I don't write enough. Probably part of the reason for that is I don't read enough. And probably part of the reason for that is books are just too darn long.
Well, they're not really, are they? But for some reason, unless I am completely and utterly gripped by a book I seem to find it difficult to get to the end these days. I think it's yet more evidence of my dwindling powers of concentration as I approach my dotage (ah, there it is just across the square. I can see it now).
The more pragmatic among you may wish to point to the invention of something called the 'short story', but these have a troubling tendency to turn up in collections. I feel the same disappointment in having read four out of ten stories in a short story collection as I do in getting only barely halfway through a novel. Yes, those might be complete and self-contained tales, but like listening to half an album (remember those, o generation of downloaders?) it still feels like a job not completed.
(Actually, I don't know why I'm being all snotty to downloaders. The whole thrust of this blogdule (is that what individual blog entries are called? Is it? IS IT?) is about downloading stuff.)
So thank goodness something has come along that means you no longer have to read a whole book.
What am I talking about?
Kindle samples!
I don't have an actual Kindle - although if they actually sold the 8.9 inch screen Kindle Fire in this country (what is that all about? Why do they region lock US Kindles? Let's just assume here that DRM and region locking is a dumb idea and move on) I might consider getting one to read my comics on - but I do have the app on me iPhone. Even on that tiny screen, it's easy enough to read. And, as I have mentioned elsewhere, as space becomes a premium in my tiny non-dimensionally transcendental flat I am embracing the digit-all age with all digits (bit of a stretch that, but I couldn't resist). So I have downloaded the odd virtual novel or two but they do have the nasty habit of costing actual money.
Actually, in struggling to come up with a punny title for this blogdule (that doesn't really work, does it? And yet I can tell - even now - that I am going to continue to use it) it occurs to me that the idea of book burning does seem implicit in the name Kindle. Is that deliberate? It seems a fairly obvious connection. Interesting that there isn't a copy of Fahrenheit 451 in the Kindle store.
In an amazing piece of metatextuality here, the reason these sentences don't make sense is I am listening to an edition of Just a Minute from 28 May rather than concentrating on what I'm writing. They mentioned Tristram Shandy, which, after enjoying Michael Winterbottom's film A Cock and Bull Story, inspired me to immediately download a free Kindle edition of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a book famous for its constant digressions.
When the radio recording had finished, the recorder reverted to the last channel it was on. In this case ITV3, and Doc Martin featuring Caroline Catz was on. Now I'll admit to having a bit of a crush on the lovely Caroline so I had a quick look on Wikipedia to see what she's up to at the moment, whereupon I discovered she is married to Michael Higgs, who I had been watching as the dad on Wizards vs Aliens earlier. Why is it when I start writing this blog thing I can constantly get distracted by the fundamental interconnectedness of things?
The more you write, the more you begin to recognise your own ticks (some might say 'clichés') as a writer. Digressional hyphens seem to be one. And have you noticed how more and more rhetorical questions seem to be creeping in?
Anyway, I invoke the works of Douglas Adams (on a bit of an Adams kick at the mo - finally bought the DVD of the TV Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, which, let's be honest, has got to be my Eighteenth Telly Recommendation) because he is responsible for my latest addiction: Kindle samples.
Kindle samples are great. They're free and as they only make up the first few pages of a book you can polish them off in no time and not worry about how the rest of the book turns out. Where they are particularly effective is when they release a new edition of a book you already have but it features a brand new introduction. This is where Hitch Hiker comes into it, cos a few years back they brought out new editions of the books with intros by the likes of Russell T Davies and Neil Gaiman - yours for free. In fact, it's only just occurred to me that they've done the same with rereleases of a dozen of the Target Doctor Who novelisations, and I have just cracked on and downloaded the new intros to those while enjoying a slightly stale chocolate eclair.
Obviously, the idea is to entice you into buying the whole thing. And there are samples in my Kindle library that I might just do that with. But for now I am enjoying completing the incompletness of books by Tina Fey, Tim Key, Stewart Lee, Haruki Murakami, Caitlin Moran and Mark Kermode. Biographies and factual books are great because not knowing how the book ends doesn't really affect the bits you're reading. I'm getting very clued up on the early childhood of an awful lot of people.
More soonliest.
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