Why Kindles are worse than paper books , specifically today

[nineveh_uk]

1) They're really annoying to flip back to check something.

2) You can't read them in the bath.

I feel let down. I have also let down myself by pulling the cartilage etc in my ribcage through ill-advised ironing and it is all on fire in a kind of cold way. It is very annoying, I hadn't done that for ages. C'est la vie. I worked the bank holiday because I am taking Friday off instead to see my sisters for the weekend (4 hours on the train each way, it's a good thing I love them), and it was quite peaceful and i could just get things done without interruptions. But term has hit like a stampede of wildebeest and my Winter Begonia rewatch has reached the depressing parts. I thought I might try Anne With an E - cheerful, pretty scenery, in English- and then I remembered that it is not a cheerful adaptation, which is very annoying. There is plenty of 'in the midst of life we are in death'in the original, it doesn't need extra grimdzrk for credibility.

Anyway, it is time for bed, the electric blanket, and She Who Became the Sun, which I started yesterday and am enjoying a lot.

Comments

[philomytha]

So frustrating for flipping back! With a paper book I always have a sense of what fraction of the way through something I remember was, but trying to translate that for a Kindle is such a pain. Though because I can't use it in the bath, I always end up making inroads into my stack of TBR paper books, so there's a silver lining for me there...

[nineveh_uk]

It's the perfect melding of form and function!

I mostly read paper books anyway, but the bath tends to the old rather than new. Alcott most recently.

[girlyswot]

I read my Kindle in the bath.

[nineveh_uk]

I admire your courage/madness.

[mrs_redboots]

Modern Kindles are waterproof!

[nineveh_uk]

I am going to have to look and see if this applies to mine, as it isn't terribly old though also more than 2 years... Though I think I'd still consider it too weird.

[caulkhead]

It depends on the model. If it's a Paperwhite, then yes, it is waterproof.

[nineveh_uk]

It is! Though I still don't think I'll risk the bath.

[petra]

I read on my phone in the bath, and practically speaking paper books don't like getting wet much more than kindles and phones.

[nineveh_uk]

But the paper book won't electrocute me! Though I admit my mum was right to discourage the reading of library books in the bath (obviously I still did it).

[(Anonymous)]

I can't judge how likely you are to drop something in the bath. Perhaps it is a concern with your dexterity. As things stand, I am going to continue reading my phone there, though not while it is plugged in.

[nineveh_uk]

It's the potential rather than likelihood that would inhibit my enjoyment :D

[azdak]

I watched the first series of Anne With an E and it was LESS grimdark than the original, but I stopped watching it during series 2 because I found the plots uninteresting (I assume they had moved away from the books and were making their own storylines up at that point), so is that where it starts getting unpleasant?

I'm currently hoovering up "Under the Skin", a modern Chinese detective series (only 20 episodes long!) starring one of the actors from Winter Begonia (the fellow opera singer who has to shave his head when he loses a bet with Shang Xirui) as a slightly fey police sketch artist. The cases are a bit nonsensical, but this is a feature of most cop shows, and the rest of it is highly entertaining. And even the nonsense is often quite fun (I had to laugh yesterday when they figure out that a diary entry was faked because it says "sunny" and a sketch drawn on the same day shows the wrong kind of light for a sunny day and the pencil strokes are softer and darker than they should have been because of the humidity. And then, after this long and not entirely convincing lecture on the science of drawing, Our Hero adds "and I checked on the internet and it was sunny on that date." You could have said that in the first place, Sherlock!). It doesn't do well by its female characters, so plus ca change there, but otherwise it might meet your current needs.

[antisoppist]

I saw half of the first series of Anne with an E and haven't got round to watching any more. I thought it was interesting in what it was doing with a modern psychological take on Anne's childhood and pointing out that a child who has been orphaned and then sent to be a domestic servant basically in homes with drunken husbands would turn up in Avonlea quite traumatised, but then it veered so far from the books that I haven't summoned up the energy to carry on even to see what they were going to do to the plots next.

[azdak]

Yes, I liked the bit with the missing earring, for instance, when it wasn’t enough just to say sorry. And I also appreciated the handling of periods.

[nineveh_uk]

It sounds like the sort of thing that I should give a go one weekend when I'm doing some sewing or similar and want something on in the background, and then I can either like it or not be so annoyed that I didn't.

[carbonel]

I watched the entire first series of Anne with an E, but there was a lot of teeth-gritting in the last few episodes. And then there was this stupid cliffhanger at the end of the last episode...and I never went back to it after the next season dropped.

On the other hand, a Canadian friend of mine loves it. Go figure.

[nineveh_uk]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that there is no adaptation that can resist moving away from the original at some point.

Only 20 episodes and light sounds good! Much as I want to watch the one about Korean army conscription on Netflix, it is not really reflective of my present mood and just light TV is more tempting. Is it case of the week structure? And the actor was decent in WB (I have just been regretting that annoying Ning Jiulang means I am unable to consider that storyline as devastating as it should be, even though I spotted this time that it is actually TV canon that he and Prince Qi are sleeping together).

[azdak]

Is the sleeping together in the dialogue? That's rather impressive.

