Mar. 10th, 2014

jazzfish: Owly, reading (Owly)
Over vacation I read Charles Stross's six- three-volume Merchant Princes series. They're good stuff. The first one's a normal SF worldwalker book, and the next two are much more contemporary thrillers that happen to include a worldwalking component. Also, the twin central messages are 'Economic development is tricky' and 'Stop romanticising the past.'

They are also, as Charlie noted, big fat books. I mostly didn't notice this, because ereaders are a thing of lightweight beauty.

Over the weekend I got a desire to reread Umberto Eco's big thick secret-history Foucault's Pendulum. My copy is a giant hardback, because it looks nice on my shelf and because when I was carrying a large backpack around campus one more big book didn't really make a difference.

Now? I am genuinely *irritated* that I can't just open it on the iPad. Instead I have to deal with a physical volume that causes me physical strain to hold in one hand, and that doesn't fit in my coat pocket. I am almost (almost) considering plopping down more money for an ebook edition.

I suppose this is how 'and then i replaced my library with ebooks' starts.



Two quotes about Foucault's Pendulum:

1) "Dan Brown is a character in my book." --Umberto Eco, on being repeatedly asked if he'd read The Da Vinci Code
2) "Nobody gets Foucault's Pendulum except for literary critics and role-players." --James Palmer

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Adventures in Mamboland

"Jazz Fish, a saxophone playing wanderer, finds himself in Mamboland at a critical phase in his life." --Howie Green, on his book Jazz Fish Zen

Yeah. That sounds about right.

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