 5/10 Good --- storytorch.squarespace.com http://storytorch.squarespace.com/journal/rss.xml
Saturday, July 05, 2008 --- 98 days ago http://storytorch.squarespace.com/journal/2008/6/29/june-29-2008-kindling-a-fict
 For my birthday last week, my husband Mark gave me amazon.com's new electronic reader, the Kindle. Launched last Christmas, Kindle has a cute, paperback-sized screen and allows instant downloads from among 130,000 books, newspapers, and blogs. Criticized because it only lets you read, Kindle was also praised by bibliophiles for that very reason. (You can't check email or the weather.) Kindle charged, I determined to locate a great book, disappointed, after all, by The Secret of Lost Things (see Storytorch, June 28) and began browsing amazon's top offerings. Here are a few examples, with amazon's notes in italics, followed by mine, in caps. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz: The titular Oscar is a 300-pound-plus "lovesick ghetto nerd" with zero game (except for Dungeons & Dragons) who cranks out pages of fantasy fiction . . . AW, I DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT A 300-POUND COMPUTER GAMER! Gravedigger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates: At the beginning of Oates's 36th novel, Rebecca Schwart is mistaken by a seemingly harmless man for another woman . . . five hundred pages later, Rebecca learns the man who accosted her is a serial killer . . . AW, NOT ANOTHER SERIAL KILLER STORY! Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See: Set in 19th century rural China, the story's 80-year-old protagonist's girlhood dream is to have the smallest bound feet in the village . . . AW, NOT ANOTHER FOOT BINDING BOOK! A Million Little Pieces by James ... |
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Anytime
