Me And My Big Mouth

Happy Days

I did stick to my promise and only read eBooks while on holiday, the first of which is somewhat of an absurdist classic. I am sure that if I were an Edwardian gentleman I would have found The Man Who Was Thursday positively hilarious. As it is I am neither Edwardian nor, as many of you would rush to point out, a gentleman. Consequently, the book struck me as just mildly amusing and often quite frustrating.

The plot is certainly daft enough to entertain: an undercover detective infiltrates a group of anarchists intent on overthrowing governments and assassinating royalty. The high council meet in secret and go by codenames taken from the days of the week. Our detective is voted in to replace the recently deceased Thursday and, through a process of rather silly revelations, discovers that all is not as it seems within the group.

We are treated to bluff, counter-bluff, unmaskings, duels, angry mobs, escapes on horseback and, when all sense of credulity is thrown out of the window, one on the back of an elephant. All of which leads us to the final denouement - the discovery of the true identity of the fearsome man known hitherto only as Sunday.

During the opening chapters I really thought I was going to love this but it rapidly became, well, a bit too silly for its own good and ends up lightweight and throwaway as a result. If you guffawed your way through Three Men and a Boat, a book which only managed to raise the occasional titter from me, then you might find this more rewarding. I was disappointed, although adequately amused.

There are lots of versions of The Man Who Was Thursday available in print. Or you can download it for free from Feedbooks like I did.

My Sony Reader Diary: 10 Months On

If you missed all the excitement first time round I was sent a free Sony Reader last September to review on the blog. The original posts are all grouped here. Now, ten months later, I thought I'd give you a bit of an update.

Well, I am still using it, fairly regularly in fact. I try to do my bit to save paper so tend not to print out any submissions or manuscripts I receive. Instead, I load them on to the device and this means I can read them on the go - during the commute to work, while waiting for a meeting to start, on the loo etc. It has been an extremely handy tool in that respect and I think I would consider it an essential part of my kit as publisher at The Friday Project. I wouldn't quite be lost without it but I would be more than a tad inconvenienced.

My Reader hasn't survived this period completely unscathed, however. There is a deep scratch to the screen which appeared mysteriously one day (shortly after one of the kids borrowed it). At a certain angle I don't really notice it and even when I do it doesn't bother me all that much but if I had paid £200 for the thing I would be mightily annoyed with myself.

One thing I haven't done is actually purchase an eBook. I have downloaded lots of (legal) freebies to add to the 100 classics that came with the machine but I have yet to be tempted to shell out for anything with a price tag. This is something I intend to rectify shortly, but more on that later.

I can honestly say that my Sony Reader has changed the way I read certain stuff but it has yet to convince me to part with any cash for new content. I am pretty sure that the makers would rather I did cough up and there is clearly a debate to be had as to why I won't but let's not go into that now. What I can report is that my Reader remains a favourite gadget and one that is unlikely to be gathering dust any time soon.

My Sony Reader Diary: Software

The Sony Reader comes with two pieces of software.  One, eBook Library, loads stuff onto your machine and manages your books.  The other, Adobe Digital Editions, is needed to handle the downloads of books you may buy online.

Both are OK as far as they go but they have their limitations, not least of which is that eBook Library won't work on Macs.  That doesn't bother me too much,  I don't have a Mac and frankly hate the things (their big, childlike icons and only one fucking button below the touchpad) but it is clearly an issue for the heathens that do own one.  I can't wait for their comments, they are bound to come.

The other problem is that you can't edit any of the information for the books you have.  So if a PDF file is called ae9000xytryPIK998.pdf then then is what the book will be called on your Reader.  Unless you have Adobe Acrobat and can be arsed to go in and change the properties of the file.  I don't and I can't.

So while I have been enjoying my Reader I was finding the software less than helpful at times.  Which is why I checked out Calibre, the utility suggested by a few people online.  It is miles better and has further enhanced my Reader experience.  Not only can I edit the files and titles, but I can also change the author names so that they now appear on the machine in alphabetical order by surname.  Oh yes.

The interface looks like this and it detects your Reader once you plug it in.  You can make changes directly to the files on the Reader and you can also download newsfeeds and stuff like that.

Delightful.  I suggest the people from Sony reading this take a virtual leaf out of Calibre's digital book and amend their software accordingly.  Or buy the company that makes Calibre.  One of the two.

