MURDER AND MAYHEM AT THE MARRIOTT

James Patterson, John Grisholm, Robert North Patterson, Sue Grafton, J.D. Robb, Lee Child....  Poolside reading of the mindless, page-turner variety, seems to lean toward murder and mayhem.  I have to include myself in this cohort -- I've been following the escapades of Jack Reacher and Eve Dallas myself.  (I should include Nicholas Sparks here, being read by one young woman who apparently enjoys the "murder of the novel" genre.)

But the greatest mystery to be solved is what is going on in the dark digital world of all those Kindles, I-Pads, and Smartphones!  It took several days of floating around the pool spying on the readers in lounge chairs to come up with the list above, which were actually few and far between.  Mostly I see people holding E-readers of various brand.  I have no idea what they are reading!  And that totally screws up the survey I have taken each year to determine "most popular" pop-literature.

Not long ago it was easy to see what was at the top of the paperback best seller list, because the majority of the poolside community were reading the same book!  The last time I found consensus was in the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" days.  Those bright yellow book covers were blinding in the Kaua'i sunshine!  Now we are all hiding in the digital world and who knows what's going on in there????  I hate to speculate...

The other "downside"of the digital reader age is the dearth of used paperbacks in the resort lending library.  We readers used to power through a stack of books on our trip, then leave them behind for others to enjoy.  No more.  I checked out the library the first day here and found a paltry selection of about 20 books, most of them titles no one has ever heard of, along with a couple of Harlequin romances, and a few religious tracts.  Humph!

I mourn the passing of vacations past, of holding a book in my hands, turning its pages, perhaps getting it a little waterlogged and then back home finding some sand in the seams along with memories of those windswept days of reading on the beaches of Hawaii.  I walk past my bookcases at home and the mere sight of some of those spines takes me back to another time in my life, remembering where (and who) I was when I read that book....

But I confess:  I now tote around an I-Pad and mostly download e-books from the library.  I no longer turn a page, I tap it.  I set the font for "large" and eye strain is relieved.  Instead of a suitcase full of bulky books, I have one device where I have thousands of books available at any given moment.  Yep, it's convenient.  And a little sad.

At least, that's the view from here....©