Monday, Again

Where do all these endless Mondays come from, I wonder? Its like an avalanche waiting to fall upon you without sufficient warning. Oh, there's signs. There's always signs. But you don't really pay attention to them anymore. You get complacent. Then *woosh*, its a Monday. Congrats. Would you like tea with that?

In other news, my eyes have been checked thoroughly and I am so bleary-eyed I feel drunk. This needs to wear off soonest, I have to open the store later.

I slept barely at all last night because I am incredibly upset with a friend who has borrowed books from me and hasn't returned them for months on end, despite multiple reminders. At some point, I will have to kick thing up a notch. For now, I'm nudging her directly and whining on here. Next step will likely be a request for her to pay me to replace them, which is very upsetting to have to ask.

Why I still don't have an eReader

I'm the kind of person who finds an author, whom hopefully I enjoy, then I'll go feasting through their older titles until I've completely caught up, then continue on as the author publishes. I RELISH this. To do this, I go through local used bookstores, troll Paperbackswap & Ebay, check out yard sales, etc. and pick them up cheap. This doesn't work well with eReaders.

For example, right now I am absolutely hip deep in Lois McMaster Bujold. Specifically, her Miles Vorkosigan series (what can I say, I'm a sucker for a Space Navy series, which this isn't quite but close enough) and the Challion (not as much as the Vor series) trilogy, the Sharing Knife trilogy (too fluffy-feely for me) doesn't do it for me. *shrug*

So here we go:

Curse of Challion - available on Kindle for $8, available used $0.01 - $1.90.
Memory - not available on Kindle, picked it up locally at a used bookstore for a few bucks.
Cryoburn - not available on Kindle, placed a hold at the local library.
Brothers in Arms - not available on Kindle, picked up on Paperbackswap for a few bucks.
Mirror Dance - not available on Kindle, picked up on Paperbackswap for a few bucks.
Borders of Infinity - not available on Kindle, picked up locally at a used bookstore for a few bucks.

Maybe I've chosen a bad set for the example, given publisher peculiarities - but Bujold is an acknowledged master of modern publishing, having won multiple writing awards in her genres. Shouldn't her works be available or at least prioritized for digitalization? I could go with a few other, more popular (acknowledging that I read fairly esoteric old sci/fi) authors, but I like my adventures in obscure books. I like reading them in the tub and I like loaning them out afterward. Fairly odd me and all that.

So nothing is available electronically (at a reasonable price), even the brand new $25 hardcover. I get that much of these are older titles, but isn't the whole point of the eReader the convenience, i.e. that I don't have to troll multiple websites, stores and libraries to find books? Maybe I'm wrong and its only for current and uber-classic titles. Not impressed yet.