Not Ready for Armageddon

I just finished listening to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens, a mashup of Harry Potter, the Da Vinci Code, and Revelations, with a wicked sense of humor. Imagine that a switchup of newborns in the hospital could lead to the Antichrist being raised as a normal British boy, while an American envoy's son gets saddled with the name "Warlock", and a third baby gets left out in the cold.

Meanwhile, a smooth agent of the devil, Crowley, and a self-satisfied angel, Aziraphale, are plotting to bring about the end of the world as we know it, aided by four horsemen on Harleys, and a Hellhound. Oh, there's more... there's the attractive young descendent of an ancient witch who wrote the entirely accurate Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, a Witch Hunter Sargeant, his Jezebel of a neighbor, a meek young apprentice Witch Hunter... and many other eccentric characters. They're all heading for Lower Tadfield to witness the apocalypse, but trip over themselves and each other along the way. The humor is biting, but the hellhound isn't!

Print, Audio, or eBooks?

I do a lot of "reading" via audio books in the car, as I commute to work. I've noticed that I enjoy some books more in audio, and sometimes I just enjoy the reader. I've loved some audio books read by their authors, especially memoirs. Sometimes, I check out the print book as well, to clarify parts that I didn't understand in audio. I haven't used a Kindle, but I occasionally use eReader on my Treo, to read in the dark and on hiking trips.
This leads me to Ann Kirschner's article in "The Chronicle Review", Reading Dickens Four Ways. Ann read Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit in every format, switching back and forth to compare the experiences (and other readers' reactions). Her conclusions? Everyone has a preferred format, and there are advantages to each. No surprise there! In the end, it doesn't matter which format you prefer, because the interactive experience of reading itself will never die. Ann summed it up beautifully:

It is the sustained and individual encounter with ideas and stories that is so bewitching. If new formats allow us to have more of those, let us welcome and learn from them.

love of books

Yes, the love of books is a strange compulsion. I can’t stop reading whatever sounds interesting; buying more at used book sales than I’ll ever be able to read; and checking out books and tapes and videos that I end up returning because I run out of time to read/listen/view. Why?