LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

My Kindle and Me

Both Linda Wiken and Rick Blechta have been blogging about covers this past week. I take Rick's point that cover artists are getting lazy. He uses the cover art on Ian Rankin's latest book as an example. It's stark and ugly. I'm wondering if the recent explosion of e-books could be at the root of this.

I'm addicted to my Kindle. There, I've said it. I never thought it would happen but I actually prefer to read on this device. Partly it's the joy of being able to access a book the minute I hear good things about it. I've had this device for a while and I still can't get over the fact that I can zap 600 pages into my hand in the time it takes me to swallow my first sip of coffee in the morning. I just love the look and feel of the thing and I don't yearn for paper the way I thought I might.

What I do miss, though, are covers. I used to spend hours browsing in an independent bookstore, checking out covers and blurbs, reading the first page or two and often buying a couple of books on that basis. Now I'm more likely to check the Kindle reviews and perhaps download the free sample before I buy. The cover is simply not an incentive on an e-reader.

My Kindle offers a slightly grey and slightly blurry version of the paper cover. But most of the books I've downloaded open at page one. If I want to see the cover I have to back up through all the copyright and dedications and acknowledgements and by the time I get there it's not worth the trip. Maybe the newer Kindle Fire is crisper but I still can't help but wonder if covers are on the way out for e-readers. Maybe this is what's driving the crappy cover art that Rick suggests is the norm today.



Sue Pike has published a couple of dozen stories and won several awards including an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Crime Story. Her latest, Where the Snow Lay Dinted appeared in the January issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Sue and her husband and an opinionated Australian Shepherd named Cooper spend the winter months in Ottawa and the rest of the time at a mysterious cottage on the Rideau Lakes.

CRIME ON MY MIND

E-readers....again!

I keep coming back to this topic, mostly because there's a part of me that's nagging away, saying it's time to buy one.

I did order a Kobo Touch but re-packaged it the next day, ready to return. I didn't enjoy reading a book on it -- although I have to admit, I didn't give it a very good try-out, mainly because the 'Touch' part was driving me nuts. It was soooo slow to respond and I'm an impatient person. Until their technology is improved, I'm not a good candidate for it. But really -- reading such a small portion on a small screen just wasn't my thing. I don't even like to read books or stories on my much larger computer screen. That should have been a clue.

Then there's the tactile experience thing!

Back to Kobo. I also had one of the worst customer service experiences of all time. It took them over 2 weeks to respond to my question about how to return it. I finally gave up and did what I should have the next day -- took it to my nearby Chapters for a refund. But on the website it does say to contact Kobo directly for instructions. That works...if you get a reply. I do not appreciate being stuck in a que in order to get a message that tells me I'm stuck in a que.

So, I looked on-line at the Kindle. Amazon.com has it priced at $139.00 (special price for the regular $189.00) but, oops, they won't ship to a Canadian address. Amazon.ca has the same Kindle priced at $299.99. Does this make sense? Especially with these exchange rates? I can understand the book industry lagging behind in adjusting prices...but come on now, this is an electronic device & others do it all the time!

So...I've laid the whole idea to rest. I love my paperbacks, my trade paperbacks, and my hardbacks. They look great, they're an enjoying reading experience, and even though bulky when traveling...worth it, to me.

I guess like our choices in books...we're each entitled to our own choice of reading experiences. Just as long as we're buying books and reading!



Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming in April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

The Mighty Greenback

Well, we're finally settled in at the cottage. We were late getting here, what with one thing and another: Bloody Words, a couple of book launches and a visit with

grandchildren in California. But I'm here now and although I brought a fully-loaded Kindle as well as a big bag of books from those and other launches, I find myself fingering, sniffing, reading . . . Greenbacks. Now these aren't the American dollars usually associated with that word. The ones I'm talking about are the old Penguin Crime Classics. You know the ones I mean. They're plain and green with a band of white across the middle.

Here's what Penguin Books has to say about them: The first ten Penguin paperbacks were published in July 1935, including the first two Penguin Crime titles: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L Sayers and The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. In those days, all Penguin titles were given a stylish but uniform cover look which was colour coded: orange for fiction, blue for biography, and of course the famous green livery for ‘Mystery and Crime’.

I first started reading greenbacks when I was a child. My mother had shelves of them, both at our home in Toronto and at the old summer cottage on Lake Opinicon. I inherited the ones from Lawrence Park but the summer greenbacks are still lined up

at the old family cottage, owned now by my sister. They're a little moldy, damp and dog-eared from too much reading by too many generations, but they're still there. And whenever I paddle down from the other end of the lake, I end up borrowing one or two of them. It might be one I've read half a dozen times before but I can't resist delving into again. They smell of mildew and mouse and some of the pages are as brown as used coffee filters.

It might be a Michael Innes or a Gladys Mitchell or a Patricia Wentworth. I love those old mysteries with their long descriptive passages and witty conversations. The characters speak in fully formed and grammatically correct sentences and they don't interrupt one another. The clues are cleverly disguised and the detectives are often foppish pedants who can't resist gathering all the suspects together in one room so he (and it was almost always a he) can show the upper classes how clever he's been. You couldn't possibly sell a manuscript like that today. They're far too plot-driven. The characters are stereotypes. The murder methods are contrived.

But I love them. For me they bring back those summer evenings of my childhood when I read them by the light of a coal oil lamp and the whip-poor-wills sang in the distance.

