Here’s an odd literary problem.For two years I’ve edited a biography. The author and I are now satisfied the manuscript is factually and stylistically acceptable. There remains one final task: to read the MS as if for the first time. To assess it as a reader would.
The author has done this but I’ve held back, doubting my objectivity. Every sentence is so damn familiar. I decided I needed to avoid the computer screen. I could print the MS and read the paper - a horrible waste of consumables. Or I could download to an ebook reader. This technology has greatly improved: the text looks like print on paper not dancing electric dots, you “turn” the pages, a battery charge provides 7000 page turns and the system operates in strong sunlight. A Sony reader costs £220 but I can see subsequent uses.
I asked a super-techno friend who said: “Personally I wouldn't touch a dedicated ebook reader, though it's a case of I haven't tried it because I don't like it. If you want to read (the MS) afresh, print it out, preferably double-sided, cut it to book size and put it in an A5 size folder.” A quick trawl of my PC doesn’t immediately reveal how you print double-sided. A manual solution would be extremely tedious.
I’m on shaky ground. Most, if not all, of this blog’s respondents are passionately and emotionally attached to books. As I am. But once I was attached to my typewriter and here I am initiating streams of electrons. The last holiday on facility-less Karpathos meant that the weightiest part of our luggage consisted of books. An ebook reader can contain 160. Hmmm.
