Given recent computer problem and just home after a month away in Paris, the UK and attending the BEA in New York where I snagged tons of books to pile into my bulging bags, here's a quick question for you bibliphiles...where in the world is this? Hint this shot's taken in the cafe of a famous bookshop on Charing Cross Road.
At CrimeFest, amazingly, I won a Sonyereader at the gala dinner. Imagine the look on my face since I'd extolled at dinner how I loved paper and the printed page and didn't want another 'thing' with batteries to charge. Do any of you use these little machines? Well, Adrian showed me the basics and so did at couple from Bristol which went clear over my head. Downloaded already on the reader were Stendahl's Red and Black and Danish books...But on a side note before I forget, the refreshing thing I noticed on trains, in the tube in the UK was that everyone read; newspapers and books. Real hold in the hand books. None of these little reading machines.
Also in France where the whole ebook business seems not to have reached their consciousness. Or maybe they're just avoiding it. Somehow, where literature is venerated and books are collected, just can't see the ebook taking off there.
I packed 'it' away - started Caro Ramsay's book, she's a Glaswegian Scot and will guest blog for us soon - until New York.
Wandering around the cavernous Javitts Center I grabbed The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg, translated by Stieg Larsen's translator, a huge bestseller in her home Sweden and Europe...so hoping we can invite her to guest blog. And Stuart Neville's next book, Collusion, set in Belfast which I'm dying to read.
Anyhow back at my publisher Soho, Ailen our marketing director insisted she download a ton of Soho books onto my new reader...like magic she just hit buttons and clicked keys and voila...20 books on this little machine...call me naive, a bit stupified but here were books on this thin silver sliver and I was supposed to read this on the plane? Something in me resisted...and I took James Benn's new galley of 'Rag and Bone' which is brilliant to finish on the plane...I love this Billy Boyle and the story lines he threads especially the SOE...but maybe I will use this 'machine' and get dragged into the next era. On a long trip, to read my reading group's manuscripts and use the note taking feature...but for now...it's paper and binding and so good to be back home.
Cara - usually Tuesday - Saturday
