The downside of technology or Why sometimes paper books are best

On Saturday night, I was halfway through reading Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday on my e-reader. I'd seen the movie, with Ewan McGregor & Emily Blunt, a couple of weeks ago & thought I'd like to read the book as it's meant to be a little more hard-edged & satirical than the movie, lovely though that was. So, knowing the reservation queue at work was quite long, I bought an e-copy. I turned a page & suddenly the e-reader stopped, the little turning arrows appeared & that was it. I couldn't switch it off, get back to Home, nothing.

I reset it & got back to Home but now I can't access any of my purchased e-books. When I tap on them, I just get a message, ERROR Protected by Digital Rights Management. But I've bought them, I've paid for them, I haven't pinched or pirated them, they belong to me! I can access my free e-books, no problem.

The User Guide's Troubleshooting section doesn't mention this problem. The Sony Australia website was no help. I tried to send a comment but it wouldn't go. I was told I'd used unauthorised symbols although I'd only used the symbols they approved of like. , ! ? I took out all the punctuation but it still wouldn't allow me to send my question. I've found a Sony Reader Forum so I've posted my question there. Fingers crossed.

I've also had a problem with the Sony Reader software on my PC. It won't Sync anymore & Windows just shuts it down. It looks like a Windows problem but Windows doesn't have a solution & I think I'll have to do something called a clean boot &/or uninstall & reinstall Sony Reader which I'm not confident enough to do so I have to wait until my personal IT guru, P, can come over to help me. Fortunately my e-reader has WiFi & I discovered that I could download e-books from some sites directly on to the reader that way without going through Sony Reader. But at the moment, I'm a bit off my e-reader.
Oh, & my printer is also on the blink. Technology is a wonderful thing - when it works.

So, yesterday afternoon, after I'd spent some time trying to sort this out, I decided to give up on the e-world for a while & sat down with Katie Fforde's new book, Recipe for Love. Sometimes, old technology (& a good romance) is bliss.
Although I would quite like to finish reading Salmon Fishing in the Yemen one of these days...

Sorting out the new e-reader... & a bit of a ramble

My faithful e-reader, basic but easy to use, conked out a couple of weeks ago. My friend P thinks it was the CPU as I couldn't access any of the books, all I could see were little grey thumbnails (& the only excuse for grey book covers is Persephone books which these weren't). So, I decided that I would look around for a new e-reader with a few more whiz bang features.

I decided on the new Sony Touch with wi-fi. I won't go through all my struggles with Adobe not talking to the Sony Reader or the number of registration forms I had to fill in for just about every move I made. All I will say is that, after a couple of hours of me talking to the PC & the PC not talking back to me, the Sony Reader miraculously found the e-books I had stored on Adobe & whizzed them across to the Sony Reader & I somehow worked out how to get them on the new reader. Then, I needed a Bex & a good lie down. Just today (because I needed a week's recovery time), I managed to get the free e-books I had stored on my PC onto the reader so I'm feeling quite pleased. I'm not very clever with technology so this is an achievement, believe me!

The Sony Touch is smaller & much lighter than my old e-reader. I'm enjoying the increased functionality. It's much easier to move through a book (now I can type in a page number. Before I could only move through a book by increments of 5%. Awkward but it did wonders for my maths skills). I can bookmark, use the dictionary & I even tried out the wi-fi at work & was able to download a book from our e-library.

I have been reading (Alexandra Harris's excellent biography of Virginia Woolf) & I will be posting a review & a poem over the next couple of days but I need to walk away from the PC for a bit. I've started the next Julia Probyn book by Ann Bridge now that I'm e-able again & it's just as good as the previous books in the series.

I also want to mention a new feature on Blogger. I can now reply directly to a comment rather than my replies being at the bottom of the list. Anyone can reply to a comment of course but when a conversation starts as it sometimes does, it will be easier to keep track.

Some book news to end this ramble. Virago are going to reprint two novels by Angela Thirkell in December. High Rising & Wild Strawberries. I haven't read any Thirkell but I know there are many fans out there. I've always thought I should read Thirkell one day & I have an omnibus on the tbr shelves so I may be inspired this year. I'm sure I'm going to want to buy the Viragos, can't wait to see the covers.

Bloomsbury Reader

I was beside myself with excitement to discover Bloomsbury Reader, a new initiative of Bloomsbury Publishing to resurrect some fantastic authors in print on demand & e-book editions. Simon at Stuck in a Book posted about this last week & I couldn't wait to whiz through their list here. I'd read some months ago about Bloomsbury reprinting Monica Dickens who has enjoyed a little mini revival with Persephone reprinting Mariana & The Winds of Heaven in recent years. Then, when I saw the list & realised that I could download my choices onto my e-reader instantly, I was even more excited.