My Sony Reader Diary: Excerpts

The Sony Reader comes pre-loaded with a bunch of excerpts from current books.  This is clearly a good idea as it means you can read something the moment you take it out of the box.  There is a book for nearly every taste but I decided to read the whole lot.

Patrick Bishop - 3 Para.  My dealings with the armed forces is limited to living opposite the barracks of the Coldstream Guards.  This means glimpsing the occasional topless model poster on their walls, dodgy dance music blaring out of the windows at weekends and irate officers calling their charges 'a bunch of fucking useless fuckers' every couple of weeks.  Not much different to my other neighbours really.  Books about the goings on in various conflict zones are extremely popular but I have never read one.  The three chapters on offer here are an interesting insight into what it is like to be fighting in Afghanistan (lots of shooting, blowing up and death) but I can't say I had the urge to read on.

Warwick Collins - About The Size of It.  Is a book I have read before.  I reviewed it here and interviewed the author here.

Ben Elton - Blind Faith.  From the man who gave us We Will Rock You comes a vision of a dystopian future which some Amazon reviewers have compared to 1984 and Brave New World.  I have not read either of those books but I am guessing they are not shit.  The excerpt of Blind Faith I have read is.  Bloody awful.  Embarrassingly so.  Is this really the same man who brought edgy genius to Blackadder?  I suspect he has been listening to too many Queen albums.  This is one of those futuristic books which actually serves as a commentary on conteporary society and in as much it is about as subtle and sophisticated as an episode of Hole in the Wall.  Are all of Elton's novels this bad?

Marcus Zusak - The Book Thief.  I am aware that there is a bit of a buzz about this book.  It has a following, as they say.  Not sure the excerpt did it justice as I couldn't work out what the hell was going on and wasn't sufficiently hooked to read more.

Simon Kernick - Deadline.  My crime reading as been limited to date, I have tended to go for the more 'literary' looking fare.  Apart from The Da Vinci Code (which I did enjoy) I haven't tried any other mass-market thrillers.  I think Deadline counts as one.  Now, I am aware that popular crime is more about plot and suspense than quality of writing but I struggled to read this without laughing.  Does that make me a bad person?  Try this for size:

Then the phone rang.

It was her mobile.  She reached into her limited-edition Fendi Spy Bag and fished it out.  The ringtone was 'I Will Survive', Gloria Gaynor's classic anthem of feminine defiance.  It was only later that she realised how much grim irony there was in this.

Shall we just say that it wasn't my cup of tea and move on?

James Barrington - Foxbat.  Much of the above may lead you to believe that I wouldn't enjoy this military thriller.  It certainly led me to think that way, but actually it was the first excerpt where I was disappointed to reach the end.  Interesting plot (North Korean spy shenanigans) and decent quality writing carried me along quite happily.  I might have to check this out.

Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.  But this was the one I enjoyed most of all.  I don't think I have read any Christie since I was a teenager but this was great fun and I am definitely going to pick up the full book and read the whole thing.

Kyle MacDonald - One Red Paperclip.  One of those quirky internet travel books (they'll never catch on!).  The author starts out with a red paperclip and tries to swap it for something bigger and better, his challenge being to end up with a house.  I enjoyed this, and it is a great concept.

E.L. Young - STORM: The Infinity Code.  A sort of teen techno-thriller.  Not really aimed at a 37-year-old bloke but I polished it off happily enough.  Ethan read it too and gave it the thumbs up.

Jonathan Raban - Surveillance.  I greatly enjoyed Raban's novel Waxwings but this seemed a bit disjointed and soulless to me.

Although I didn't think all the books on offer were very good I did enjoy flicking through stuff I would never normally pick up and surprised myself somewhat with my reaction.  It would be great if there was some sort of free subscription I could sign up for which would enable me to download samples like this from one place every month or so.  It would encourage me to read outside of my comfort zone.  Is no one offering that yet?

Oh, and I should point out that four full books are incuded on the Reader.  One is a Mills & Boon romance called English Lord, Ordinary Lady which I genuinely can't wait to read.  Quite bold of the publishers to put them both on for free, a round of applause for them.

My Sony Reader Diary: How It Is Going To Change My Life

Is life-changing too strong a word?  I have thought about it quite a bit and no, I don't think it is.

Here's why, and it sort of links in with yesterday's post.

As a publisher I have to read a lot of manuscripts.  A shitload of manuscripts.  A lot of shit manuscripts.  Quite a few good ones as well, I hasten to add.  But whatever the good to bad ratio there are a hell of a lot of them.

