurable effects that we clearly do not observe in our universe.  In the Uglies universe, the cutting results in mental clarity, something which is highly subjective and difficult to measure.  It is also, believably, an effect that someone who cuts themselves in our universe might observe.  So, I think that the cutting in Uglies is a little too close to real, and the fact that it results in positive effects for the characters is a little worrying, when considered from the aforementioned role model perspective.  In short, I'm happy to read it, and accept it as an element of the story, but I know that I've never self-harmed by cutting.  I would be concerned about someone reading it who had self-harmed in that way.

When I write stories, I run into similar problems.  I want to include certain elements or character traits, but I don't want to indicate that I endorse something I don't, or that certain behaviours are positive even if they work for my characters at the time.  I want my characters to be perfect feminist role models and flawed realistic people at the same time.  It's a puzzle.  I don't have a solution.

In Which We Discuss the iPhone

I bought myself an iPhone for Christmas, and one thing I'm really loving about it is the books app. I'm cheap so I've been reading free books, and so many classic books are now out of copyright. Things like The Secret Garden, and A Little Princess, and Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes, and Dickens, and Austen - lots of books I loved as a child, and lots of books that I tried to read but couldn't quite get into then, that I'm devouring now. Mostly on buses. I started crying at the end of The Secret Garden, that was embarrassing.

At the moment, I'm reading Little Women. I did read that book a few years ago, but don't remember being all that into it, and I don't recall what happened. I'm really loving it, now that I'm older.

iPhones are awesome.

In Which We Discuss the Spice Girls, and Things Not to Do

Well, the first thing not to do is neglect a blog for three months.  What can I say?  I've been busy.

The second thing not to do - or the first thing, for a published author - is to respond to a review like this;

You obviously didn't read the second clean copy I requested you download that was also reformatted, so this is a very unfair review. My Amazon readers/reviewers give it 5 stars and 4 stars and they say they really enjoyed The Greek Seaman and thought it was well written. Maybe its just my style and being English is what you don't get. Sorry it wasn't your cup of tea, but I think I will stick to my five star and four star reviews thanks.

That's Jacqueline Howett, responding to this review. A review which, fairly, in my opinion, points out that lines like "Don and Katy watched hypnotically Gino place more coffees out at another table with supreme balance" are grammatically incorrect and difficult to understand.  And not just to people who 'aren't English'.  Thanks for attempting to drag the rest of the country into your mess, Howett.

So what if "everyone else" liked it?  It's a subjective opinion.   Throwing a tantrum is not the adult way to handle it.

In other news, I've been reading Spice Girls autobiographies recently.  Namely, Geri Halliwell's If Only, Mel B's to Catch a Fire, and Victoria Beckham's Learning to Fly.

I think, for me, a good part of the appeal is the fact that these women had a hand in shaping my childhood.  Spicemania was the atmosphere I grew up in.  And, now that I'm the same age, or even, older than they were, I want to see what it looked like from the other side.  It's interesting, to see these icons of my childhood as people, rather than as larger-than-life concepts.  It's also interesting to see how three different people describe the same event.  Sometimes, one or two have forgotten it completely, and sometimes they remember differently.  It's interesting.