There are a few downsides to the Bloomsbury Reader website. There's no rhyme or reason to the listing. It's not alphabetical or any other order I can make out. There's no way to limit your search just to e-books so the same titles pop up twice in both formats but not together. There's no subject listing, not even fiction & non-fiction. You can search by author but you need to know who's there to do a usable search. There are no blurbs - well, there were no blurbs on any of the titles I looked at. With 57 pages to go through, it's a bit frustrating.

However, all is not lost. I pasted the ISBN into the search engine at The Book Depository & there are blurbs for most of the titles I was interested in. AND, the e-books are around 40% cheaper than the RRP so that makes them around $6.60AU. Much more reasonable than the print on demand physical books which I think are expensive at around $18 & I'd have to wait for them to arrive in the post. I can buy the Virago edition of Rose Macaulay's Told by an Idiot for $18 so why would I choose a POD edition instead?

So, I've had a little splurge & bought 9 titles. Personal Pleasures & Letters to a Friend by Rose Macaulay, Faster! Faster! & Late & Soon by E M Delafield, The Queens & the Hive by Edith Sitwell, Company Parade & The Road from the Monument by Storm Jameson, Kate & Emma by Monica Dickens & A Lighthearted Quest by Ann Bridge (because I read Fleur Fisher's review here & it sounds wonderful & if I enjoy it, the whole series is available from Bloomsbury Reader. So, quibbles about the website aside, I'm thrilled with this new venture & hope it's a success & that Bloomsbury keep adding authors to the list (in some sort of order & with blurbs please).

I'll leave you with a question. Margaret Irwin is one of the authors on the list & I loved her historical novels which I read many years ago. Does anyone know anything about another of her books called Still She Wished For Company? It looks contemporary rather than historical from the only cover I can find on the internet but I can't find anything on the plot. I'm also tempted by Phyllis Bentley's novels. I always remember her from Vera Brittain's diaries of the 30s. They had a tentative friendship wrecked by Vera's superiority & Phyllis's lack of self-esteem & touchiness. She was famous for her historical, regional saga, Inheritance, & there are more of her novels on the list. But, I have enough to be going on with at the moment. At least the tbr shelves on my e-reader are invisible.

Penny Plain - O Douglas

I discovered O Douglas through Greyladies, the Edinburgh publishing firm that specializes in early 20th century fiction. So far, they've published Pink Sugar, Eliza for Common & The Proper Place & I hope they continue to reprint her books. While hunting around for more O Douglas, I discovered that several more of her novels were available from Project Gutenberg to download free for my e-reader. Among them was Penny Plain. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was reading Penny's blog, Scottish Vegan Homemaker (lovely blog by the way. Books, cats & delicious vegan recipes) & she showed off her collection of O Douglas novels & mentioned that she was reading Penny Plain for the umpteenth time. That was all the encouragement I needed to decide to read Penny Plain next.

O Douglas was the pseudonym of Anna Buchan, sister of the more famous John, author of The 39 Steps & many other adventure novels. I would describe her books as charmingly comfortable & I mean that as the highest praise. Her characters are charming, her stories are full of human interest, there's always a lovely romance & there's a lot of humour too, mostly through one of her small boys. Poignantly I learned from Penny's blog that the small boys in her books (in Penny Plain it's Gervase Taunton, known as the Mhor) were all based on her own young brother who was killed in WWI.  

Penny Plain is the story of the Jardines. Jean is 23 & has had the care of her two younger brothers & an adopted brother, the Mhor, since the death of dourly religious Great Aunt Alison who brought them up in Priorsford, a small town on the Tweed based on Peebles. David is about to go to Oxford & Jean has been scrimping & saving to make this happen. The family live frugally at The Rigs, a quaint, inconvenient house in the older part of town. Pamela Reston, a 40ish society beauty, arrives to stay in Priorsford while she considers her future. She's had a proposal of marriage from a wealthy politician but isn't sure what she wants to do. She soon makes the acquaintance of the Jardines & finds herself caught up in the life of the town. Pamela's brother Biddy, Lord Bidsborough, is an adventurer & explorer & she describes Priorsford life in her letters to him. When he finally arrives for a visit, he's attracted to Jean although she can't see past his wealth & her poverty & responsibility for her brothers. Lewis Elliott, a cousin of the Jardines, is also an old friend & sweetheart of Pamela's & they tentatively renew their friendship.

