Although I generally prefer paper books, I have had various and sundry Kindles over the years. I do like how I can highlight a section or do a quick word lookup as I’m reading. My latest Kindle is a Paperwhite, which comes in a couple of flavors — one with ads on the home screen and that costs a little less than the ad-free one. As long as ads aren’t popping up while I’m reading, they don’t bother me too much, though I really think that with access to a whole lot of my recent reading history, Amazon could do a better job of trying to show me books I’m likely to want to purchase. I guess they’re just showing ads for the books whose authors bought the most ad impressions. I’ve found some of them so laughable or terrible or confusing that I’ve begun to sort of like them, and when I see an unfamiliar new teaser that’s a hoot or a puzzler, I’ll read it aloud to my family and ask if I should invest in the book. So far I’ve purchased none of them. A recent sampling follows.
‘”I’d have my nose broken every morning if it meant spending the rest of the day with you,” Avriel admitted in his painfully nasal voice.’ This one has a certain sleazy charm that I’d maybe be taken in by if my legs weren’t already so tired from running through the speaker’s dreams all night. It’s hard to know if the closing words in this quote are self-parody or not.
“Their lives collided for a reason. Was it only by chance or was it destiny?” Maybe it was fate or happenstance or through some purpose. At least it wasn’t clichéd.
“A beautiful women [sic]; a black widow, meets [sic] an arms trader who wants a secrete [sic] device from an engineer that [sic-ish] needs money. A volcano creates a tidal wave.” This book’s got everything! (Accept apparentley; an edditor.)
“Did people ever wonder… Why water lily’s leaf is shape [sic] like a heart ? [sic] And you will find the magical answer right here in this unforgettable tale .” [sic] I’m not interested in poking fun at what seems very probably like English as a non-native language here, and I’m actually sort of interested in the origin story this seems to point to, which could make a neat little tale, but it’s hard not to be shocked that there are zero editorial standards applied to the ad program. If Amazon is going to let people try to peddle their books, it seems like everybody benefits if there’s just a tiny bit of editorial work as part of the ad placement process. On the other hand, I guess I’d be pretty steamed if I bought a book based on a nice grammatical ad and the book itself was written as this ad is written, so there’s something to be said for truth in advertising. I do think there’s almost a sort of cruelty at play in letting this kind of thing through, though.
“You may claim to understand me but just when you are at the climax of your sureness, you may also be disappointed. Bon Voyage. Christopher Flier.” I hate when I’m disappointed at the climax of my sureness.
Two Ells 