The trouble with my Kindle library

Piles and piles of books

I don't have a Kindle, but I've been downloading e-books to the app at a much faster rate than I can read
them. I still buy the occasional hard copy—ill-advised since I ran out of shelf space years ago and the bookcase I bought last year filled up instantly with the piles that were sitting on bed, chairs and desk—but most of my book purchases over the last five years have been of the digital variety.

Since I plan to put a dent in my TBR backlog this summer, I decided to 'get organized' (always a dangerous undertaking for me) by dividing the Kindle titles into categories. The result was as follows:

1: Books by writers I know. (scores, maybe hundreds)
2: Classics to be read or re-read. (scores)
3: Books on eating, cooking and generally living more healthfully. (a handful)
4: Books on e-publishing (a few)
5: Novels, biographies and memoirs NOT by authors I know. (a few)
6: Miscellaneous titles, like the experimental baby books for my granddaughter. (a few)

The problem with my Kindle library became clear: apparently, I own scores, possibly hundreds, of books that I bought or downloaded free simply to support authors I know. I have little or no interest in reading maybe 95% of these books, so what do I do with them? I have to wade through these to get to those that I actually plan to read. I'd like to delete the unwanted books but feel guilty about this although I know I'll never get around to reading, for example, love stories that pair humans with vampires, dragons, tigers or wolves, those that are gruesome, weird and humorless (I can read gruesome and weird if there's humor involved), and those by authors I've sampled whose writing doesn't grab me for one reason or another.

The other categories are fine: I'm picking my way through the Fanons, Alighieris, and Flauberts that I've been wanting to read, like, forever; I've started on the books by authors I know that I do want to read, such as Jamaica Dreaming by Eugenia O'Neal that I read in its entirety yesterday, and William Doonan's Mediterranean Grave; don't plan on reading any more books on e-publishing for a while; and I'll schedule the 'healthful living' books for maybe every other month. But that first category is headache-inducing.

Do you buy/download lots of books you don't plan to read just to support authors you know? What on earth do you do with them?

Keeping Pace

My children and I have a well developed history of reading together. Before they were able to read, I would read to them every night. When they were developing their reading skills, we would take turns to read out loud. Even after they were reading fluently, I continued reading to them every bedtime, mainly books that I knew they would be reluctant to try if I left them to their own devices. (We still talk about 'The Magician's Elephant' by Kate DiCamillo.) We referred to our bedtime ritual as "Bath, Books, Bed", and all hell could break loose if I was tired and tried to skip the book portion.

Then life got in the way. The demands of homework and extra curricula activities suddenly meant that bedtime was unpredictable and often rushed. Our bedtime ritual lost the middle element. My children still read voraciously but we no longer share that nighttime reading time.

This story has a happy ending, though, because we still read books together. We recently all read 'Wonder' by R. J. Palacio at the same time. My daughter read it on a Kindle, my son on his iPod and I read it on my laptop. We bookmarked sections and spent a few minutes at bedtime, not reading, but discussing the parts of it that touched us the most.

This was not our only experience sharing a book electronically but it struck me that with much discussion about how technology is hindering humanity's face-to-face communication, with proper management we can actually use technology to enhance our human interactions.

I recently downloaded Orwell's 'Animal Farm' and I am hoping that we can enjoy this together as well. Wish me luck!

How Times Have Changed

Only a few short years ago I bought children’s books as Christmas gifts. Last  last year I gave my niece a Nook, and those same nephews V-tech Readers. This is an indication of how things have changed.  I no longer look for books to buy. Instead I look for ways they can load content on the devices they use to read.

The same is true for me as a reader. I was an early cheerleader of that new tech toy called the Kindle back before it was on sale. I saw the first version at a writers conference. It was love at first sight (they had me at “wireless download with no contract”). Yet I’ve never owned a Kindle. It was only last year that I even had a smartphone, much less the Kindle app. I scoffed that I would read books on my phone anyway. Then I gave in to the siren call of Apple at last. Within a week of downloading the Kindle app I was loading up on books and reading like a crazed book junkie.

So it’s Christmas again. I would welcome any suggestions for books that I might gift (Nook please) for a  thirteen year old girl (who is addicted to all things Twilight, sigh), and for content for the V-tech Readers. Please and thank you.  Parents of youngsters, help out us aunts, uncles, godparents, grandparents!  Think of it as your holiday good deed.