I should admit that Under the Skin is "light" for values of "light" that includes every victim so far being a woman and a tendency to sexualise said victims. However, it does pass the Bechdel test (we have just had a scene in which THREE women talk about a case with no men present) and the crimes are treated in a manner that makes them frankly a bit dull rather than emotionally devastating.

[nineveh_uk]

When they talk through the closed door before just Prince Qi leaves, NJL says to Prince Qi, "We have spent many decades together, day and night." For Cdrama, I think that's all the gory details!

A tendency to sexualise female victims is alas far from unique to Cdrama, and I am inured to it.

[caulkhead]

I had to give up on Hunting, despite Jingyan as a detective and Xie Yu in the role he was born for as a sinister tech entrepreneur because it was just so bad at women.

[nineveh_uk]

When I get Amazon Prime again in September because I cannot possibly not see the new Lord of the Rings series, I want to watch Jingyan as a detective (again) in When a Snail Falls in Love.

[caulkhead]

That is an amazing title.

What's the Netflix one you're currently avoiding? It sounds rather like the one I've just finished on Viki, which was excellent, but rather wrenching in places (and very tense, I several times cursed the fact that I didn't check it had finished airing before I started watching and consequently had to wait a week between episodes like it was 2010 or something).

[nineveh_uk]

D.P. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58660760 More than one sounds excessive, so perhaps it is also on Viki

Waiting a week between episodes is so old-school! At least for anything online, I do tend to do it when they are on terrestrial though technically available on iPlayer etc.

[caulkhead]

Nope, different one entirely, though it seemed to be coming from very much the same place, albeit with a corruption-in-military-procurement main plot.

I hesitate to say 'lighter', because there were some heavy-duty tone shifts even by Kdrama standards, but it certainly had its moments in between all the tension.

[azdak]

I have Amazon Prime! I could watch Jingyan being a detective snail!

[caulkhead]

And yet again I wish I could draw.

[nineveh_uk]

Watch and report back!

[azdak]

Gosh, it must have been REALLY bad at women!

[caulkhead]

"Look, you may think your girlfriend/fiance is spending too long at work and she is clearly going to get sucked into some kind of insider trading scam because she is sweet and naive but holy double standards Batman, a) she's only doing it because you are and b)you clearly have no interest in her at all as an actual person and neither do the writers!."

And given that we also had Yujin as a really adorable sidekick, you can see just how annoying that was.

[azdak]

It's the "no interest in her at all as a person" that's the real kicker. There are a couple of female characters in "Under the Skin" who could be developed in all sorts of interesting ways, but they aren't because the default assumption is that women are boring - an obviously self-fulfilling prophecy!

[nineveh_uk]

And how hard can it be? Give her a few decent lines and look, you've got an extra useful character, too. And yet...

[nineveh_uk]

OH dear, that does sound very annoying.

[clanwilliam]

My Kindle's waterproof - as is my phone - but alas, I do not have a bath to soak in.

[nineveh_uk]

Alas, alack! A good shower is very nice for everyday, but I do enjoy the option of a bath (especially as the moment as apparently soaking muscle aches really works. Wish I'd tried it earlier!). Never got the point of candles/wine with one, though.

[mrs_redboots]

I can't remember when I last had a bath - I just prefer showers! I sympathise with the muscle aches, though - I have had a sore place on my back for the last some time. Maybe a hot bath is what's wanted.... But if I'm going to do that, I'd rather soak in a hot tub, and don't have one of those!

Although my Kindle is waterproof, I don't think I'd read it in the bath, just in case.....

[nineveh_uk]

What I would really like is a hot spring in the back garden, but alas, no.

[nnozomi]

2) You can't read them in the bath.
This is the main reason why I still read everything on paper (not counting fic). That and, how do I read e-books when I'm cooking or washing dishes, I suspect they are not as resilient to splashes of water or pasta sauce as paper books are...

I hope you feel better soon!

[nineveh_uk]

Reading while doing the washing up is one I haven't tried! Though I'm mostly trying to get the washing up over with asap. But maybe I should experiment. DEfinitely not while actually hanging over the pasta sauce, though!

[antisoppist]

My parents' old oven had an eye-level grill. It was a perfect book holder, with the handle to hold the pages open while you stirred things boringly on the hob. Grill not turned on obvs.

[nineveh_uk]

Perfect!

[white_hart]

I definitely agree on the flipping back, though I prefer showers to baths and our immersion heater is broken anyway.

I am also reading She Who Became the Sun! I was loving it at the weekend but I'm not sure it's the right thing for knackered and grumpy post-work Sadie.

[nineveh_uk]

A shower is much more convenient every day, but I do like a hot bath on occasion.

My pace has certainly slowed in the week and I'm only 25% through, but I'm enjoying it a lot. Right book at the right time.

[carbonel]

I have been told by Kindle users (of which I am not one, though I own one for Reasons) that a Paperwhite functions just fine when inside a transparent Ziploc bag for bath use.

[nineveh_uk]

It's certainly dedication to reading! What baths really need is a special screen on a retractable arm that folds out when you are in the mood for ebooks in the bath, doesn't need to be held, won't fall in, and won't mind splashes, and folds away when not in said mood.