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...

[girlyswot]

I read my Kindle in 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.

[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.

[clanwilliam]

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

[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.....

[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!

[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.

[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.