Which makes for a great deal of paper.

That can't be good for the environment.  It certainly isn't good for my printer.  Papercuts are a hazard as well.  The whole thing is fraught with problems.  Draughts, children with crayons, buttered toast, the list is endless and one which is probably quite familiar to any publisher types reading this (you know who you are - the ones who read my blog but never comment).

I have tried reading submissions and edits-in-progress on my computer.  It involves less paper but more eye-strain.  I slightly prefer it but it really isn't ideal.  It is the only option when doing a proper edit as it allows me to make corrections and add comments but for general reading it is a bit of a pain.

So last week I loaded all of my submissions, rewrites, edits and typeset manuscripts onto my Sony Reader and I haven't looked back since.  It is bloody marvellous.  I am whizzing through them faster than ever. 

I have managed to get Word and PDF documents on there and all of them read just fine.  My Reader is genuinely going to change my life, albeit just a small part of it.

And harking back to yesterday's post and that 2006 Bookseller column, I am pretty sure the Reader would be life-changing (or at least, work-changing) for the buyers in book chains and the many booksellers up and down the land who have piles of proofs to get through every working day.

It would also make a big difference to reviewers.  Leaving the Luddites aside, and there are plenty of them, a Reader would be a godsend for someone who spends much of their time hidden behind towers of books waiting to be read.  Just think about all that extra desk space.

And then you come back to publishers like me.  Printing proofs for booksellers, reviewers, the media at large, bloggers and their ilk is an expensive business.  Many small publishers can't afford it at all.  The ability to just pop a typeset PDF across in an email would save time, money and hassle.

So where's the catch?  Well, I supposed there are 199 of them.  The hardware isn't cheap enough for it to be used as widely as it would need to be to make a real difference today.

But tomorrow is another matter.

My Sony Reader Diary: Blast From The Past

Back in December 2006 I wrote the following column for The Bookseller.

ANYONE FOR E-PROOFS?

Here’s an idea.  Now, I cannot pretend it is fully thought through and I am sure it needs a great deal of refining for it to work.  So consider it a nugget, thrown out there to see what happens. 

It attempts to address a long-standing source of frustration and expense within our industry while, at the same time, embracing the new technologies that we all seem so tentative about.

First, the frustrating issue.  Proofs are a subject of frequent debate: they cost publishers a fortune to produce; retailers get inundated and end up with unwanted piles of them; authors and agents get miffed when they end up on eBay.  The whole proof system is unsatisfactory, inefficient and hugely wasteful. 

As for the technology.  E-books and e-readers have been buzzing around the book world for some time and have been more or less swatted away till now.  But there is a growing opinion that they are starting to make a bigger dent in what we read and how we read it.  If only the major figures in the industry understood them, or better still, actually used them, who knows where it may lead.

So what’s my big idea? 

The Publishers’ Association (or some other interested group) stumps up for a skipload of e-readers (I am sure they could get a good deal).  These are then distributed, free of charge, to the key buyers and tastemakers.  By this I mean the important head office and store buyers, literary editors, influential bloggers, reviewers and the like.

In return for the free hardware the recipients agree to make themselves available to receive sample chapters and proofs by email or online which they can then download onto their lovely shiny e-reader.  Essentially they no longer receive printed proofs, they get e-proofs instead.

My fag packet scenario has the individuals being sent just the first few chapters of books, unsolicited.  They can choose whether to read them or not but, if they do and want to read more, they simply request the full text from the publisher.

By targeting the bigger industry figures in this way the publishers will have sorted those responsible for the bulk of sales and media coverage for their books and removed the need to produce proofs in such vast quantities, or perhaps at all in some cases.

Of course, it is still important to get advance copies of books into the hands of booksellers around the country and, as such, I believe there will always be a need for some printed proofs.  Just not so many and not in such volume.

Another benefit of the idea is that it enables smaller, independent publishers to get on the proof merry-go-round; most cannot afford to print proofs at the moment.  The e-proof proposal is marvellously egalitarian and open to publishers of all sizes.  It should be of particular benefit for non-fiction titles as these are currently not proofed as often as novels.  You can also e-proof works in progress as a taster of things to come.