The other inhabitants of Priorsford are an interesting lot, their exact social relationships to each other very finely described. There's the overbearing Mrs Duff-Whalley & her unpopular daughter. She's the sort of woman who is always organising something & most people agree with her suggestions & directions because they just want to get rid of her. Mrs Hope is a spiky woman with a kind heart who has lost all three of her sons & lives with her daughter, making the best of her time until she can be reunited with her sons after death. The kindly minister, Mr MacDonald & his wife are good, true Christians, doing good on a tiny stipend. The genteel Miss Watsons who are delighted to be asked to Pamela Reston's tea party but secretly wish they could forego the social trauma & just sit at home in their comfortable clothes. When Jean receives an unexpected inheritance, she finds that the money is more of a burden than a blessing & her position in Priorsford society undergoes a change that disconcerts her.

The charm of Penny Plain is the depiction of small town Scottish life after WWI. I loved all the domestic detail of the Jardines' house. Glaswegian Mrs M'Cosh who looks after the family faithfully but yearns for the kitchen in one of the smart new villas on the other side of town. Pamela's landlady, Bella Bathgate, with her dreadful cooking & genteel ideas about furnishings. Jock & the Mhor (which is Gaelic for the Great One), with their dog, Peter, always in the middle of an adventure or planning mischief. Jean is good but not priggishly so. She lives for the boys & takes her responsibilities seriously. Her inner life is nourished with books & poetry & in the kindnesses she can do for others. She reminded me of Kirsty in Pink Sugar, another good young woman, but I liked Jean more because she doesn't have a perfectly comfortable life. She has to struggle & there's a feeling that her youth will pass her by while she lives & works for her brothers. Pamela Reston is the catalyst that starts to bring Jean out of her comfortable but limited sphere & the inheritance, while a worry, is also a way to broaden Jean's horizons & give her a chance to live for herself.

As I said, O Douglas's novels are charmingly comfortable but they also have an undercurrent of sadness. The books I've read so far were all written in the 1920s & are very perceptive on the social reality for many women who had lost men in the War.
I read Penny Plain on my e-reader, having downloaded it for free from Project Gutenberg. My only problem with reviewing books from my e-reader is finding pictures of the covers to illustrate my posts. The only cover I could find for Penny Plain had a sailboat on the cover & I couldn't see what on earth that had to do with the book. If there was a sailing chapter, I missed it! So, I've chosen a photo of Peebles, the original of Priorsford, which I found here.

The War Workers - E M Delafield

The War Workers is the story of a group of women working in the Midland Supply Depot during WWI. The Depot is run by Charmian Vivian, an upper class young woman of about 30 who finds it impossible to delegate the smallest task & runs the Depot on a mixture of resigned martyrdom & the hero worship she receives from her staff. Char’s parents, Lady Joanna & Sir Piers Vivian live at Plessing, a country house about an hour from the Depot in Questerham. Char & her mother have never been close. Lady Vivian devotes all her energy & time to her much-older husband. She has a very realistic idea of her daughter’s nature & has an ironic, sometimes exasperated way of trying to burst Char’s bubble of self-importance. When Sir Piers has a stroke, Char reluctantly goes home for a time but she insists on having a secretary bring work out to her every day as no one else could possibly be left in complete charge,


At Plessing only the faithful Miss Bruce gave her work the consideration to which she had become accustomed at the office. She was finding Plessing almost intolerable. There were no interviews, the telephone bell was not allowed to ring, no one urged her not to neglect the substabtial meals which were served for her with the greatest regularity, and Miss Jones daily assured her, with perfect placidity, that the whole work at the office was progressing with complete success without her... “I can’t desert my post at a time like this. Everybody must see that unless I had any extremely definite call elsewhere, my place is at the Depot. The work is suffering horribly from this piecemeal fashion of doing things.”


 After a few weeks, Char goes back to work, living in the Hostel alongside her staff, because her mother refuses to have her comings & goings disturb her father. Char is a very unsympathetic character but I had to feel sorry for her when she arrives at the Hostel & has to unpack for herself, eat the cold, basic food that her staff live on & listen to the water gurgling in the pipes all night as her room is next to the bathroom. Even this experience doesn’t soften her attitude to anyone she believes isn’t giving everything to the work in hand.

