A
library for the price of a book.
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Table of Contents
Kindle Tips
One customer recently asked: “I have just ordered a Kindle and will buying some of your books. I am interested in knowing how your large files work on a Kindle. For example, if I ordered all of the Dickens novels as one file, will the Kindle keep my place in one of the novels when I am finish reading at that time; or does it take you back to the main index for all the novels. Since the cost of the novels is only $.99, price is not the main issue here, convenience is.”
I answered: “On the Kindle, if you shut off the device when you are in the middle of reading a book, then next time you turn it on it opens at the place you left off. That’s true of any book file on the Kindle. Also, if you interrupt your reading of a book, for instance by clicking on Menu and then selecting a different book file to ready; even if you read dozens of other books, the next time you from the menu click on that first book file, you will go to the where you finished reading last (not to the beginning).
“With my book-collection files, there’s a linked table of contents at the beginning. So with the Dickens you could click to go to a particular book and start reading there. Then if you change your mind, you can either use the Back button to go back to the contents, or you can use the Kindle menu (inside a book) to go back to the beginning of the book-collection file (to the table of contents.
Another way to look at it — If you read one book by the same author
at a time, the book-collection files are probably the best choice.But if
you tend to read many books by the same author at a time (bouncing from
one to the other), you’d be better off with single-book files, so you can
return to where you left off in all of them.
You should try using it to convert plain text books (like the ones on my CDs and DVDs). Just open the reader software, click on Import (from the selections at the top of the screen), then in the drop-down menu that appears click on Text document, then navigate to select the file you want. In a few seconds, the software creates a copy in its special format (.prc) and puts that copy in a new folder (My Ebooks, under My Documents). The book appears on your screen ready to read, in a format that lets you flip pages (left to right), rather than scroll down; and when you copy that .prc file to your Kindle, the books shows up with with an even (rather than ragged) right margin — very readable. (Thanks to David Green in Idaho for pointing this out to me).
Conversions from .txt, .pdf, and .html documents .prc happen instantaneously. And you can move .prc files directly to your Kindle over the USB cable, without depending on Amazon for conversions. NB — if you wanted to put some of your own Word documents on your Kindle, you could (in Word) save those documents as .html, and then use MobiPocket to convert them to .prc (This works great for text, but charts/tables and graphics probably won’t come out the way you want them.)
MobiPocket also makes it a lot easier and more pleasant reading books
on your PC.
samizdat Richard Seltzer
In the results you should see:
Classic Children’s Books: The Lizard of Oz and 7 Other Stories
The Name of Hero (historical novel set in Russia, Ethiopia, and Manchuria)
The Lizard of Oz, a satiric fantasy
The Lizard of Oz, a play for children
Web Business Bootcamp (hands-on Internet business advice)
Spit and Polish, a screenplay
The Nostalgia of Tomorrowland and Other Essays
Journey to the West and Other Poems
Mercy, a play about Mercy Warren set during the American Revolution
Chiang Ti’s World and Other Stories
Without a Myth or Amythos, a three-act fantasy play
Hundreds and Hundreds of Gerbils and Other Stories
Rights Crossing, a two-act play set during the American Revolution
The Barracks and Other Stories
Now and Then and Other Tales from Ome
From Entotto to the River Baro by Alexander Bulatovich (translated
by me)
With the Armies of Menelik II by Alexander Bulatovich (translated by
me)
But this venture isn’t just about “great” books, chosen by authorities and to be read with a sense of obligation. (Nearly 40 years after graduation, I’m still gradually pecking away at my “required” reading lists from college). The new books added to this CD set are, for the most part, little-known books by well-known authors and the best-known books of little-known authors. In other words, there are treasures here waiting to the discovered and enjoyed.
I’m reminded of my childhood reading explorations.
My grandfather, who lived in Silver Spring, MD, had an attic stacked high with books, many of which I checked out during visits, and some of which now adorn my own shelves — authors like G.A.Henty. Those were my grandfather’s books when he was a child. My father (now in his 80’s) didn’t read them as a kid, but he’s now borrowing my Hentys and savoring those historically accurate adventures.
