Get with the Age!

I have made a fundamental error in buying the new Ken Follett novel – not necessarily in terms of its literary worth (that remains to be seen) but rather in terms of its actual form.



I bought the book from a bookshop in Castelldefels and I am now the proud possessor of a massive wedge of reading. I have read the first few pages which start the history of the Williams family in their small South Wales Valleys home just as the youngest of the family begins his career down the mines. The link has been made from this humbled family to the important people who live in the great house (Ty Gwyn!) in the neighbourhood . . . and I know with a sickening certainty that I will never read this book again.


Even at this stage of the reading I can see the same old formula beginning to work its way through the narrative in the same way that it did in the other two books of Follett that I have read. But it should be entertaining. Just like the other two.


But, back to my mistake. The problem is, of course the format. I am going to have this lump of literature lurking in my library taking up valuable space whereas if I had bought the book electronically and downloaded it to my Kindle it would have cost about a third of the price I paid and only take up a miniscule electronic space.


I need to get into the electronic frame of mind and realize that books which I want to read are available at a reasonable price. It will take a sea-change in my attitude because the only books which I have downloaded to my Kindle and Sony e-book readers have been free. I have yet to pay real money for any e-book, but the time is coming.






I have done a little desultory hovering with the new device in order to break it in. It seems heavier and altogether more fierce than its slimmer and lighter predecessor. That machine has been relegated to the higher regions of the house to be gently ignored.


An early finish tomorrow and then two days of meetings after school – just to make the weekend more welcome!