Well, here’s an interesting development… What started as a bit of a lark has turned into a real-world testing lab.

That’s the person who started me thinking more seriously about this electronic book thing. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, eh?

In his original post, he pointed out Christopher Fowler’s lack of by-line on the Independent’s site where it reproduced his second article about ‘forgotten authors’. I responded. Fowler’s a wonderful guy and I think the world of him. Read his books. Better yet: buy his books. Do it or you’ll be smacked with a wet sock. Go to a store or library and get several. I’ll wait here until you’re back.

[hums idly until reader returns]

You’ll be glad you did that, I assure you.

Now in this post, Mr. Cane speaks of e-books and our lack of supply of them. After explaining that this is very much one of our stated goals in development of our ‘get books to the people’ campaign (as well as blaming Guy Adams for one of many things), I offer to ‘set a girl up’ so that we might have someone ‘outside the family’ to look at things and see if they work the way we’d like them to. Also, there’s the added attraction of testing books written in ‘proper English’ on those who seem hell-bent on destroying it in all manner of fashions.

How do you feel about the ‘e-book’? Like it in theory, but the equipment’s too expensive? Like it in theory but the equipment can’t be taken into the bath? Loathe it in theory and practicality and feel the need of smashing the Kindle every time you see one?

For those of you in the last field (and I recognise your view as being my own initial one), here’s something to consider: you’re reading a text on a screen right now. Not so bad, is it? Here’s another article that Mike Cane referred to in his continuing campaign for e-books to conquer the world, from the blog The Digitalist, written by Digital Team at Pan Macmillan (and let’s hope they don’t look too closely at some of our titles).

10 Reasons Not to Write-Off Reading from a Screen

1. We do it all the time anyway. Whether it’s emails, blogs, the newspaper or text messages for the bulk of us, most of our reading is already on screen. The New York Times now [has] 13 million online readers per day against a print readership of 1.1 million.

Tough to refute that. Still, the experience of holding a real book — and just using the term ‘real’ subjugates the e-book — is something that many value above all else, equating it to an over-all sensory experience that is nigh-on orgiastic when applied to borrowing a book from the library and thumbing its well-worn pages that has been handled by so many other anonymous users and then returned to the shelf like some cheap harlot in Limehouse.

And yet, if one’s basic concept regarding the written word in its varied forms — short story, novel, fiction, non-fiction, biographical account of history, whatsoever it may be — is that the word is prima rosa, then of what importance is the method of its delivery? Do we criticise the reader of Tolstoy’s works in mass-market paperbacks because hard-cover editions are the only way of honouring the ‘great words of the master’? Do we decry those who peruse the sonnets of the Bard of Avon because they’ve bought a volume of them exclusive of his plays? Do we eschew the company of those who read The Menachme in — pshaw! — English? No! none of these are important, because we all rejoice to see the tales continue to be read and the stories within them prove their timelessness to another generation of people.

So, that being agreed to, why then do we suddenly jump up and cry ‘foul!’ when paper isn’t involved? Is there a more or less acceptable form for a tale to be provided in? Because the works of Dickens are suddenly available in a form suitable to Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle, does this mean men will come to your home like the Firemen of Fahrenheit 451 and destroy all of your carefully collected first editions? NO! All are free to continue using ‘dead tree’ versions already extant, as well as future paper versions of things.

However, when I stare at over a yard length of books I have yet to read (some of them our own titles, embarrassingly), the use of one of these little electric sex boxes is crystal clear: they don’t weigh much and you can stuff a large number of books in an overcoat pocket with ease.

When I returned from overseas last fall, Guy lent me a large number of books he felt were worthwhile in my continuing effort to know more about the forms of fantastical fiction available. Wonderful stuff, and it got me into Christopher Fowler’s writing (see how we complete the circle here? niiiiiice…). And yet, those fuckers weighed a ton and I had to pay ‘excess baggage’ charges because of it. Now, had those seventeen volumes been electronic books, I would have had to pay zilch, with the possibility that a few of my own book files would have had to be deleted to make room for these ones of Guy’s, but that would be fine as I would have had master copies of them on my computer at home in this hypothetical paradise.

See how much easier that is for everyone? I don’t have to pay baggage charges, we don’t have to use up precious fuel resources moving the weight of them across the globe so I can read them (still working on them, by the way), we don’t have to use more fuel and postage to get them back to Guy, and no trees need die for them to be in existence in the first place!

Okay, now that this is all out there for your consideration, here’s three views of “The Kindle Option” from Sheldon: The Daily Comic Strip by Dave Kellett (and click each one to go to his site and see them bigger):

Many of you know that I enjoy history, architecture, social geography, culture, beer, and a damned good mystery.

Christopher Fowler’s “Bryant and May” series of books (six in total) are all set in London — or near as — and deal with all of those topics. Damned good stuff.

The latest — The Victoria Vanishes — is out now and features much discussion and details of pubs in London. I’ve not yet read it (or the previous title, White Corridor), and that will have to wait until October when I pick it up at Humdrumming Logistics Central [aka: “Trudi’s house”].

For those of you who know some pubs in the area, or have read about them, or want to know / read about them, head to this post on his blog all about the pubs he was fascinated by when writing the book: The Victoria Vanishes.

Even if you care nothing for beer, or for mysteries, or for London, it’s a fascinating bit of writing, and something that you wouldn’t think of initially when someone says ‘we must preserve the people’s heritage’, is it? Goes to show, eh?

LATER EDIT: added link to the post I’m babbling about. DOH!

LATER LATER EDIT: adjusted link to reflect new URL