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Wednesday 15 May 2013

My Odd Neighbour

I MET the guy from the end of my corridor today. Again. He was ranting into his phone about "******* lesbians". Then he KNEW I was downstairs and yet insisted on spitting over the balcony. Which I chose not to take open exception to. But I thought that was a very rude thing to do.

Binky is all up in the air because somebody dipped her I-Phone out of her pocket. Luckily she followed advice and had at least copied a few numbers for safekeeping. Otherwise she wouldn't even have been able to phone me to tell me she was incommunicado. THAT is why she wasn't talking to me. And Penny says she does like me very much "but not in that way" and so romance has withered and died before it even had a chance to get started. Penny is obsessed by some bloke who I'm not entirely sure even knows her. So one day her Dad drove her to his work ~ in order to make some sense of the issue. But on that particular day the guy hadn't come in and I told Penny this was yet another sign that it was not meant to be. (Not that I have a vested interest or anything but of course I do.)

I found my Penguin Book of German Verse for £4.50 ($6.85) from Skoob (only decent 2nd-hand bookshop that I know of in London. It's between SOAS (University of London's Oriental and African Studies Institute) and University College London and so you get loads of brilliant literary and academic texts in there. The other main purveyors of ancient books in London these days appear to be antiquarian booksellers and that's not what I want at all. I buy books for the content. Not the posh paper or binding or the fact that it might just happen to be a first edition.

I nearly spent £20 ($30.44) in Foyles on a gorgeous harback edition of German poetry from the year 1200 to the present day. Then I remembered that downstairs they're selling an e-reader called a "Nook" for £29 ($44.15). So for £9 ($13.70) extra I can get all the out-of-copyright poetry, novels, and foreign language books that my heart could possibly desire. So I asked the staff for advice and they said e-readers are not cross-compatible and that the Kindle, for example can ONLY load stuff from Amazon's official website and that out-of-copyright stuff on Kindle might not necessarily be free. She said it might cost 20p (30c) or something and that I should exercise extreme care in picking an e-reader if I'm primarily interested in old texts in foreign tongues. So I don't know what to do. And I did think the screen on this Nook thing was a bit tiny.

Those e-books really are popular these days. Last week I noticed the woman on the seat in front of me on the bus reading a novel in VIETNAMESE. Well this is (supposedly) the most cosmoplitan city on earth (not to mention Centre of the Universe.) According to official figures, over 300 languages are spoken in London ~ against a mere 200 in New York.

Anyway back to the books. Does anyone know which is the best one to go for? Also you can call me weird but I WOULD like one with a book-sized screen. And can't you get ones that open out like a real book so that languge students like me can read a text in parallel translation? Information and advice would be most gratefully appreciated.

I CAN load out-of-copyright stuff into them free, SURELY... can't I...? But how do I do it.... Jeepers Creepers I'm about to be terminated by this internet shop so I've got to go have a happy weekend everyone! EBOOK ADVICE PLEASE!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Gleds. Do NOT buy a kindle. Nook, and others come with removable batteries AND SD card capability. This means you can download from any site the free out of copyright books directly to your micro SD card. I currently have about 6,000 books on my SD card (8gb) with plenty of room. Its quite easy to do. Also, no, most eBook readers do not support that format you wish, although most tablet computers (android based) do, but then you are into a couple hundred dollars (U.S.) at the least. All that being said, if you can find a USED nook color, ( should be about U.S. $50) there IS a program I can send u the link to that will turn the nook color into an android based tablet.....for about U.S.$20 and it is totally legal. Knowing you, you will need a computer geek friend to help you tho. Hope this helped, if not, email me at fractalmom1@gmail.com or whatsapp me at fractalmom.

Unknown said...

And e-readers ROCK btw. I used to carry books with me, now I slip an entire library into my purse. Weighs about 6 u.s. ounces.

Furtheron said...

I went for a kindle as at the time 2 years ago I thought best screen for readability etc however yes limited to Amazon. Now possibly I would go for something else. Often some old stuff is free or very cheap but you have to pay VAT on e-books

karl said...

Libraries are completely free, that's if the tories don't shut them all down ! Mind you I will by an ebook when I can afford it they are so completely handy. x

Akelamalu said...

I can't give you any advice other than I have a Kindle and I love it. There are websites where you can download books for free see http://uk.freereadfeed.com/ Not sure if you would find what you want on there though.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

No idea which one you should go for, Gleds but I'll be interested to know what you decide and then what you think of it. Sorry about the non-romance but you're young - there's time! Love from Simi and me. xx woof!

Gledwood said...

I'm gonna be very careful with this book.

BTW just discovered that long-living bastard TS Eliot died only in 1965 which means he's not going out of copyright till 2035 would you believe it!!!

Syd said...

I can download any book in the library system to my Kindle. And also there is the Gutenberg project where many books are being put into an electronic format.

Have you heard from Bugerlugs? I miss her blog.