So there you go.  It needs some work but it might be worth considering.  Away you go.

~~~

I didn't really expect publishers to embrace my idea with open arms but I still think it was a decent concept.  The question is, now that we have the Kindle, Reader and Iliad selling like hotcakes will the publishing industry change the way it handles proofs and advance reading copies?  I'd like to think so.

Some more thoughts on the matter tomorrow.

My Sony Reader Diary: One Week (And A Bit) On

Well, I have been living with the Reader for just over a week now.  That initial rush of new gadget excitement is wearing off and the machine is finding its way into my reading routine.  I cannot say as yet where it will end up in the armchair hierarchy but I am definitely beyond first impressions now.

The Reader has been in my bag when I have travelled to and from work, it has been read on trains, in the office, in the garden in bright sunlight, at night by lamplight and more or less every other situation in which I would use a book.  You know, a proper one, made of paper.  The Reader bears up well.  It remains fun to use and I am getting plenty of reading done on it, which is the point after all.

I have enjoyed perusing the experiences of other bloggers who were sent a free Reader.  Dovegreyreader has one but has yet to announce the votes of the Devonshire jury.  Mark Thwaite over at ReadySteadyBook has another but only offers qualified praise.  His views on the future of the technology strike me as sensible and highly likely.  A couple of other bloggers I know have got one but no sign of their opinions at present.

I've also nosed around some other reviews in the press and the technology blogs.  Broadly speaking most people have enjoyed using it but often have a couple of gripes. Some of the complaints will depend on personal taste.  More than one person has raised the issue of screen glare or reflection under bright lights.  I haven't come across that problem and have used it in a variety of situations.  When light does fall across it the text remains perfectly legible to me.

Others have mentioned the annoyance of authors being listed and organised by first name.  If any of them own an iPod then they will have the same problem there so it didn't come as a huge surprise to me when confronted with it.  I'd prefer to be able to browse by surname but it doesn't take long to get used to.

But enough with the defence.  The Reader is not perfect and does have problems.  How much these bother you will depend on many factors.  They certainly haven't stopped me from using it, but it would be great if they could be fixed for future versions.

First up is the menu.  It is a bit clunky and not how most users would like to access their books.  Basic functionality is not disimilar to an iPod - keep hitting the MENU button to go back a step - but the layout and navigation through the library is not ideal.  Once you get your head round the whole first names thing it becomes a little easier but it still doesn't feel right.  There is an option to arrange your books into separate collections which I have yet to explore but I am not a big fan of the menus so far.

And then we have the software.  It is OK but has some odd quirks.  On iTunes I keep my entire library on a hard drive and sync it with my various players as and when.  Any changes or tweaks I make are made to the files on the drive.  The players then look after themselves.  I initially adopted the same approach with the Reader, sticking all the free classics and anything else I had into the eBook Library software.  But then, every time I connected the device it attempted to add all of the books again resulting in duplication and quickly running out of room.  The only solution I could come up with was to hold nothing in the library itself and just click and drag anything I wanted from its original location.  Everything works fine now but it bugged me for a while.

Oh, and then the scary 'have I broken it?' moment.  I used the power down option from one of the screen menus as that apparently saves the most battery power.  The Reader duly powered down.  So far down that I couldn't get the bugger back on again.  Hours later and no combination of buttons, leads or connections would work.  It was in a coma.  Eventually I resorted to the pin in the back reset option and it came back on again, thankfully with its contents intact.  But it did put the wind up me while it was sitting there unresponsive.

Although, to be honest, I have probably experienced similar glitches with much of the technology I have adopted in recent years.  New gadgets take some getting used to and not all of their features are to your liking.

So would I fork out £200 for a Reader based on the reading experience it offers and the functionality of the machine?

Er, no, not for those reasons.  But that's not all there is to it.  I have more to say in the coming days but that is plenty for you to be getting on with for now.

My Sony Reader Diary: Any Answers?

OK, so I have received plenty of questions, more than enough to fill a post.  Here are some answers.

What does the larger font look like?

Well, here is a size comparison.  Small, medium and  large.  Forgive any wonky framing, my photography skills are not great.  A 10p piece is used for scale.  Click on any image to see a larger version.

Can you annotate, make marginal notes etc.?

No, you can't.  Not sure how you could without sticking a keyboard on the thing.  You can bend the corners of the virtual page though and insert as many bookmarks as you want.

