Reading on a Screen: iPad or e-reader?

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For people who own both a iPad and another ereader (Kindle/Nook/Kobo/Sony/etc), which do you prefer reading on?

eReader (Kindle/Nook/Kobo/Sony/etc) iPad

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Reading an Erotic Novel at a Late Age *

Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed by Anna Campbell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


After I set up my Kobo Mini e-reader, I was surprised to see this title among the books synced from my desktop app. I didn't recall having purchased it. A title like that? Surely not! But it had been some time since I'd used the app. Maybe I'd just forgotten. Maybe it wasn't what it sounded like.

So I opened the book and started reading. I hadn't read it before (I definitely would have remembered) and it was not something I would have chosen to buy if I'd known what it was. It was an erotic novel. I now know (from the Kobo catalogue) that this is the correct term; at the time I was thinking "soft porn" or maybe just straight-out porn.

It's not that I'm a prude. It's that I would have expected pornography to be a boring read. I saw some excerpts from "Fifty Shades of Grey" online and thought they were incredibly boring, largely because they were so badly written.

This one isn't.

The plot is fairly unbelievable, but there is a plot. I have since learned from friends that erotic novels can be very lacking in story line. This one not only has quite a complex story, but it is also an historical novel set in an aristocratic milieu far removed from our present experience — which makes it easier to suspend disbelief in the improbabilities.

And the writing is good! The sex scenes are explicit without being crude or sleazy. Nor are they embarrassingly silly. In fact they're gorgeous, and very exciting. Not kinky like "Fifty Shades", though the hero does have one (fairly harmless) idiosyncrasy. For the most part the descriptions are of normal sex at its wonderful best. I admire and envy anyone who can write sex scenes well. I can only manage it in metaphor. Luckily I'm a poet, not a novelist, so that works for me. Erotic novels, however, need to be a lot more realistic.

"Seven Nights" was convincing enough to get me hot and steamy — and to remind me that I haven't missed out on much in that department, over the course of my life. It's good to realise that descriptions of superlative sex could be accounts of one's own unforgettable experiences! I'm grateful all over again to my excellent lovers.

I have since realised that Kobo gives you a free book these days when you set up a new e-reader, so that's how it came to be in my library. I have also discovered that they are now offering a lot of free books in any case — always the first of a series, in the hope that if you like that you'll buy the rest.

Yes, I do intend to buy the rest of this series! And soon.

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* The title of this post is a reference to a poem by Barbara Giles, with the same title.

What Am I Reading?

(My response to this question, which was asked in one of my online communities):

I have far too many books! Sometimes I cull, but then more come in to replace the ones I discard. I have so many books piled up by my bedside that I had to buy some special shelves.

(It's an old TV cabinet really, all I could find second-hand, but it does the job. However I wouldn't want to try adding too many more books.)

I already had bookshelves galore all over the house, crammed. And now I am rapidly filling my Kobo e-reader and the Kindle app on my iPad.

I hate to give away old favourites in case I want to read them again some day – and indeed, this does happen. I have been known to buy new copies of books I regretted getting rid of.

What am I reading now? Circles on the Water, poems by Marge Piercy, published in 1982. I lent my copy, decades ago, to a woman who was dying. Her family threw all her books away after she died, without realising they didn’t all belong to her. I finally thought to look for it on Amazon, very recently, and my copy has now been delivered. To my surprise and delight it was available new, so that's what I got, but I would have taken it in any condition rather than continue without it.

On my iPad I am reading Triangles by David Reiter. He is an Aussie poet, but this book is short stories, and they are brilliant. I have also made a start on Akhenaten, a historical/spiritual book by my friend Karin Hannah. It is beautifully written. I have an excellently produced printed copy with her autograph, but prefer reading it as an ebook, for convenience. Much as I love books, I am one who has come to like the ebook experience better in many ways.

Loving my new KOBO: re-reading KIpling

I got the Kobo for my birthday, from my Firstborn, who always knows what I will love even when I don't tell him. In this instance I sort of told him when he was here for a visit recently, by dint of asking his opinion on the iPad. When he found out that all I really wanted that for was to use as an e-book reader, he suggested the iPad was a much too expensive option, both to buy and run. He looked up e-readers online and said, 'If they were cheaper I'd be happy to buy you one, but at that price ...' and pointed me at The Book Depository for cheap printed books.

So when my birthday present arrived, I accused him (in a thrilled kind of way) of being sneaky. He said: 

I got lucky. They had been off the market for a while (presumably because of Borders and A&R going under), but randomly my housemate spotted them at JB HIFI and on the day I went in to check them out, they were on special.  So I figured the time was right :-)

Indeed it was! 

To my delight, it came already loaded with 101 books, described as 'classics' — and room for thousands more. I was amused to note that those already supplied ranged from Irish fairy stories to the Communist Manifesto! Even more interestingly, they included The Iliad and Anna Karenina, which I (shame on me!) still haven't read. Now I can. In fact have begun on The Iliad; still getting through the scholarly introductions, which are rather heavy going but I am interested to read them anyway. (I'm now on the one by Pope, reprinted in this edition, which is more fun than the contemporary intro.)

Then Firstborn reminded me of the existence of Project Gutenberg, where books out of copyright may be downloaded free. Whoopee! (I discovered that the books the Kobo came with must have been acquired there.)  I immediately replenished my Dumas and Bronte collections, which had become depleted over years of moving house; and I added lots of Kipling. 

There, see, my wicked stepmother did do something good for me — she had Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies on her bookshelves and I was allowed to borrow them. So I've been in love with them since I was 15. The stories are good, but it's the interspersed poems I've remembered all this time. Ever since I was 15 I have been able to quote the whole of The Looking Glass (Queen Bess was Harry's daughter!). Let's see, that's 57 years.

I interrupted The Iliad to re-read Puck of Pook's Hill, which I have done, and now I'm halfway through Rewards and Fairies. It makes me tingle all over and curl up my toes with pleasure.