Kindlemania - Updated

07/31/11 16:26:00

Posted by: Paul

Updated Books Read in 2011

On January 28, 2010 I bought a Kindle 2.

The best book has been "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History" by John Barry. This is the story of the 1918 Influenza pandemic. Current theory is that it started in Haskell County, Kansas, spread to Ft. Riley and then to the world.

The worst book of the bunch and in contention for the worst book I ever read is "Microbe" by Bill Clem. Everything from the writing to the flat characters, the plot and the plot resolution was horrible.

Here are the books I've read so far.

A few were on another ereader only because the titles weren't available on the Kindle.

Books Read in 2010

Books Read in 2011

Kindle Conundrum

05/26/11 23:32:00

Posted by: Paul

First of all let me say that I love my Kindle, Kindle for PC, and the Kindle app for Android. Being able to read a book whenever and where ever I want is valuable beyond measure. I've read while waiting in the doctor's office, at work (don't tell anyone), sitting in a bar, waiting on my food at a restaurant, and probably other places. I've been able to do this without remembering to bring a book with me. I just take out my phone, fire up the Kindle app and open the current book I'm reading sync'd to the last page I read.

This is my dream. It's a dream I've had (even if only subconsciously) since I discovered the wonders that the library contained.

However I have a conundrum. Digital publishing has allowed a great number of new authors to be able to get their work out to a large audience.

This is a great thing, mostly.

But in order to find something new sometimes I have to wade through a great amount of, shall we say, unique titles. Titles that may have their audience, but I would never, ever, never, never read.

This is a cover of one such title. It is classified as Science Fiction. If you want to buy it, click on the photo and go to the Amazon page.

This is the beginning of the description:

"Torn between revenge against an evil assassin and extermination by alien reptoids..."
Evil assassin, alien reptoids.

Is there anything else to be said? Oh, yes, yes there is. The description goes on and gets stranger. You should go read it. Just click on the picture. You know you want to.

Full disclosure; I have not read this book, not even a sample. As far as I know it may be a great book. I am not going to hold my breath. However all three (3) reviewers gave it five stars. So maybe I'm wrong.

Or maybe they like big boobed women with swords.

This wouldn't be so bad if there were some better ways to filter results.

Perhaps Amazon could introduce a filter where not only you could sort by the number of stars, but also where by the amount of "helpful" reviews and the rating. Kind of like a rating of how trustworthy the reviews were.

Another way to sort would by by publishing house. Or by whether it went straight to eBook or not. Which, really, is the "Straight to VHS" equivalent in the publishing world.

That really doesn't mean there aren't some great books that went straight to eBook. One of my favorites, "Infected: A Novel" was initially released as a free PDF novel by the publisher and I really enjoyed it.

How about it Amazon? You have the data, let us use it. I know, it would probably drive some people's sales down. But you could just market those titles as "boutique titles" or "special readings".

Think of the hipsters out there saying "I was into alien reptoids before they were mainstream."