The Luxury of a Book

I was thinking about going on vacation and I thought I should download a book for the week. But then I realized I didn't want to read on my Kindle. I wanted a book and I thought what a luxury. Funny thought but there it was. Something not tied to a computer. An actual pulp based reading machine that needs no power and is glare proof and I don't have to plug it in. And it doesn't say something to me I don't want to hear.

And I even saw myself browsing for the book. Wow. Picking up books and looking at them and putting them down. Why it was something out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. A real honest to goodness interaction with something that does not glow or buzz. And it does seem luxurious. To sit in a chair by a lake with a book. Something about sitting by the lake with my kindle just doesn't do it for me.

And so that is what I will do. I will treat myself to a book. Hell I'm worth it. I can pay a little extra to have the tactile sensation of turning real pages. I don't have to justify the drive to the bookstore and the extra time it will take.

Sometimes....you just have to go for it.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher...a Real Book
 

What you can do with your Book over a Kindle

Books are dinasorial but they have a function. For one thing you can read a book in the sun. You  cannot read your kindle in the sun. Alright. Maybe the old kindles but not the kindle fire. It is is just a black piece of marble. And you can read your book in the tub. You cannot read your kindle in the tub. I did. I dropped it. No more kindle. My book just got soggy.

You cannot throw your kindle on the floor or in in your backpack or on your shelf. Not if you want to lose a couple hundred bucks. Throw that book anywhere and you can still read it. You cannot read your kindle with toast and jelly and coffee. Your fingers are sticky and gum up the screen. You cannot dribble egg yolk on your kindle. Many of my books have yellow stains. You cannot spill coffee on your kindle. You cant get too far from a plug with your kindle especially the later ones. They just turn black. You never have to plug your book in. Ever!

You cannot turn down the page of your kindle and the bookmark function doesn't work a lot of times so you have to find your page again. Your book. Turn down the page. Rip it. Piss on it. Do what you have to do but you can find your place. You cant leave your kindle out in the rain. You can leave your book in the rain. It just gets fat.

Here's a big one. You forget what you read with your kindle. Your book lays around and you say oh yeah...that was a good book. Or...I better read that book I bought. With your kindle your book is hidden and forgettable. You also cant look ahead in your kindle...im sorry it is not the same. And you can't look back to see how much you have read.

 And finally you cant turn the last page of your kindle and hold it and go wow that was a good book!
You just turn it off. Bummer.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
 

Got the Kindle Finally!

All my books are available on Kindle (Kindle Books)so I figured I better go get one. I had been eyeing them for a while and when I went past the GOING OUT OF BUSINESS sign on Borders I swung in and eyed their KOBOS and almost bought one for the low price of seventy bucks. But after talking to the salespeople who would soon be walking the streets they let me know in their own way the KOBO ereader was not so great. Well, it's kind of slow one saleswoman said in beneath her breath. Say no more. After asking about several books Borders didn't have I beat it out of there and headed for Best Buy where I bought my KINDLE!

I haven't read one book on it  yet but today is the day. But I went into my library to grab something and there were all my books. I usually don't even think about them but suddenly they looked antique. Don't get me wrong I will still be a book reader of pulp and circumstance. But I know the way I look at CD's or records that the old delivery vehicle is on a time limit. Books will not be relevant to my seven year old the way they were to me. It is just a fact.

And maybe because I had to wrestle with the kindle environment for the last few weeks (In Kindle Purgatory)getting by books out there that I came to understand more about the power of the digital word. Even going into Borders hit me differently. Of course Borders is going out of business. The brick and mortar modality of selling books is already behind the curve. Those books just sit on the shelf and don't say a word. I can shoot out my chapters to people and they may ignore them they may delete them they may block me, but I just did something pro active while the muted pulp sits on the shelf.

The word I got was that Borders got into the Ereader market too late and that was one of the reasons they went down like the Titanic. The truth is publishing is changing at nanosecond speed and authors bookstores and publishers are still adjusting. Whoops. My phone just went off. That was my Kindle newsletter. I guess it's time to open the box and fire up my ereader. Maybe I'll try The Help. Everyone is reading it and of course it is the book Borders did not have. Guess I'll just download it. There...Done.

William Hazelgrove Website
Rocket Man Kindle or Paperback

Catcher in the Rye for the Recession Generation....

Citizen Kane in our Time

Black and white spooling along in the darkness and my son shrugs when I tell him this is one of the great movies of all time. Sure it is. But you watch it and you see why. Wells was onto something with his spoof of the great media mogul William Randolph Hearst. Especially in our media age of conglomeration where Fox fronts for Murdock's agenda and those that cross him cross at their peril. Presidents beware, Hearst is alive and well. But Orson Wells is the boy genius who put it altogether.

That's what comes across when you watch the movie. Wells. He was laughing his way through having a studio give him the money and the means to make his movie. Having one hell of a time as he took over the Enquirer and made a name for himself and played Hearst through his demise. And of course Wells was playing with fire and paid the price. He found himself black listed after the movie. His later projects never had the lustre nor the backing. The Magnificent Ambersons was finished by the studio.

But genius shines through. And Wells original vision is there at a time when movie making was pretty dull. Along comes this man who breaks just about every rule with angle shots, lighting, montages, the whole structure thrown on its head . But Orson Wells is the star of Citizen Kane even in his bald mask getting wheeled around his estate as a broken down old Kane. And in that moment he is Kane. He had made his opus and would pay the same high price as his character: isolation, broken health, loneliness. Art and life imitating each other over and over again. 

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will be out in January

Bookscent

I was doing a book signing the other day and suddenly I looked around and had a very strange feeling--I felt I was looking at history. All those books in their pulpy pages on all those shelves. History. We will not see it again. Books will go away. The kindle and the IPOD and the downloaded book are here to stay. Technological revolution is that way. Imagine the uproar when the first printing press started cranking out hundreds of papers. Scribes must have thrown up their pens like Scrooge in the last scene of A Christmas Carol. Books are a good thing to have and I prefer them, but they are on paper and paper is a vanishing commodity. If a person can download hundreds of books and their newspapers all before their morning coffee, then yes, something has changed. How fast will it come? In a nanosecond. It is already here. The big publishers are in a tailspin, trying to figure out the new model. How do you replace all that revenue when one guy can download a book and zap it out to ten of his friends? Sounds like the Knapster mess all over again. Borders is teetering, publishers are not acquiring. Hmmm. Sounds like the automakers. Too much stock, not enough readers. But the plain fact is that a digital file is stored easily, does not require a publisher to print a bunch of copies he might not sell, and allows the reader the ease of carrying multiple works and reading literally anywhere. This means authors and publishers will have to embrace a new model. If the end result is the dissemination of the work, then it is a good thing. More people can get their hands on your book. As a writer I like that, but I cant' help but feel a little sad that the warm pulpy smell of a bookstore will be replaced by the clean ascetic smell of plastic. Maybe they will come up with a spray: Bookscent.