Literary Ludite: Amazon Kindle, Part I

March 31, 2015 Natalie Morath

I got a Kindle Fire HD 7 back in October. It was my birthday and Amazon had just released the latest version of the Kindle at a much lower price, so it was a temptation I couldn't resist, especially as I'd been considering a Kindle even when they were pricier and less fancy. I'd also been interested in an iPad MIni, but the Kindle Fire offered all of the same features for less money, and had better integration with the existing Amazon Prime/Audible apps I'd already been using.

Six months later, I'm in love with my Kindle and I couldn't imagine life without it. Don't get me wrong -- I still love physical books and I still purchase/borrow plenty of them. I had no idea how I would take to the e-reader function on the Kindle, and for the first month or two I mostly used it to read comic books and watch movies (both of which it does excellently -- the comiXology app, which comes pre-installed, is awesome, and it runs Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO Go seamlessly). When I found myself on a several month-long wait list at the public library for Station Eleven, I finally decided to use the e-reader, and I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I liked and how quickly I adapted to it. Since then, I've read quite a few books on the Kindle, with absolutely no complaints.

One of my favorite features is a metric that you can choose to have displayed on bottom of the page, which includes a counter of the time left in the chapter or in the whole book. That might sound annoying but it is actually really helpful when you're trying to fit reading into a busy schedule: if you know it will take you 90 minutes to finish Station Eleven, you can set aside 90 minutes.

This weekend I'll be travelling with it for the third time, and it is such a pleasure knowing that it will fit in any purse and carried every form of entertainment I could ever want.

Books I Can't Even: 'Little Women' by Louisa May Alcott

January 20, 2015 Natalie Morath

This is a bit of a dirty little literary secret for me because I know an immense amount about Little Women and have the Winona Ryder movie completely memorized. Everyone has always assumed I had read this classic of American literature because it seems exactly like the kind of thing I would read and love and read again and again, but for my many attempts I've never had much success.

Considering I've never managed to finish it, I own quite a few copies of Little Women. I have one physical copy on the bookshelf, and the pages are clearly mangled through Chapter 4 or so (hangin' with Laurie), and the rest is in pristine condition. Then I have the free version of the audiobook which was too dry and poorly recorded for me to make it beyond Christmas morning. Finally, I have the good Audible version read by a professional, which has 18 hours and 22 minutes remaining. So I've endured the opening Christmas with the March family multiple times, but I've never read or even listened to any other part of the book.

There is a really great sub-plot on an episode of 'Modern Family' in which Alex babysits for Lily and insists on reading aloud to her from Little Women for her own good; a chapter or so into the book, Alex realizes how annoying all the characters can be and gives up, and Lily gives her a makeover. I couldn't find a clip but it's the episode 'The Late Show.' And that pretty much sums it up -- it is such an overbearing morality tale and it smothers the otherwise sparkling characters of the March sisters, which is why I think they translate so well on screen. Winona Ryder can scowl better than anyone, and she can convey ten different emotions in a single scowl, including, most importantly, her own selfishness mingled with the realization of her own selfishness and her simultaneous desire NOT to be selfish. Jo March on the page has no such skills, which is why she has to go on and on about wanting to be good, which gets very old, very fast.

Also, and this is probably the most important point -- how can anyone get behind this travesty of a novel KNOWING (spoiler alert) that Laurie and Jo don't end up together?

Books I Can't Even (apologies for the use of Internet cliches) is a recurring post on books I absolutely could not finish, usually after several attempts.

Literary Ludite: Audible, part II

November 19, 2014 Natalie Morath

After last week's post on Audible, I realized I had many further stray thoughts about the audio book experience in general. I've had no problem integrating Audible into my normal listening routine at work or in the car, and in general I'm satisfied with the experience.

But I can't help this nagging feeling that it somehow doesn't count -- that I'm not actually reading the books I'm listening to. And this sensation is really dependent on the content of the book in question. I felt no qualms whatsoever about Yes, Please or Not That Kind of Girl, perhaps because the respective tones were funny and personable, and maybe because they were read by the authors themselves, which somehow seems to legitimize them?

Literary Ludite: Audible

November 12, 2014 Natalie Morath

When it comes to books, I am very much a traditionalist; being a librarian helps. As does studying art history, because I've taken no fewer than four classes in which I had to study the history of books and printing. I own far more books than is necessary, and I always have a stack of at least two or three library books at a time (that doesn't count cookbooks). That said, I am not one of those people who complains about technology moving too fast and whatnot. As much as librarians tends to love books, they have to love computers even more, because that is what the job requires these days. I have an iPhone, it is with me always, and I use it for almost everything, so it seemed time to embrace the audio book, especially since I have a job that is conducive to headphones.