Does it play/show PDFs or other file types?

I have uploaded a bunch of manuscripts from PDF and Word files and they work fine.  They aren't, obviously, as beautifully formatted as the proper eBooks but I tell you something, this is going to revolutionise my reading of submissions and edits.

Does it tire your eyes quicker than a) paper and b) a computer screen?

There is no backlight so there are none of the problems a computer screen has.  The effect on the eye is very similar to reading from paper.  I have been reading from it a lot and haven't noticed any eye strain.

Does it stil work if you drop it in the bath?

Piss off Trevor.  Drop your own in.

Is it Mac compatible?

Officially no.  Some commenter on The Telegraph site suggested this was because Sony hate Mac users.  Apparently there are workrounds.

What does page turning look like?

The best way of describing it is to imagine Etch-a-Sketch or Magnadoodle (and thanks to the person who commented to explain how the screen worked, apparently a bit like a bionic Etch-a-Sketch).  The screen briefly wipes the previous page and flashes up the new one.  As it does this the whole thing goes black for a nanosecond.  A bit off-putting the first few pages but then you get used to it.

How long does it take the turn the page?

About as long as it does with your finger and a real book.

What about skimming backwards?

A tad more problematic.  You can flick back page by page or, I think, you can select an actual page number to turn to.  Flicking back and forth between bookmarked pages is much easier.

What are its music capabilities and how do they affect battery life?

I had no idea you could play music until I had been fiddling with it for a while.  The sound quality is very good but the song files take up a lot of space.  So What from Kind of Blue takes up as much space as War & Peace.  If you are going to have 100+ books on the Reader then you will only be able to fit a couple of albums on there.  It certainly isn't an alternative to your iPod but you could easily squeeze in your favourite albums to read along to. 

No obvious impact on battery life.  I've been playing songs all the while I've been typing this and we are still on five bars.

There you go.  More than happy to do a few more of these if there are further questions.  Might as well pump me for any information you need.

My Sony Reader Diary: Someone Else's View

A very good review of the Reader by Peter Robins of The Telegraph can be found here.

The comments at the end seem to be from a bunch of miserable bastards but the review itself is pretty much spot on.  I don't agree entirely but more on that later.

My Sony Reader Diary: Our First Weekend Together

Now, I don't want you to think I spent all weekend playing with my new Sony Reader.  Oh no.  No no no.

I only spent most of my weekend playing with it.  I took the occasional break to pop to the toilet, eat, sleep, that sort of thing.

Actually, I did take it in the loo with me.

And I did read a few chapters during a lazy lunch.

But not even I could manage to read it while sleeping.  Although it is entirely possible that I dreamt about it.

Tish and pish.  I am not quite that sad.  Walks were walked, fruit was picked, children were played with, the weekend was weekended as normal.  But I did get to know my new toy quite well during the gaps in between.

First things first, if you love reading then you are almost certainly going to enjoy the Reader.  I read books, I read the back of cereal packets, I read sauce labels, I read CD booklets, I read the local paper, I read the school newsletter.  I read whatever is to hand.  I prefer to read books, but I am fairly happy reading anything.  So why shouldn't I enjoy a flashy new gizmo loaded with reading material?  Precisely.

The Reader is easy to use.  A few seconds after turning it on I was reading the opening pages of Lust, Caution.  The menus and buttons are intuitive and don't require much referring to the manual (although, bizarrely, the manual is to be found on a CD-Rom, not loaded onto the Reader itself which would strike me as a pretty bloody obvious thing to do).  The software chucked itself on to my computer without any fuss and the main interface, eBook Library, is so similar to iTunes that I was adding books to it more or less straight away.

So far so good.  I have managed to turn the bugger on and stick some books on it.  Well done me.

The screen is a wonder.  A techno numpty like me cannot begin to understand how it works but trust me, it is like no other display you've seen (unless, of course, you have actually seen it).  There is no glare, no reflection to speak of.  It looks great and is a pleasure to read.  You can increase the size of the font (using the traditional small, medium and large) for comfort and readibility.  It is a dinky thing, small and light, like an A-format novella.

Suffice to say, it is a gorgeous object and it does the job.

It came, as you know, with Lust, Caution by Eileen Chang already loaded.  It also had excerpts from books by a range of authors from Agatha Christie to Marcus Zusak.  In addition, the Reader comes with a CD-Rom containing 100 classics.  So, if you were paying £199 for it (rather than getting it for free like this lucky fucker here) you would have, at Penguin Classics rates, at least £500 work of books on day one.  Not too shabby a deal, assuming you can get to grips with reading the material electronically.

