Bookmarked: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

In New England, we’ve had several spectacular snow storms this year. It makes up for several years running where we were barely dusted by an inch or two the whole season. Those years I heard many complaints about the cold, the snow, shoveling, grumble, grumble. I assumed those were all transplants from parts south or the extreme south west. I feared they might not survive the system shock when we had a real New England winter with a foot of snow whipped into a frenzy by howling winds.

If you get up early enough after one of these bruisers, you will be treated to a fairyland of sugar frosted trees against a bright blue sky. A perfect scene for a novel. I’ll have to think on that….

For now, here’s a photo- New England in winter.

After reading about the iPad for several weeks and (finally) watching the Apple demo, I can see that it doesn’t quite match my lofty expectations. It is a cool, new twist on a computer or iPhone (or something half-way in between really). As a multi-media device, it would be fun to play with.

My focus though was how is it as an e-book reader.  Here I believe the iPad doesn’t quite make it. The most glaring lack is that the screen is a standard type computer screen. As such, it’s subject to glare and hard on the eyes. It definitely doesn’t replicate reading on paper. The e-ink screen appears to me to better simulate the reading experience. Although of course it doesn’t yet provide color.

The other drawback I see is that the iPad appears delicate. Is this device going to survive being stuffed into a loaded backpack? What if it’s lying on your table and your kid comes home and dumps a pile of books on top of it? Or you’re reading it at the kitchen table when your spouse spills a cup of coffee? For now, my newspaper or paperback can survive all these scenarios (with a few dabs with a towel or blasts with a hair dryer after the coffee) better and it’s much, much cheaper.

Sorry Apple, I’m holding out for now. But thanks for working with the publishing houses to provide realistic pricing models on e-books.