eBookAnoid and I
A bit about me:
I have been told I should put a short sort of Bio here as apparently this is customary.
Well, I am British by birth, and later became a Dutch citizen as that seemed sensible after living for about 20 years in Holland. So far I have lived in 9 different countries, and currently live in a place called Cebu City which is on one of the thousands of islands that constitute the Philippines.
When I am not writing posts for this blog, I am normally to be found about 30 meters under the sea, happily passing time with the fish as I scuba dive.
At various times in my life I have worked as a Rock and Roll roadie, theatre production manager, paintball field owner, computer um… well I looked after computers in a school in Angola, a model maker and a load of other things. Now at the ripe old age of 69, I am more or less retired.
My only qualification to write about eReaders and so on is that I use them, as does my wife, we both read eBooks and paper books voraciously and I have the time to research what I write…. And I seriously believe they are a wonderful invention, with all manner of possible uses in the world, not simply for relatively wealthy Westerners such as I am. Oh, and I enjoy writing too.
These days I am regularly to be found sitting on the terrace, under an ancient bougainvillea tree in the Montebello Hotel in Cebu City, coffee in hand, thoughtful look on my face, as I write the various posts that appear in this blog. A very friendly hotel, and one that seems happy enough to have me there every day for hours on end occupying one of their tables.
If I am not there, then I will be near a small town just outside Brisbane in Australia, where we are currently building a house with our son and his family…. I mean literally building it, not simply employing builders to do it, but we are doing it with our own hands, and extremely hard work it is too!
NOTE: I have just been informed (13th April 2011) that the Australian Government has granted myself and my wife resident’s visas, so shortly I shall be writing this blog under the Queensland sun, rather than the Cebu sun!
One nice by-products of this blog has been the contact I have made with people all over the world who have sent me emails about one or other post…. This I enjoy no end!
So. what else? Well, I am married – obviously from what I said above, – I have a son, a charming and superb French/Australian Daughter in Law and currently two delightful grandsons, all living happily in Australia.
Pictures:
Me on the roof of a pleasant cafe in Beijing called the Bookworm ( a literary cafe obviously) where we lived for three pleasant and interesting years, and below, about to descend happily into the clear warm Philippines sea- the fish love my beard!
Now to the purpose of this Blog…….. Read on…………..
The war of the eReaders:
Since I was given my Sony eReader, I have become a fanatical user of this amazing little machine and have spent many happy hours wandering around the internet looking for copyright free books to download for my reading pleasure, and also watching the rather entertaining battle that is developing between the increasingly numerous eReaders that are coming on the market as well as the inevitable war of formats that is happening.
Which format will it be?
Those other ancients out there might remember the same battle that took place with video standards years ago – was it to be VHS or Betamax? Well much the same thing is happening with eBook formats, ranging from various propriety formats, such as Amazon’s one and the more general ones, such as Adobe’s ePub format.
This struggle, and the curious sales situation (where can one buy an eReader or a particular book?) make the present situation very complex for anyone who is wanting to leap into this wonderful form of mobile library, so I thought I would start a blog which would review all the various eReaders that are out there, and locate interesting sources of free, cheap or full price online eBooks in the various formats and publish them on this Blog in the hope that it will help others to enjoy this new form of reading and creating libraries.
Where can I buy them?
I shall also try and give useful hints about buying eReaders, as I have found the sales policy of the main manufacturers completely impossible to understand. One can buy a Sony eReader in Britain but not in Australia for example, or attempting to buy one if you live (as I do) in the Philippines online is impossible for no obvious reason. It is all very strange. Thus I shall trying to find out where you can buy a particular model of eReader and posting this information if and when I get it.
Where can I buy books?
I shall be doing much the same with the numerous online bookshops, who also often have curious sales restrictions based on one’s location in the world (Publisher’s copyright rules I gather). It is a jungle out there, Folks!
Your comments:
I also hope very much that as the Blog develops, other people will post comments here with useful links and thoughts on this subject, and thus help people to buy eReaders that are suitable for them, and to locate eBooks that will give them the same amount of pleasure as I have had through my eReader.
So, watch this space!!!!!!!!!!!
