I bought an ebook

After finishing another fine short story in The New Yorker, this one by David Means, it came upon me to feed my yen for more by this writer. I'd heard testimonials as to how easy it was to acquire book electronically. This seemed a time to see what all the fuss is about. I don't have an ereader, but I've heard that you can download an app that will do the same thing on your pc (laptop in this case), so I found the Kindle app and downloaded it. This took about 2 minutes, tops. Then I rummaged about for the book. Means has had four collections of short stories published. I perused the reviews and the most recent one, The Spot, was well-reviewed, and I found that it was available electronically, for $12.95. I followed the instructions at the site, opened the Kindle app and clicked on the one click buying option at Amazon. It might have been 10 seconds after I clicked, and my new ebook was open in front of me, at the first story.

I clicked back to look at the cover, and the disappointment began. Whereas the cover on the print volume looked like this:

The ebook cover looks like this:

Why so European? So ugly? And the font? I hate it. If it was on the printed page I wouldn't even begin to take issue with this, but since it's digital I assume that if I don't like the font, I'll be able to change it to something I do like. Nope. I can only make it bigger or smaller, or space the letters further apart, or tighter. Whoohoo! Further, the file is in an Amazon format, rather than a pdf, so I cannot share it, and I have to have a Kindle, or a Kindle app to read it.

I'm disappointed. Mightily. I'll hold off on further judgement when I buy a Kindle, or some other reader, and try to read the book on it. But right now the aesthetic experience of purchasing and reading an ebook lacks much, and what it lacks seems to be endemic to what it is - a nearly non-tactile, slick, quick, controlled experience. Dammit. This sucks, because I have a sense that I'm going to have to do a lot of reading of ebooks in the future.

Yup. "I have seen the future brother, and it is murder."

Ride report
in:      8'C wind 30ks N
out:   10'C wind 20ks NNE