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Nov 20, 2012

and talking of real books

Two I recently bought. Mr Penumbra's 24 hour book store by Robin Sloan. I read a chapter and bought the book on the strength of that. It's the story of a down-sized web designer who ends up working the graveyard shift at the aforementioned bay area bookstore. It soon becomes clear that this is a bookstore with a difference, brilliant!

A Question of Identity by Susan Hill, the latest Simon Serrailler mystery, this was a no-brainer because I love this series and Hill's plotting and characters are outstanding. The rest of the books I'm reading aren't out until next year Ghostman and Dark Tide are the standouts so far. I'm halfway through Deborah Crombie's Sound of Breaking Glass.

I have been working on T'ball a lot too, I basically had to throw out a lot of the story because it was no longer relevant after the cuts we made to Rollover but things are coming together now. I should have a draft ready soon after Christmas.

The e-reader revisited

Regular readers of this blog will know my views on e-books but to recap, reading is a sensory experience, the feel of the book in your hand, the sound of the pages turning, that new book smell. However, it isn't always possible to get a physical arc and I have been reading electronic arcs since March. I dabbled with google e books because some customers wanted to use TKE to buy their e-books.

In the last month there has been a massive shift in all the indies favour, we've started selling Kobos. As one of the 'kobo team' I've had to learn how to use the devices, and it hasn't been too painful an experience. I can now talk a prospective customer through the basics and do set up, instead of genius bar, think bookworm bar and you're halfway there.

I like the device so much that my Thursday co-worker and friend Jamie and I have joint ownership of one. She uses it to buy books and borrow from the library, I use it for reading arcs. I'm embracing new tech while standing by my principles for reading real books.

Nov 8, 2012

Hand for A Hand, T. Frank Muir

St Andrews Golf Club in bonny Scotland, the last place you’d expect to find a body part. But there it is in a bunker on the seventeenth green, a hand clutching an envelope addressed to Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Gilchrist. The note contains a single word MURDER. More messages follow and Gilchrist has a horrible suspicion that he knows the identity of the next victim. Only the last time he played a hunch he got it wrong but if he’s right the consequences will destroy him.