Char’s secretary, Miss Delmege, is one of the worshippers. She takes on the attributes of one who knows Miss Vivian intimately, understands all the worries of her position & takes it on herself to worry over Miss Vivian’s missed meals & dedication to her work at the expense of her own health. E M Delafield writes so well about the strains of a group of women living together, working & living with the same people day after day.  The squabbles & irritations, the friendships & the quarrels that are inevitable with any group of people of different backgrounds thrown together in wartime,


Grace hung up her coat and hat, and hastily made room on the already overcrowded peg for Miss Marsh’s belongings, as she heard Miss Delmege say gently “Excuse me,” and deliberately appropriate to her own use the peg selected by her neighbour. 
“Did you see that?” demanded Miss Marsh excitedly. “Isn’t that Delmege all over? After this, Gracie, I shall simply not speak to her till she apologizes. Simply ignore her. Believe me, dear, it’s the only way. I shall behave as though Delmege didn’t exist.” 
This threat was hardly carried out to the letter. No one could have failed to see a poignant consciousness of Miss Delmege’s existence in the elaborate blindness and deafness which assailed Miss Marsh when within her neighbourhood.


A newcomer to the Depot, Grace Jones, soon realises that Miss Vivian’s martyred sighings hide a lot of inefficiency & unnecessary work. As she says, would Miss Vivian work so hard on a desert island where there was no one to see her? Grace is the daughter of a clergyman, kind, thoughtful, popular with her co-workers & soon becomes friends with Lady Vivian through her daily visits to Plessing during Sir Piers’s illness.

Gradually the war workers’ attitude to Miss Vivian undergoes a change as they begin to see her less as an idol to be worshipped & more as a woman who uses devotion to duty as an excuse for selfishness & unkindness. Miss Vivian’s determination to be in charge of everything within her area causes some clashes with the hospital authorities, including her own family doctor, Dr Prince, who takes great delight in telling Char a few home truths,

It’s not the work you want to get back to, young lady; it’s the excitement, and the official position, and the right it gives you to interfere with people who knew how to run a hospital and everything connected with it some twenty years or so before you came into the world... you’re playing as heartless a trick as any I ever saw, making patriotism the excuse for bullying a lot of women who work themselves to death for you because you’re of a better class, and have more personality than themselves, and pretending to yourself that it’s the work you’re after, when it’s just because you want to get somewhere where you’ll be in the limelight all the time.

One of the funniest characters is Mrs Lesbia Willoughby, an old school friend of Lady Vivian’s who arrives on the scene with her complaisant, almost totally silent, husband & revoltingly spoilt Pekingese & proceeds to organise a Canteen for servicemen. Mrs Willoughby is gushing, insensitive & totally convinced that every young soldier she meets is just longing to pour his heart out to her. She meets her match in Char who insists on running the Canteen her way but Mrs Willoughby interferes as much as she possibly can,

They say the men don’t like talking about it; but I’ve had, I suppose, more experience than any woman in London, what with one thing and another, and they always talk to me. The dear fellows in the hospital I visit simply yarn by the hour – they love it – and it’s too enthralling for words. They’re so sweetly quaint. One dear fellow always talked about a place he called Wipers, and it ws simply ages before I realized that he meant Ypres! Wasn’t that too priceless?

Is Mrs Willoughby an early version of the insufferable Lady Boxe of Provincial Lady fame? I loved The War Workers, it was compulsive reading. I was able to read this wonderful book on my e-reader thanks to Girlebooks, my favourite source for free e-books.

My Reading Week

Well, I’m back at work (although not in the British Library like the librarian above from Getty Images), the weather has been hot & humid & I feel as though I’ve hardly read a word all week. I have though, I’m halfway through The Highland Lady in Ireland. I’m enjoying Eliza’s Irish adventures but I may take a break from her over the weekend & pick up something else. I’ve also been listening to The Secret of Father Brown by G K Chesterton on the way to work. I read some of the Father Brown stories eons ago but I’ve never gone back to them. After listening to the first two stories in this collection, I’m still a bit lukewarm about them. Father Brown is such a gentle, unobtrusive character that I’m finding it a bit hard to get excited about the mysteries he solves. The narrator of this collection is a bit somnolent too. Still, I’ll persevere.

You may have seen the devastating floods in Queensland on the news. The same unusual weather pattern has brought lots of warm, moist air down to Victoria from the north & it’s been very humid all week. We’ve had over 70mm of rain as well. The rain has stopped in Queensland & has cleared here as well & the humidity should be gone by Monday. This weather is making it hard for me to settle & I suppose getting back into the routine of work isn't helping either!