Which brings me to us writers. We’re the content creators. Content is king. Great time to be a writer.

What are some great gift ideas for writer and readers? I’d love a service to organize and clean my home office as a gift J

Technorati Tags: readers,books,gift books,ereaders,ebooks,writers,holidays

Still in Love with Paper

Computers and the Digital Age have made the life of a writer easier in too many ways to count. Yet, after trying new digital tools, I often return to my original paper and analog methods.

For example, after I got my new color Kindle, I bought a few background books for my next novel because they were cheaper as e-books. Yet I immediately forgot the names and authors of those books. It wouldn't surprise me if I one day buy some of them again in paper (if I haven't already), not knowing I already own them.

Other books I would have been willing to buy as e-books I didn't because for some reason the illustrations weren't included in the e-book, only the paper book. 

You might object that those are technical issues; that once Kindles allow one to tag books and then sort books by multiple tags, that once Kindles have bigger memories so they can easily hold many image-heavy e-books, these problems will disappear. True, and if those advances happen, I will reconsider my decision. In the meantime, I buy only pleasure reading in e-book form.

Some of the downsides of new digital ways of doing things are intrinsic. For example, software improvements so far have been inevitable. Twenty years from now, I won't be able to access the books currently on my Kindle or any files that are now on my computer because the software and possibly the hardware will have advanced too far.

Another example: office recordkeeping. I've found Quicken worse than useless for recording my business expenses. I don't like using Microsoft Excel, either. It's much faster and more convenient to keep records of expenses by hand. With an old-fashioned paper ledger, I can work on my account book anywhere, not just at my computer. For another, I can see all my expenses and their categories for the year with only three or four glances (or with a single glance if I tear out the pages and spread them out). I make fewer mistakes when I write numbers in by hand, and it's easier to notice and correct mistakes in a paper ledger.

These aren't the only areas in which I've decided to be a Luddite. Recently I decided to return to using a paper address book as my master list of addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses. I loved having a Palm Pilot, with all data collected in one place and accessible in 30 seconds from anywhere I was. But my newer-model computer doesn't support such old technology. Contact data are now scattered through several different programs, and they're not accessible when I'm away from home. So it's back to a portable address book for me until smartphones and smartphone data plans drop drastically in price.

And it hardly needs mentioning that even if one makes many backups of computer files and stores them in more than one physical location, one can nevertheless irretrievably lose important information.

As a result, I'm still in love with paper. Where do you fall? Does your office and business depend entirely on computers and digital devices, does it still run entirely on paper, or is it somewhere in-between? And why?


I'll be blogging again on May 6. I hope you stop by again then.

—Shauna Roberts

Guest editor Monica Harris: The e-reader question

As Senior Editor at Kensington Publishing, Monica Harris initiated and edited Arabesque, the first African American romance series by a major publisher. There she also edited historical romances, mysteries, women’s mainstream novels and non-fiction. Harris has won a number of important honors, including Waldenbooks Special Achievement Award, New York Chapter of NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2003 Emma Trailblazers’ Award, and is listed in the Who’s Who of African Americans and the Cambridge Who's Who. Her company MHM Editorial Services provides re-writing, line-editing, manuscript critiquing and revision help for authors and publishers. 


My eldest child had to read a geography lesson for homework. He went straight to the computer. When I asked why, he answered: “To study.”

It’s hard for me to say “stop reading” in any format. One of my earliest photos was of me with a book in my hands. I taught myself to read before I entered school and have saved my favorite childhood books for my own kids to read. I love the feel of a book’s pages between my fingers, I love the weight of a book while I’m toting it around ready to read at any quiet moment, and I love what a shelf full of books symbolizes. No doubt, I love the physical book.

I also have the Kindle app on my iPhone.

I understand that Baby Boomers have embraced the e-readers and Generation X (my generation) enjoys all that the tablets and smart phones can provide. Today’s schoolchildren are learning their subjects on individual laptops. This week, Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet came out with much fanfare to compete with the Apple iPad. Having a book available electronically has several advantages: instant accessibility, convenience, and privacy are among the top. Also, the e-reader benefits for schoolchildren and others with little access to libraries, assistance for those with learning disabilities and the ability to easily retrieve global information are beyond debate.  Plus, not using paper is good for the environment. E-readers are one of the products of a Star Trek imagination that has truly been realized.

