Just got off a plane reading The Curious Incident Of A Dog At The Night-Time. Bought it at an airport and then ploughed through it for the duration of the flight.

I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should’ve. A whole party of kids were raising a cacophony and the guy sitting next to me was humming. It was horrible: noisy and claustrophobic, plus the little girl behind me was kicking every few seconds.

A note about the aforementioned book: it was hilarious the first time around (I read the first few pages in Amazon early last year). But as the flight wore on the book grew less and less funny … I’m not sure if that was the way it was meant to be, or if it was the horrible reading conditions on that plane. I guess I’ll never know.

I’ve found a possible equivalent online, though. Horton’s Folly is written so tongue in cheek you can’t help but laugh. A delight to read, nevermind if you never know if it’s fiction or not.

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I recently expressed my desire to read In Search Of Adam - something nearly impossible due to my geographical location. Shipping a book over from the UK just doesn’t bode well for me … in both time, effort and cost.

A few hours after I posted up that wish Clare from The Friday Project contacted me. I was pleasantly surprised … and intrigued.

And so I fired off an email to her - hoping that she could address my doubts about ordering In Search Of Adam from so far away a place. I have to admit - this quick support quite impressed me, and it wasn’t long before I received another email.

Dear Eli

re. ‘In Search of Adam’

We would be able to ship a copy over, however we would have to charge £2.50 extra for shipping, so the total price would be £14.49. Please let me know if you’d like to order a copy

Best wishes

Madeleine James
Editorial Assistant - The Friday Project

And … my hopes were dashed. The cost was quite beyond my budget for a single book, and it would take 3 months (on average) for the book to arrive. The sacrifice just didn’t seem worth it … and so I decided to wait it out.

Hold on a sec, though … The Friday Project replied and connected with me - one prospective buyer interested in one of their blooks. Where on the internet can you get this kind of customer service?

The Friday Project rocks … and I am now a staunch supporter of everything they do. If you’re living in the UK get your grubby paws on one of their books right away - shame on you if you don’t!

PS: Check out the coverage on In Search Of Adam here, here and here.

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Just a short shoutout: my modem got fried in a thunderstorm a few days ago, so I apologize for the lack of posts this week. I’ll be back soon (I hope).

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Benjamin has tagged me, and being a good denizen of the web (though I must say I detest memes on bad days), I’ll respond.

The rules of the meme:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their 8 things and post these rules.
3. At the end choose 8 people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and to read your blog.

Right. On with it:

1. I don’t watch television. I find it an absolute waste of time.
2. I love vanilla ice-cream. It’s the best ice cream flavour ever created. Ever!
3. I try to read books that get me to think. Most of the time I end up with a splitting headache. I only read thrillers once in awhile, for kicks.
4. Favourite book of all time: Lord Of The Flies.
5. I want a Mac. I’ve been wanting a Mac for years now.
6. I listen to John Mayer whenever my hands tire of writing. It helps, and it has helped throughout intense study sessions and revision sprees.
7. I believe seven is God’s number. But come to think of it I can’t yet find any proof to support that claim.
8. I’m very, very scared of bees.

It’s late now, and I can’t think of 8 people to pass this meme on to. So I’ll just close, and update later. Night!

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Chalk up another reason why the screen will never replace books: your nose.

It didn’t really hit me until today when I picked up one of those new Penguin Popular Classics, rejacketed in a lovely green skin. It was made mostly out of recycled paper, and it smelled sweet. As in honey sweet. I stopped every few pages to hold the book up and breathe in its heady scent.

Well, acting against this experience is Bill Gates - who once made a prediction that reading is going to become completely online.

“We believe that as we get the smaller form factor, the screen has gotten good enough. Why is reading online better? It’s up to date, you can navigate, you can follow links. The ads … are completely targeted as opposed to just being run-of-print, where many of the readers will find them completely irrelevant. The ads can be in new and richer formats. In fact the only drawbacks of the digital form are the things associated with the device: how big is it, heavy is it, how many hours of power does it have, how much do I have to spend to buy it? But those are things that once you achieve that threshold, in terms of the convenience and the cost, then you see a dramatic change in behavior. Today, for people who read newspapers and magazines, even the most avid PC user probably still does quite a bit of reading on print. As the device moves down in size and simplicity, that will change, and so somewhere in the next five-year period we’ll hit that transition point, and things will be even more dramatic than they are today.”

For some reason I imagine a little iPod-like device with holes … from which we get little chemical particles that smell just like a new book. And as the file fades away (or gets corrupted) we smell mildew and dust and (gah!) rot. And soon we’d be all saying to each other: “Gosh! It’s got that new eReader smell!”

I understand that the way things are going books may very well be phased out, a direct result of commercial interests. And I don’t want to speculate. But I dearly, dearly don’t want books to go - if not for the feel of the page, the smell.

Like my copy of Silence Of The Lambs: smokey, old socks.

Want to take a sniff?

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