But these are just first impressions.  I will delve a bit deeper into the Reader, its functionality, advantages, disadvantages and possible uses in the days ahead.  And don't forget, if you want me to explore or check out anything in particular do let me know.

My Sony Reader Diary: Any Questions?

The comments have been coming thick and fast on my Sony Reader posts, many of which are questions.  If you have anything you want to know about the machine and have yet to ask then leave a comment with your query and I shall do my best to answer it.

So far I have been asked about the size of font, how easy it is to add PDF and other documents, can you bookmark/add notes, that sort of thing.

I will collate all the Qs and provide all the As later in the week.

My Sony Reader Diary: Box Fresh

It is here.  We were just setting off for our Saturday stroll into town when Ethan spied the postman at the other end of the street.  We stopped him and signed for our exciting parcel.

Then I had to contain myself for a couple of hours while we popped to the deli, bought the Elbow and Laura Marling CDs from HMV, watched the band go by for the changing of the guard and did a few other chores.

But we did finally make it home and here is what was in the jiffy.

Nice box.  Not too flash.  But what about the actual reader?

Here you go.  Unassuming.  Small. Thin.

Slips in nicely between the other books.

Here is the main menu.

And this is what the first page of Lust, Caution looks like.

First impressions: it is cool, neat, fun and fascinating.  I am now off to read the instructions, load up my 100 free classics and see what the blighter is capable of.

More anon.

My Sony Reader Diary: Prologue

So this is what happened.  An email pinged up in my inbox from a nice chap called Huw.  Obviously I didn't know he was a nice chap when the email arrived but by the time I had finished reading it he was my new best friend.

Hello Scott, it said (and I am paraphrasing here), I work for a digital advertising agency called i-level.  We are working with the launch of the Sony Reader.  We are keen to get prominent people in the literary blogosphere to try it out and let their readers know how they get on.  Can I send you one?  By the way, Noah and the Whale are great.

Yes you bloody well can Huw, was my response.

A couple of days later he mailed back.

Hello again Scott (see, we are best mates now).  I am just getting ready to send the Reader over and wanted to load it up with a book for you.  Do you want to take a look at the list of available books over at waterstones.com and let me know which one you want?

Yes I bloody well do Huw.  Thanks for asking.

And this is where I hit my first small hurdle.  There are an impressive number of books available on the website, and quite a range of genres.  Many of you will probably click through and take a look for yourselves.  If you do you may very well spot the problem.

There are some great books, both old classics and new titles, available.  I wasn't going to bother with a classic as many are available free online.  I also didn't want to have any book that was already in my collection.  So I was looking for something reasonably new that I didn't own and that I was likely to want to read as soon as the Reader turned up.

It took me a while. 

I went straight to fiction where the bestselling title was a Charles Dickens novel in French.  I had to wade through several pages before I found one I was interested in.  My mistake was going to the bestsellers listing.  The Reader has only been available since the weekend.  An eBook probably only needs to sell one copy to be in the top ten.  A couple of sales would skew the whole thing massively.

There are also loads of books I have never heard of, most with terrible covers that look like they were created by a five-year-old using Paint Box on a computer.  I am guessing these are the legion of self-published eBooks that proliferate the web.  Some of them may be wonderful, but I would suggest that most are not.

None of which is meant as criticism.  I just want to be honest about my experience.  There were many gems available, it was just hard to find them on the Waterstone's site.  I was tempted by Persepolis, the idea of reading a graphic novel on an electronic reader was very appealing, but I have already read it.  I was also, shock horror, debating as to whether or not to plump for the new Salman Rushdie novel.  The excerpt I read in The Times was actually quite enjoyable.  But no, painful flashbacks of Midnight's Children stopped me making that choice.

In the end I chose Lust, Caution by Eileen Chang.  I saw the movie last week and found it interesting but painfully long.  It is based on a short story from this collection and I suspect I may find the shorter form more to my taste.  My Reader should arrive with the book pre-loaded on to it.  It is all rather exciting.

To be fair, I popped back to the Waterstone's site today and found the bestseller list completely transformed with many more interesting books on there.  It probably changes drastically every day at the moment and may take a while to settle down.

So, I am extremely excited to be given the chance to check out the Sony Reader.  I would like to think I am fairly open-minded about it.  I will be very honest about my experiences with it.  As a publisher I am curious as to how I can make best use of it.  As a writer I am intrigued by the idea of seeing my books in that form.  As a reader I am yet to be convinced that this is the future.

But let's see if that changes once I have it in my hands.