KINDLE FAIL

Because I've gotten super cheap when it comes to buying books, the other day I downloaded a book from my local library's E-book collection to my Kindle.  (How does that even work?  I have no idea.)  I started to read it and as is also typical lately, I fell asleep.  Not for long...just a little doze time.  When I woke up, I noticed I was actually about to start a new chapter -- how convenient, I thought, to fall asleep at the end of one chapter before starting the next!  I just kept reading on and off all day when I should have been doing productive things, but wanted to procrastinate even longer, and by last night I was stunned to note that little tracker in the bottom right hand corner of the "page" told me I was like 88% finished with the book!  I was so disappointed!

I was really enjoying the book -- one of my favorite genre combinations of memoir and humor in a collection of essays.  I really wasn't ready for it to end at all but yep, I was almost finished.  I felt rather ripped off and was totally glad I had not spent actual money on this thin volume, although I would have liked to support the author cuz she was hilarious and I like funny.

In bed last night, I quickly finished reading and was surprised to find one of those Reader's Guide Discussion Question things at the end, where you can go to your book club and not have to think of any insightful questions to ask since there they are already thought up and written out for your convenience.  I was curious, though, why this little slip of a book should have a Discussion Guide when really there wasn't that much substance there.  As I read through the questions, I started to wonder if this was all part of the joke.  The first several questions had absolutely nothing to do with the book!  I didn't even know what they were talking about!  HaHa.  So clever and subtle!

But that made no sense at all, really, so I went back to search for the Table of Contents and.....Oops! I had read the Introduction, but then I had skipped ahead (during my nap) and started re-reading the book half-way through!!!  I didn't read the whole first half of the book!  So I missed a whole bunch of really important stuff about her crazy childhood and mental illness.  No wonder she turned out to have such a delightfully twisted sense of humor!

Which makes me realize I really don't know how to operate a Kindle.  I have had this problem before where I touch the screen and I end up in some other part of the book.  I can't get back to where I was, can't find the table of contents, don't know how to "fast forward" or find my way back from an unintentional leap ahead.  I've just tried to use it as a mindfulness practice wherein the only thing that exists is the page in front of me.  There is no previous; there is no future.  Not sure how far back was the beginning, no idea when the end will come.  Very Zen.  But also very frustrating.  I would never get confused and start reading a real book in the middle.  That would be an immediately obvious error, for chrissake.

The saving grace is that now I get to go back and read the beginning of the book and spend a lot more time with a new author I enjoy!  So, win-win, I guess.  But let's face it; a Kindle is not really a book now, is it?  I am not responsible for this technical malfunction.

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

PS:  The book is "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson, who started as a blogger and has a super popular blog site called "The Bloggess".  I'm inspired to do another blog that is "edgier".  I liked her quirkiness and swearing.   I have a rebel inside me who I try to keep under wraps...maybe she needs to live on the page.  We'll see. :)