A few rants about ereaders & ebooks

These are some recent thoughts and rants about ereaders and ebooks. I may be wrong on some things but you can correct me if I'm wrong. These are from the point of view of a kindle paperwhite reader. (The correct term should be e-reader but I don't like that plus I had been using ereader so why change?)

01 - Ereaders are expensive. I waited to buy my kindle ereader during a holiday so I can save some money but I didn't really save anything because amazon makes you pay to remove advertising from their kindles (at least the regular and paperwhite models) which is the dumbest thing in the world. A product that comes with advertising should have made me not want to buy it, right? I guess I'm one of those dumb consumers because I brought it and paid more to remove advertising because who wants advertising on their device? But at least, I didn't pay the full price.

02 - The problems with ereaders, once you choose one, you are sort of stuck within their eco-system which means you mostly use just one format of ebooks. I chose to get a kindle ereader (over nook and kobo) because I had the strange idea that the kindle format is more widely used and it was probably true when I brought it a few years ago but I guess it's changing a bit.
    Just because a device accepts this or that format, didn't mean it's easy to get them onto your device. Amazon did add support for epub books. The whole DRM (Digital Rights Management) issue does make it harder to get epub books onto a kindle. Some people remove the DRM to get books onto their kindle which legally is not legal, at least, not in the U.S. Lots of books comes DRM-free but most are not so it's sort of a headache if you don't know how to get epubs on your device. I was never able to get epub public library books onto my kindle but I can do it with regular DRM-free epub books. Books that are not kindle format aren't even labeled books, they are labeled documents.

Some Bookish Thoughts

01 - I recently read a book's synopsis with these words: 'light her panties on fire.' That is, supposedly what the main character's would-be-love interest does because he's oh-so-sexy. This phrase clearly says something about the book. I don't want to draw conclusions base on this phrase but if a publisher or author chooses to use such words for their books, I get to judge them for it. Besides the phrase putting me off, the reviews tell me it's not a book most people (including myself) would want to read. But I'm not saying don't read it, I'm saying judge for yourself. (FYI, the book is Putting the Fun in Funeral by Diana Pharaoh Francis)

02 - I'm not okay with the practice of deleting listings and creating new ones. It's damm confusing. Recently, a book series that I had enjoyed and had ended but the author wrote a fifth book which is fine but the series got a new name and all the books had been retitled with new covers which would be fine too except now the previous listing is removed (for the ebook format anyway) and according to amazon, I didn't purchase the series so I get recommendations for them which annoys me because I don't know which book I did read because they have new titles. Why can't the series name and book titles change without being a new listing? Also, the books' pricing doubled which I suppose if an author had become more popular, they have a right to up their pricing.
    Then there is another series where the old listings are removed and new ones are made but there are no changes to cover art or book titles or series title. There might be reasons for it but I can't see it. And again, amazon says I didn't purchase the series so I get recommendations for them as new and since all the titles/name are exactly the same, it's very confusing. (Note: This is from the point of view of a kindle reader.)

03 - I've tried again to read Mansfield Park by Jane Austen but again, I failed to finish it. I find it so dull that I can only finish the chapter I had been reading. I don't know if I will like or dislike Fanny (the main character) as she is still much like a side character who is a witness to other people's folly. I'm only up page 138 and the book is about 440 pages and I'm reading the paperback format which I thought should make me read faster but it seems to have the opposite effect.
    I want to finish Mansfield Park simply because I had finished Austen's other completed novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion) and had enjoyed those. I don't care that Mansfield Park is considered Austen's finest work or that Fanny was her favorite character - those are not reasons to read it. I'm sure some people would tell me to give it up since I'm not enjoying it but I don't know. I have been trying to read this for the last five years or so. Is it time to give it up?

Do you have book complaints or book thoughts?

Books I read and movies & shows I watched recently

I only finished reading three books recently, technically five books if I count re-reads. Reading is not much of a priority for me even these days. I may have about 20+ unread books on my kindle but I don't seem to want to read them. I think I spent more time looking for books to read than actually reading books but I'm fine with that.
    As for movies and shows, I was barely watching any as I might have been watching a lot of youtube videos relating to writing, graphic design, interior design, illustrations, app tutorials, books & other things of interest. You've got to have varieties in your viewing, right? 

Books I finished reading recently:

01 - Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen series by Marthe Jocely, illustrations by Isabelle Follath > link
I actually read the first two books a while back but I re-read them and the last two books. I wouldn't say I love this series but it's close. I usually don't like real people as fictional characters but in this case I actually like it. Aggie Morton, the female main character, is what I would imagine a young Agatha Christie might be if she had a morbid preoccupation at a young age. Hector Perot (the other main character) is exactly how I pictured the fictional Hercule Poirot as a young boy. (Is it weird Hector is a fictional creation of another fictional creation?) Together, the two make a perfect pair. Aggie and Hector's friendship is the best part because they are truly best friends who can even read each other's expression and seems to know what each is thinking with a single look. To say they might even have some sort of mind-reading conversations is probably not an exaggeration.
   I enjoyed all the Agatha Christie book references though I'm sure I missed a few of them. And the illustrations of the covers, the character portraits and chapter headings are very apt for this series and quite wonderful. It's a fun series and it's only four books but I wouldn't mind reading more of these two friends.

Favorite quote: "I am not untidy. I merely surround myself with a plethora of possibilities."
- The Body Under The Piano, Book 1

02 - Ghostlight (The Reflected City Book 1) by Rabia Gale > link
I read the first half and then paused for 10 or more months to finish reading it. I don't remember the reason for the pause but maybe I just lost interest or something.
    This was a decent read but toward the end, it became a little darker and depressing and what little humor it had in the beginning is no longer present. In the beginning of the book, the characters seemed like they were kind of enjoying themselves even if the situation was dire. Trey, the male lead, a sort of rebel, seemed like he was going to do some serious damage to the bad guys as suggested by the beginning but towards the end, he hardly did anything. Arabella, the female lead showed a bit of spunk but that's about it. I had and maybe expected, some bits of humor somehow but it's all bleakness. There are two perspectives (Trey and Arabella) and then suddenly toward the end, a third perspective appeared so that was kind of weird as if I'm reading a different book. This does have an ending but it's a first book in series so its incomplete. I'm not continuing the series as I don't believe I'll enjoy the other books.

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Movies & shows I had watched recently (I watched them on youtube free with ads):

03 - Non-Stop > link  > youtube
Edge-of-your-seat-wanting-to-know-who-the-culprit-is great.

04 - Double Jeopardy > link  > youtube
I had expected the main character to do something wild or something smarter at the end of the movie but she didn't, not really. It's a good movie but it could have ended better.

05 - Broadchurch  > link  > youtube
The slow pace and having to focus on just one case (with a side case) for two seasons is a bit frustrating. I'm more used to watching these kinds of shows where they have multiple cases, one after another. The third season does focus on a new case but the grieving family and the townspeople continued to be present. It's kind of nice to have the complete picture - crime, trial, afterward - but it's also quite depressing. I don't think I'll watch the American remake (Gracepoint) because I know I would keep comparing it to this original version even though David Tennant, is again, playing one of the lead detectives but with a different accent.

Have you read any good books, seen any good movies or shows recently?