Authors Electric

I am going to interrupt the countdown of metafictional comics this month to say a few words about one of my favorite holidays: Thanksgiving (I'm afraid, though, that Groundhog Day has pride of first place in my holiday hierarchy). I don't know if they celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK. Maybe the Canadians do (Any Canucks out there want to chime in here?). Maybe y'all were thankful for the extra space once we left. Maybe you were thankful for all the cool stuff we sent back. I mean, you have to admit that potatoes, corn, and kidnapped Indian maidens are pretty damned awesome. Or maybe you were just thankful to have us gone. Either way, I suspect that even if Thanksgiving is observed over the pond and beyond, it probably isn't given the gluttonous extravagance we make of it over here. All day eating all the turkey and dressing you want. Turkey sandwiches galore until yuletide? It's a gourmand's dream. Sure it's no Christmas or Halloween, but that...

          Asking a reader about e-books can be a risky business. The topic is almost as touchy as asking someone about sports or politics. Worse even, its like asking a sixteenth century Christian how many fingers one uses to cross himself . I have a writer friend who makes absolutely no bones about her disdain for ebooks . Another writer friend thinks they're great since that is where most folks are buying his books .           I fall somewhere between these two extremes. I far prefer reading a tangible book (further, I prefer hardcover to paperback, but paperback to e-book) since to me reading is far more than an exercise for the brain. It's a physical thing, too. I like how different books feel, Vonnegut books are light as a feather, for example, but a John Irving novel is heavy. Older books have rough pages that have turned tan with age and flipping, but new books are fresh and slick. And...

Last month in this space I bared my soul regarding difficulties in my relationship with my desktop. Altogether more traumatising has been the discovery that I might have fallen out of love with an even more long-standing soul-mate. When I was first introduced to my pretty young iPad a year ago I imagined that it would merely widen my horizons, offer me more options and some lively entertainment. I stumbled into the relationship like some wide-eyed old fool who fails to realise he has been targeted as potential sugar-daddy material, never thinking it would make me question my relationship with the printed books who had been part of my life ever since I first met Paddington Bear. But suddenly I find myself irritated by features of my old love that I once found endearing or was totally blind to. I am impatient with physical shortcomings that I would once never even have noticed. This realisation dawned when a book I needed for research purposes was not available as an ...