Later we moved to Plymouth, NH (a small town very much like Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”), with party-line telephones and a town calendar published every year with everybody’s birthdays and anniversaries noted. The town library was a red clapboard building where Daniel Webster had pled and lost his first case. They had very little shelf space. So for every book they boought, they had to throw an old one away. I remember seeing the pile of rejects ready for the dumpster, including works by Mark Twain, George Eliot, William Prescott. That felt like a sacrilege. I “rescued” many boxes full of them. Even if I couldn’t read them all, I felt the need to “save” them.
I also went to estate auctions when they were held nearby, and bought for pennies works by Stanley about his explorations in Africa, an account of Shackleton’s voyage to Antarctica, complete Plutarch, the works of Richard Harding Davis and Hornung.
During summer vacations, I’d read omnivorously, delighted by books and authors I had never heard of before. (I particularly remember “The Prince of India” by Lew Wallace — the life of a man who had insulted Jesus and was condemned to live forever; and “La Marche des Civilisations” which convincingly described the possibility of vast cycles of history, stretching back hundreds of thousands of years, civilizations rising and falling to be replaced by new civilizations, with no memory of what had come before).
At some point the thousands of printed books I’ve accumulated over the years (probably close to 10,000) will be more a burden than a treasure. I won’t be able to take them with me when moving into smaller quarters (my father recently went through that trauma, moving into an assisted living community). And I’m sure my children will have no room for them all. And libraries will have no room for them either. If a libary accepted them as a donation (an unlikely possibility) it would only be to sell them like rummage at a quarter a piece and to throw out what didn’t sell. A sad fate.
So this venture has personal meaning to me. I delight in saving, collecting,
and organizing thousands of books — even little-known ones — in electronic
form so they don’t take up space and so copies of them can be shared with
many.
If you buy something at the Gamestop online store, you will see an offer for a coupon good for a discount on your next purchase from them. Beware. If you request said coupon, your credit card information will automatically be passed along to this other company (Reservation Rewards) and you will be charged $12 per month for a “subscription” to their “services”.
Burried on that check-out web page and on a page it links to are words that explain the “offer”, but the setup is confusing and misleading, and many people have been hooked into agreeing to something they did not want. (Do a Google search for “Reservation Rewards” and see what hundreds of angry people who have “signed up” at Gamestop and elsewhere have to say about such an “offer”).
When I brought this issue to Gamestop’s attention, they replied:
“At the end of a purchase from GameStop.com/EBgames.com we have a link
to the Reservation Rewards program. They offer customers the opportunity
to receive an electronic gift voucher for GameStop.com/EBgames.com if the
customer would like to sign up for a trial membership with
Reservation Rewards.
“In order to sign up for this program customers would have to type their
email address twice and click on the button labeled YES, I have read and
agree to the Offer and Billing Details and authorize
GameStop.com/EBgames.com to securely transfer my name, address and
credit or debit card information to Reservation Rewards for billing and
benefit processing. I understand that the first 30 days of benefits are
free and that I will be billed $12 a month thereafter and may cancel my
membership at any time.”
The way I read that, buyer beware — it’s business-as-usual to deceive/trap/trick customers into signing up for a “service” they don’t need or want.
So, regrettably, I no longer trust Gamestop, and I’ll never do business
with them again.
Copyright 2009 Richard Seltzer
written April 12-13, 2009
He was in a long winding corridor of a hospital-like building. The man beside him, who was acting as his guide, kept referring to him as “my lord”. That felt good and comforting. But there was something about this place that reminded him of a nightmare.
“It must be a recurring nightmare,” he explained to his guide, “because I remember it so vividly. It was so real — the blazing heat, the smell of fresh sweat layered on weeks of unwashed filth, the pain so sharp, like nails pounded through flesh.”
“And that reminded you of here, my lord?”
“In my dream, I was given a choice. I could be born into that world where life was brutal and short, where I would die in nail-sharp pain. Or I could live in another age and another place.”
