Still jet lagged – e-reader revived

Image via Wikipedia

I wrote a wonderful book review whilst in Singapore (on the Long Song  by Andrea Levy) but never managed to edit it and by the time I wanted to double check one or two things my e-reader had succumbed to sand, water and general maltreatment.  You may well wonder how this happened.  I posted a lament on my facebook site for my nearest and dearest who all commisserated as you can imagine:

I was enjoying the fabulous sunshine, heat and general haziness of lying on a sunbed next to a swimming pool on this wonderfully contrived manmade beach called Sentosa (large container ships passing by as if this was quite normal on a sunny day) on Singapore.  This was midday and as I was determined to read, no matter what, I rolled from front to back and back to front again, propping my e-reader up against my handbag in front of me, sun beating on my back.  As if in slow-motion a stream of water coursed right underneath my bag and e-reader, creating a kind of morass in which my e-reader and bag sunk.  I grabbed, got up, look at son in total amazement at this stream of water, which should not be there, but which was, an overflow from the swimming pool which coursed its path right underneath my bag, e-reader and sunbed, leaving everyone else well alone.  Holding up my soddy e-reader I put it on the sunbed only for it once more to slip between the middle partition of the bed back into the soggy soil underneath, well and truly wet, all connection holes and edges of the reading panel  filled with the yellow wet sand stuff….  Needless to say, it died right there and then and I was without anything to read for the rest of the day and the week, my  reliance on my 80 or so books totally misguided, undermined, laughable.  I had nothing to read, my e-reader was dead.  It remained dead for the next days in Singapore and I became a restless word hungry lost reader with nothing worthwhile to read, hungry for the ten books or so that had become totally inaccessible.

On the way back I watched four (FOUR) movies on the plane so that I would forget that there was absolutely nothing worthwhile to read, I returned home, a reader gypsy, tired, undermined, wondering how quickly I could replace the device: me, totally dedicated to the tangible reading experience suddenly found out that I had become an e-reader junky who had lost her fix.

I showed my husband, the thing was dead.  But what happened? I flipped the switch and there it was, a hesitant page, the last page I had been reading, flickering, then on then off.  I was jubilant and carefully put the charger in, watched as it juiced up.  

Yes, it’s working again and I have now at long last finished Arnaldur Indridason‘s Tainted Blood and am starting Baldacci’s The Camel Club.  What does an avid reader do without an e-reader?  By that I mean of course someone who sits on trains, spends time in hotel rooms, is still totally jet lagged and who sleeps badly, what does someone like that do without being able to move seamlessly from one book to another?

And yes, I do have some wonderful pictures of Sentosa beach, however, as I am spending yet more time in hotels because of work commitments I haven’t got access to them (I forgot my camera lead to download them).

Advertisement