Then, Abby surprised me by killing a bird & bringing the body into the house for me to find. She’s 16 years old & hasn’t caught a bird for a very long time. She’s lived with me 5 years & before that she lived with my Dad & she hadn’t caught a bird since she was a very young cat. My sister says she’s going through her second childhood & reliving past glories but I hope this was just an isolated incident.

I have been enjoying playing with my e-reader though. Elaine’s post on Random Jottings expresses my feelings exactly. I will never abandon the physical book (or codex as it’s now being called) but, to be able to download out of print books by Elizabeth Von Arnim, E M Delafield, Wilkie Collins & Arnold Bennett FOR FREE is such a luxury. I’ve downloaded over 30 books in the last couple of weeks. I don’t know when I’ll get around to reading them but, with groaning tbr shelves like mine, what’s a few more unread books? I’ll get to them one day.

Last night I started reading The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald. It’s really a reread as it was the first Penelope Fitzgerald I read many years ago. Cornflower has chosen it for her next bookgroup so it was a good opportunity to read it again.  Dovegreyreader is also embarking on a reread of all Fitzgerald’s novels this year & she started with The Bookshop as well. I’m enjoying it very much so it may be the right book to cure my reading restlessness.

Happy New Year! & some Reading Resolutions

Happy New Year everyone! I usually spend some time on New Year's Eve looking back over my reading for the year & I did that yesterday. I read 154 books in 2010, mostly fiction (89) & mostly by women (98) so no surprises there.  Thank you for all the comments on my posts about my books of the year. I'm always amazed that so many of us love middlebrow novels, Golden Age mysteries & 19th century classics. Thank goodness publishers are finally catching up with us by reprinting many of these forgotten authors so that we can rediscover them.

It's the first anniversary of this blog tomorrow. I've enjoyed blogging & I'm mildly surprised that I've kept going all year. I started the blog while I was on holidays & I thought that once I was back at work I just wouldn't find the time to post. But that hasn't happened. I've become addicted to checking my visitor stats & love receiving comments so thank you to everyone who visits. I've been surprised & pleased at the many kind comments from readers. Thanks for the comments & recommendations. I'm sure we all have gigantic tbr piles but the more the merrier!

Now, on to resolutions. I made an excellent start last year with my plan to buy fewer books & read more from the tbr shelves. Unfortunately I fell off the wagon in the middle of the year & it's trundled off without me. So, the only resolution I'm making is to get back on that wagon again & add books to my wishlist rather than buying them the minute they take my fancy. I have a few books on preorder from the Book Depository (including some of the new reprints of Mary Stewart) so I won't be completely deprived of the sight of packages on my doorstep.

I'm going to spend a couple of days rearranging my tbr table. I've already put Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole back on the shelves. I wanted to read it because it was one of Nella Last's favourite books & I'd just read Nella Last in the 1950s where she mentions it several times. But, the mood has passed. Mrs Ames by E F Benson has also gone back to the library pile. My online group has decided that January will be Mapp & Lucia month (actually I think it was my idea. Rush of blood to the head after my lovely Folio Society boxset arrived). So, I'll be reading the first of the series this month & Mapp & Lucia have usurped Mrs Ames's place on the table. Villette is still there. I've read it several times but I read the latest issue of Bronte Studies & it was a special on Villette & now I need to read it again. I'm determined to read the Highland Lady because I also have the sequel on the tbr shelves & she's getting impatient. Lord Peter is hovering because I may have had a touch too much aristocracy lately. I've just read Jill Paton Walsh's new Wimsey mystery & Debo Devonshire's memoirs, Wait For Me! I'm also watching Downton Abbey. I'm getting my Lords, Ladies, Dukes & Duchesses mixed up as it is. Convent on Styx by Gladys Mitchell is a convent school story reprinted by Greyladies Press. I've only read the first chapter but I think I'm going to love it.

I've also been enjoying downloading free e-books to my new e-reader. I worked out how to download EPub files & I've had a lovely time loading up the reader with enough books to keep me going for some time. Girlebooks & ManyBooks have so much to choose from.

So, there you have my plans for the coming year, such as they are. Abby & I survived the 40 degree temperatures of yesterday (I was reading Debo & watching Downton Abbey. Abby was asleep under the coffee table in the flow of the air conditioner). Today is gorgeous after the cool change. Grey, cloudy, cool breezes rattling the blinds, Abby asleep in the garden. I tried to get a photo of her under the coffee table yesterday but they turned out quite muddy so here's a favourite shot from the dozens I've taken of her over the last year. Happy reading to everyone in 2011.