However, an e-reader does change the way we read and in my opinion, how we process information and in essence, enjoy a good story. Writers want to share their stories, their ideas. They want their own imaginations to spark others’. I wonder if passive e-readers can go beyond the words on the screen and develop their deeper thoughts about the book.

Trust me, I love a good story and I know that people who want to write will do so, no matter the method. We’ve come a long way from papyrus. And there will always be readers, no matter the medium. Even William Wordsworth’s sister complained that he wasted his mind on newfangled newspapers. My editorial services company works with authors to make their manuscripts into an e-books. I embrace technology professionally and personally, even if I’m a half-step behind.

Nevertheless, I am a firm believer in how physical activity adds to the retention process. I believe that by writing information on a piece of paper or turning a page,  your brain and body register the work therefore making that info more easily recalled. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence. Fortunately, experts support a connection between the physical and the brain. Dr. Amir Soas of Case Western Reserve University Medical School in Cleveland advises to do “anything that stimulates the brain to think.” He also recommends watching less television because “your brain goes into neutral.” Is there a difference in the way the brain absorbs information when it’s presented electronically?

In October 2009, the New York Times posited similar questions to a panel of teachers and doctors. The experts thought there was nothing terrible about the medium, yet  they were unsure how e-readers worked on developing brains or if going from link to link added to a lack of attention to detail. E-Reading is not just decoding for information and entertainment. E-Readers must also fight distraction. Gloria Mark, a professor in the Department of Informatics at University of California, Irvine notes that people “switch simple activities an average of every three minutes (e.g. reading email or IM) and switch projects about every 10 and a half minutes.” Not a lot of room for deep thoughts.

To read, attention is needed. Can a reader of e-books acknowledge ideas beyond the text? Will the reader ever get to what Proust once said – the heart of reading – the ability to go beyond the author’s wisdom and enter one’s own? What does that mean for writers? Do their readers love their books for the same reasons whether presented electronically or physically?

People need time to process and absorb the written word. How often have I reread beautiful passages marked by dog-eared pages? How often have I looked at a cover to be sure I envision what the author described? How often have I reread difficult pages in order be sure I really understood what was being said? How often have I used the properties of the physical book to kick-start my thoughts?

I make my children read physical books because at school they are often using e-books. I insist we go to the library for the “stumble upon” effect – to find a book or spark an interest one wasn’t expecting. I know by the time they are in college, the kids will be downloading their schoolbooks onto their tablets but they will know how to grasp meaning and do research at a library in case of a power outage.

Maybe I’m just a book lover who knows e-readers will be with us until technology evolves. Fortunately, humans have ability to multitask and ignore the unnecessary; we get what we need from our books in whatever manner we read them. However, until we figure out how to ignore the easy distractions and learn to ponder the words on screen, maybe we should practice what we do with the physical book: take a pause every few pages to review and marvel over the words.

Monica Harris
MHM Editorial Services, LLC

Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc.

Just when I was adapting to my second Kindle, Amazon has introduced yet another today.

Kindle Fire is described as "beautiful full color Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, web browsing and more, for only $199."

I must admit that I am intrigued and will likely shell out the money to get the latest Kindle. I suppose, like many others out there, I subscribe to the old adage, "the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement."

And so, staying current, I will have to add Kindle Fire to the latest Nook and iPad, which I also have.

As an avid reader and music lover, I love these handy devices that make what used to be a chore now as easy as pie, costs aside.

No more hauling big books, thick newspapers, magazines, and a batch of CDs around. Now I just go the digital download route and enjoy.

That said, I still feel a little like being ripped off by those who continue to come out with these new and improved eReaders and other devices. Yet, these are signs of the times, so...

Also, as a writer, I fully embrace every advancement in digital technology, as it means more and more readers come aboard, including audio novel readers. Meaning more readers to discover my writings in eBook and audio formats.
Bottom line, is what's good for one is good for all, ultimately.

Which eReader do you use? Which one is the best?

Do you plan to buy the Kindle Fire?