My Kindle and Me Revisited

I have been intending to write this post reflecting on my initial Kindle owning comments last August for some time now, as I felt that three weeks' ownership may have been too short a time in which to form solid conclusions about it.

I was initially annoyed that I had not found a book which I enjoyed reading on the device. At first this was down to my poor choices and succumbing to marketing blurb, but discovering that a reader has a week in which to apply for a full refund of their purchase, and finding a book I wanted to read helped matters as far as I was concerned.

At the time I objected to the default font. This is still true, but in the absence of anything more beautiful I have grudgingly come to accept it, and I just hope that future Kindles will have come equipped with an aesthetically pleasing alternative. I also did not like the fact that the reader's progress is measured by a percentage rather than the feel of a stack of pages betwixt left or right hand. I still do not like this, but knowing that most YA novels I read are around 400 pages, I have come to equate 5% remaining to some twenty pages.

As is usual in the twenty-first century, I have therefore adapted my habits to sate technology's restrictions, but it is what technology is able to offer over the codex book that now makes me look for the 'Kindle Edition' links on Amazon.

Not only do I own a Kindle, but I also own an Android tablet and smartphone. Both of these devices have the Kindle app installed. While I do not use it frequently, being able to pick up the book I am reading at home  (after a quick sync) while I am stuck waiting for something is impressive. I know some people carry their Kindle with them at all times, but I am not one of them. I do, however, always have my phone. The usefulness of this app seems massively underrated in the people to whom I have spoken, and it is one of the things that puts technology ahead of its paper counterpart.

Technology also sets itself apart from paper when it comes to reading for academic purposes. Many of my printed books have PostIt notes sticking out of them at all angles to mark passages which I either have, or need to, transcribe to the computer for possible use in my writing. With a Kindle (or the Android apps) it is possible simply to select the text to mark it, and then log into my Amazon account on a computer to access it when it is needed. It is also possible to add annotations, but as I rarely do this in printed books, I have not found the need for its electronic equivalent.

Although seemingly small, these two features afforded the Kindle reader by nature of its medium make it a very different tool for the 'professional' reader as technology is providing something that print cannot.

Six months ago I wrote that I was struggling to build a relationship with my Kindle. I will accept that I have now built a professional relationship with it, and if it was the case that Kindle books were always cheaper than their paper alternative, or that people could buy Kindle books as gifts, the relationship would probably be stronger. But we all know that relationships need to be worked at, and I guess that one challenging a reluctance to pay £4.99 for a text when a 'Like New' copy is available for a penny still needs a little more time.

As a brief postscript, I believe there are some features available to US Kindle users - such as sharing with other users and 'borrowing' texts - which still have to cross the Atlantic and these are likely to make a also likely to make a positive difference when (or if) they arrive on British shores.

My Kindle and Me

As of today, I have owned a Kindle for three weeks. In this time I feel rather saddened that my reaction has not been the one of complete and utter delight that so many friends and colleagues have experienced since buying their device.

I am now about half way through my third purchased book and this is the furthest I have got with the downloaded books so far.

The first book was a rash purchase: the publisher’s newly released blurb made it out to be a very different book to the one I started reading. Having made it a couple of chapters in, I was delighted to discover that it is possible to return Kindle books and get a full refund within seven days of the original purchase.

The second book was one that I had ordered a few months ago in a paper copy. I changed the order when I bought the Kindle and it duly arrived by magic during the night when the book was published. I managed a little more of this one, but was struggling to commit to the plot and when confronted with an unpleasantly visceral description of violence I was convinced to take advantage of the full refund again.

Knowing that I rarely give up when reading a book made me wonder about the Kindle as a medium: as I consume a lot of information through screens of different sorts, I began to wonder whether consuming a book in this way means that I see it as a more superficial and transitory method of delivery, or is the guarantee of a full refund – something not available for physical books without having to pay shipping costs – something that I would have used previously had it been possible?

The third book that appeared over night, when it was published, is the second book in a series I started reading last year. Maybe because I had some idea what to expect from the novel I am now reading this and looking forward to picking up the Kindle and continuing reading. However, I still do not enjoy the Kindle reading experience.

There are two things which I feel make me dislike it: firstly, the serif font is terrible (the sans-serif alternative is worse) and it is not pleasing or easy to read. I find this frustrating when the quality of some graphics available show that more artistic fonts could easily be offered as options. Secondly – and I know this sounds strange – I cannot stand the lack of page numbers as I do not feel physically anchored in the text (I know there a location reference, but its big jumps lack any sense of continuity). The lack of my physical position in the text also means that it is not easy to flick forward a couple of pages to know that I only have another two pages to read before stopping reading (as by the time the end of the chapter has been found there is no quick way to go back to the original place).

I know people bemoan the demise of the codex book and use that as a reason not to buy a Kindle. I forced myself to overcome that objection, but am really struggling to build any (for want of a better word) relationship with mine. I will continue to use it in the hope that the technology will become more familiar in due course, but in the meantime I think I will have to pick books for it carefully.

Reading or Studying?

Hearing Susan Hill on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon reminded me of a review of her recent book, A Kind Man, which I read a couple of weeks ago. I do not know the book so cannot make any comment about it, but what I did object to was a remark made by the reviewer:

I’m an admirer of Susan Hill’s work, but I’m not sure what she’s getting here, though I accept this may be my fault, not hers.

The review was written by a Charlotte Moore and published in The Spectator (15 January 2011). Google lists too many Charlotte Moores for me to be certain, but I assume it is the Charlotte Moore who is also an author and writes for the Guardian and Telegraph newspapers.

If it is Moore the writer, such a sop will be – I guess – purely out of self-interest in the hope of a kind word from a writer who struck it lucky with a ghost story nearly thirty years ago. Nevertheless, I find the idea that a reader can see themselves to be at fault for failing to understand what has been written somewhat abhorrent, merely because Hill tells a good tale.

An author is a professional writer. It is their job to be able to communicate their ideas to their reader. Each reader will bring their own understanding to the text and, as any English Literature student will know, their reading is as valid as the next person's. It may be that the reader then chooses to go and research a detail to help explore or develop their interpretation, but this should not be a requirement and they should not feel compelled to do so. Despite not being obliged to do this, I have found a smartphone (with its Internet access) has made the process much easier, and the results can often be fascinating. Indeed, a few years ago I had a lengthy e-mail exchange with a member of the National Gamekeepers Organisation in an attempt to understand why, in two novels by two different authors set in World War I, references are made to dead birds being nailed to posts. (The conclusion we reached was that they were both referring to vermin lines.)

Placing a writer on a pedestal because they ‘must be saying something clever’ is wrong. If, as a reader, you did not ‘get it’, there was probably nothing to get, or the writer did their job clumsily, thereby preventing you from ‘getting it’. Whichever way, it should not be seen as the reader’s fault.

Before I get challenged about my role as a teacher of English Literature, I should stress that I am talking about readers, not students. Studying a text places more demands on the student-reader, and if a text has been chosen to be studied it is probably because someone somewhere feels that it has something to say; it may then be up to the teacher and student to discover what it is. And this is why studying a book can destroy the pleasure of reading it for people.

Read to enjoy reading and find books to study; study to facilitate reading. If the writer is not doing their job properly, a reader can stop reading and a student can explain why.