I like my new Kindle and I hope it will serve me well on trips to places where English books aren't readily available. But I never expect to feel the same fondness or nostalgia for it as I do for these old greenbacks.


Sue Pike has published a couple of dozen stories and won several awards including an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Crime Story. Her latest, Where the Snow Lay Dinted appeared in the January issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

Sue and her husband and an opinionated Australian Shepherd named Cooper spend the winter months in Ottawa and the rest of the time at a mysterious cottage on the Rideau Lakes.

CRIME ON MY MIND

To e-read or not to e-read...that is the question!

I never thought I'd be saying these words: I'm seriously thinking of buying an e-reader. I hasten to add, this doesn't mean I've given up on paper books which are still my preferred method of reading. It's just that a number of things have converged and this may be the time for me to dive in.

Firstly, looking ahead to my upcoming overseas trip with my choir, I realize the value of travelling with an e-reader rather than packing an unknown number of paper books -- will it be enough or too many? -- in my luggage. Secondly, I've been inundated with ads about the new Kobo Touch. So, what's a gal to do but take the plunge.

My friend who works at Chapters/Indigo assures me the Kobo has access to a wider selection of books than its main competitor, Kindle. Funny, I had heard the reverse. Not that I'd ever doubt her word but she is an excellent employee! Those are the two brands I'm zeroing in on. The IPad has great reviews but it does more than I want and is out of my price range, so no more thoughts there. Same goes for the Sony Reader.

Here's where my research has taken me so far. The Ottawa Public Library website has a very helpful section on choosing an e-reader. I've made note of the products used by my writing friends. And, I have read various blogs on the topic, although I admit, I wasn't paying close attention because at the time, I was so certain I would never buy an e-reader. Sigh.

Never say never!

So, before my final decision is made, I'm appealing to you, as a blog reader with unquestionably excellent taste in matters related to reading...which e-reader gets your vote? The Kobo or the Kindle? And why?

Please keep in mind my aging eyesight and my love of Canadian mysteries when making recommendations.

May you have a happy reading weekend, whatever type of book you're reading!


Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

Barnes & Noble says they sold a million e-books on Christmas Day 2010. If you tried to use your WiFi that day, you probably noticed everything was slow, due to the high traffic volume. Naturally, on the same day, they sold zero regular books, as the stores were all closed. eBooks have been around for many years, so why this sudden leap into eSales?

Many people were waiting for the hardware to become useful, as in affordable, right-sized, and right-weighted. That seems to have finally happened, with the Sony eReader, the Kindle and the Kobo. Or everybody who was interested finally met someone who had an eReader, and got a personal report. Or many baby boomers are finding they need to get something with slightly larger print. Whatever the reason, the stars aligned and the eGods made it so.

We have a friend with a Sony, a Kindle, and an iPad, so we got a tour of the relative merits. After much discussion, we went with the iPad.

I love it. Yes, it was more expensive than a Kindle, but it can do so much more. It is like a stripped down laptop. It can surf the web. It can YouTube. It can bring my mail, and let me answer mail, but it won’t let me create an address book, so I can only reply to messages, or write to people if I know their email by heart. It can deliver books in seconds, and will let me adjust the font size, screen brightness, and choose either white paper or sepia.

Used to be I would have breakfast every morning and then go to my office, boot up, and wait for 5 to 20 minutes for my computer to go through its virus-checking, update pasting, and whatnot. Now I go to the kitchen, put the kettle on, start up the iPad, put the toast in, and before the toast has popped, I am reading my fantasy hockey team score and my email.

And then there are the apps. I immediately downloaded free Sudoku, free crossword puzzles, Freecell, a Tim Hortons finder, a Starbucks finder, a piano, a guitar tuner, several newspapers, a kick-the-can game, and air hockey. There is even an app that will listen to the music playing on your stereo for 10 seconds, tell you what it is, who the artist is, give you the lyrics, the chords, the artist’s bio, and by the way, do you want to buy this from iTunes right now? There is no end to the apps.

My objective was to read a few free books to get the feel of it, see if I liked reading on a screen or if it hurt my eyes, always an issue when you have eyeballs that aren’t lined up properly. There were a heap of books to choose from. Only thing was, they were pretty old and/or boring. Walking by Thoreau. Walden Pond. Moby Dick. Gaak, I read Moby Dick in university and will not read it again. I started reading Winnie the Pooh, but interest soon faded and I found I was having more fun playing crokinole or bowling.

Finally, I downloaded The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. It’s old, but it’s free. And I started enjoying the story, and totally forgot to notice if I liked the eReading experience or not. So I guess I do.

People who object to eReaders often say either they like the feel of a real book, or the hardware is not up to par, or eBooks are expensive.

The hardware is up to par now, all of the devices currently on sale. eBooks are cheaper than real books, but not dirt cheap. And who among you can deny paying the author for his/her work?

Yes, real books feel nice in your hand, the firmness of the cover, the crisp smoothness of the paper, the sound of the pages turning.

The iPad feels nice, too. It is silky smooth beyond imagining, is gently warm, and it will make page-turning noises for you if you want.

Nobody is asking you to give up real books entirely. Just find a little place in your heart for eBooks.


Vicki Cameron is the author of Clue Mysteries and More Clue Mysteries, each of the 15 short stories based on the board game Clue. Her young adult novel, Shillings, appeared in 2007. Her stories appear in the Ladies' Killing Circle anthology series and Storyteller Magazine. Her young adult novel, That Kind of Money, was nominated for an Edgar and an Arthur Ellis.