“Well it’s hard to imagine a time and place better than this, my lord. Here life is sweet. There are billions of people in the world and many find a vocation that suits their talents and their interests — work that they can take pride in. And through their combined efforts, all benefit from an abundance of goods and pleasures.”
“My memory must be failing me. What you say rings true, but it sounds new to me. I feel disoriented. I feel uncertain of things I should know as well as my name. This world feels less real to me than that other one I dreamt of. In that world most people died by 40 of accident or war or disease. But I’ve forgotten — what is the average life span here and now?”
“Over eighty, my lord. Healthcare has eliminated many diseases that used to be fatal. And our world is far safer and more peaceful than that other horrid place and time you dreamt of.”
“And forgive me for asking — it must be the aftermath of that dream, the shock, the pain in my feet and hands: this real world around us pales in contrast — what do people do with that life time? How do they spend their golden years?”
“It’s interesting that you should ask that, my lord, in this very place.”
“What is this place?”
“It’s a home for the elderly, my lord.”
“A special home for them? They don’t live in their own homes or with their families?”
“Here they get special care, my lord. Their meals are made for them, and all the tedious chores of life are taken care of for them. They benefit from controlled diet and exercise and the very best geriatric healthcare — to extend their lives even more. And trained staff are ready to take care of any contingency twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
“But what do they do for themselves? What do they do with their time?”
“They watch television. They play bingo and scrabble and double solitaire. Some read.”
“I imagine with their advanced age, their bodies must be frail. They must be limited in what they can do.”
“Indeed, my lord. many are confined to wheel chairs.”
“Like this one?”
“Indeed, my lord.”
“It’s so nice of you to take me for a stroll like this while I recover from the pain in my feet and hands, the aftermath of that terrible dream. And you are so kind and patient to explain all this to me — what I should know as well as my name.”
“It’s no problem at all, my lord. It’s always a delight to talk with you.”
“And these people, these elderly in this happy happy world we live in, while their bodies may be weak and their activities limited, they have their memories to enjoy over and over again, right? That’s the reward of a long virtuous life — to remember all the good times and the good friends — am I right?”
“Yes, my lord, more or less.”
“And where does this long winding corridor end?”
“What, my lord?”
“That door we’re headed to — all the others we’ve come to have been double doors that swung open as we approached. But that one is a single door with a handle. And as we get closer now, I see there’s a keypad next to it, like a telephone keypad. Yes, my memory is getting clearer now. I remember telephones, now, with touchtone keypads.”
“Excellent, my lord, you’ll be back to yourself in no time.”
“But what’s beyond that door? I don’t remember.”
“Don’t trouble yourself about that, my lord. No need to trouble yourself about anything. We’ll be in there in a moment. I just need to enter the code.”
“The code? You mean that’s some kind of a lock?”
“Exactly, my lord. You are your old self again.”
“Then this is…”
“The Alzheimer’s Wing, my lord.”
“And I live here?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And I have no memory?”
“It comes and goes, my lord. On a good day, you can remember my name, and your own, as well, my lord.”
“But this is a mistake, a terrible mistake. I fell and hurt my feet and hands. I’m in rehab until they get better and I can get out this wheelchair and go home to… to … Where did you say I live?”
“You live here, my lord.”
“But this is a mistake. I didn’t choose this life.”
“None of us does, my lord. None of us has a choice.”
“But I did. I did have a choice. I was special. I was chosen. I was the son of God.”
“We are all God’s children, my lord.”
“But it was real. The sun was blazing. I was coughing with dust in my throat. I would have done anything for a taste of water. Then I was lying on my back on the ground. My arms and legs were tied to boards. They drove nails through my hands and feet. And when they raised the cross and planted it in the ground, my weight pulled me down, tearing my flesh against the nails. The pain. The pain. And I begged for water. The thirst was almost worse than the nails.”
“Here’s some nice cold apple juice, my lord. That should make you feel much better.”
“But there’s been a mistake. Take me back! Take me back! Nail me to the cross! Please, God, nail me to the cross instead!”
A
library for the price of a book.
Published by Samizdat Express, 213 Deerfield Lane, West Roxbury, MA 02132. (203) 553-9925. seltzer@samizdat.com
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