Kindle Konfusion

I wrote in a previous post about Kindle fails -- book samples I download but find I don't like. But sometimes I'm not sure whether I will like a book or not after I've read the sample. Consequently, I build up a multi-page list of book samples that I might or might not decide to purchase. Yesterday, I decided to purge my Kindle of some of those titles. I'm not sure what inspired me -- maybe the fact that I've been having trouble finding a book that really draws me in.

After looking through all nine(!) pages of samples, books, and various other downloads, I came up with a list of samples I have downloaded and either never read or hadn't decided to buy immediately. I find that, often, if I don't buy the book right after reading the sample, when I go back and look at the title I don't recall what the book was about. Solution: I went through my list title by title, looking up each one online and, if I was somewhat interested, I downloaded the Publishers Weekly write-up about the book.

Once I had refreshed my memory about each book, I then color coded them (I know, I'm crazy). If I knew I would never read them, I highlighted them in red. Those that I might consider reading got a yellow highlight, and those that I definitely want to read got green. This wasn't actually just busy work; I really needed to jog my memory about why I had at one time thought these books might interest me. Plus, the way my memory has been performing lately, I might even download the same sample again and not recognize that I've already read it. This way, before making that mistake, I can check it against my list (an ongoing project) and see if I've already sampled the book.

Final count:

I will definitely read five of the books.

I might read forty-one.

I definitely will not read seventeen.

Two that I will definitely read are: The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey, which sounds like a modern-day Jane Eyre. Gemma is orphaned when her father drowns and she has to leave her native Iceland to go live in Scotland with a kindly uncle and his family. The uncle, of course, also dies and she's sent to live in a strict private school. She ultimately winds up the au pair to an 8-year-old on the Orkney islands. Sounds like fun to me.

Lapsing Into a Comma: A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong In Print -- and How to Avoid Them by Bill Walsh. This one's pretty self-explanatory, but the sample was funny and I want to read more.

Does reading taste run in families?

My daughter was an avid reader from an early age. But pretty early on, she decided that fantasy was the only genre she wanted to read. I read some fantasy and enjoy it, but I also read mysteries, literary fiction, memoirs, science fiction, and anything else that grabs my attention.

I used to always hear friends talk about exchanging books with their mothers, and thought to myself, "That would be nice." But unless the book was written by Terry Pratchett (who I do love), Piers Anthony, or any other fantasy writer, my daughter never seemed interested in the books I suggested. That all changed, however, when I gave her my old Kindle. Since I already had a boat-load of books archived at Amazon, she discovered hours of free reading. She also discovered that Mom had read some pretty interesting books. It's so exciting now to be able to share books and talk about them once we've both read them. And I must say, the sharing goes both ways. I probably would never have read The Hunger Games if she hadn't read it first and encouraged me. Likewise, I'm pretty sure she would never have read Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

So maybe reading taste isn't an inherited trait, but, as with shrimp and mushrooms, it's possible to develop a taste for different things as you age.

Lucky Day

I visited my local library yesterday -- a very small library in a very small town. In fact, the library is located in the elementary school, so it's only open between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. But I discovered a great feature that my little library offers -- a bookshelf labeled Lucky Day. I asked the librarian what that meant and she explained that these were popular new titles designated for this library alone; they had to stay right here in town. In other words, they couldn't be requested from other libraries via inter-library loan.

These books can't be renewed and they can't be put on hold. When they come back in they get put on the Lucky Day shelf for the next lucky person to check out.

I was so excited that I checked out more books than I should have. Inheritance alone is 850 pages! I should be reading that on my Kindle. Maybe if I don't work or sleep I can get through all three -- plus the other two books I checked out. Ha.

Here were my Lucky Day Books:

Sample Fail!

I discovered what might be my all-time favorite book, Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler, while surfing the Amazon website many years ago. I’d heard of the book and, curious, I used the “Look Inside” feature to read the first chapter. I immediately fell in love – with the language, the characters, the humor. Consider this snippet from page one:

In 1872, the residents of the asylum for the insane in Steilacoom, Washington, were thrown out of their beds by earthquakes resulting from volcanic activity in the Cascade Mountains. The event was so profound it cured three of the patients instantly. These cures were responsible for a brief and faddish detour in the care of the mentally ill known as shake treatments.

She had me at “shake treatments.”

These days, Kindle gives me a similar option to sneak a glimpse into a book before I decide to purchase it. But some books that sound intriguing or thrilling or thought provoking in the write-ups, fail to pull me in, and the sample languishes on my e-reader until I eventually delete it, usually after revisiting it once or twice because I’ve forgotten what it was about. Then I’m disappointed all over again.

I probably have dozens of dead samples on my Kindle: books that sounded good but didn’t grab me. Maybe they moved too slowly. Maybe they painted a violent picture much too graphically. Maybe I just didn't care about what was happening in the book. Whatever the reason, I decided they weren’t for me.

Some of the dead and dying samples currently on my Kindle:

• Sexually, I’m More of a Switzerland – great title, just didn’t pull me in
• When We Were Strangers – probably well written, but I wasn’t in the mood for the story line
• The Distant Hours – so many people love this book. I might, too, if I could just get into it.
• The Sisters Brothers – I actually plan to buy this one. It definitely grabbed me, but I had too many other books already queued up.
• Cool, Calm & Contentious – I thought I would love this, but I didn’t.

And now three that I did purchase after reading the samples:

• The Psychopath Test
• The Hunger Games
• The Three Weissmann’s of Westport

What about you? Do you read samples? What is it that makes you bite, and purchase the book?