Book Rants and Bad Decisions

You know when you say yes to something, and already you're not a hundred percent sure it was the right thing to do, but then with each subsequent email you regret your decision more and more? That's where I am right now.

But enough about me, how are you?

Okay, so I've joined the twenty first century by accepting my partner's old kindle and trying to read one book a month on it, but how distracting is the percentage? Do you not find yourself constantly looking at it? I keep telling myself, it's not a page number, it's not going to move with every page click, but that doesn't help. I can't stop looking at it. And it feels like it's mocking me. It also feels as though you're never going to reach the end and I find this sort of thinking tends to distract from the story. I've tried covering it with my finger, but then it's so easy to uncover. I then get this weird feeling that builds in me, which is a combination of the desire to finish the book and the notion that I'm not going fast enough. It feels like it turns reading into a race against.....yourself? The book? The percentage gods? Whatever it is, it's highly distracting. When I finished the book I was reading on it, I couldn't wait to get back to a real book that I could touch and that whose page numbers increase with every page turn. Ah, paper and black text, how I love to escape into you.

Although - here comes another bookish rant - when you're reading a 'classic' and they put all those numbers linked to appendices at the back, that is just as distracting. Every other line has a number and you try to skip past it, thinking, I know what that means so I don't need to read your stupid appendix, but then you think, what if I've got it wrong? What if I don't actually know what it means? What if I'm getting the wrong gist of this four word sentence? Perhaps the word will end.

Okay, so slight melodrama, but it is highly distracting and mostly unnecessary, especially when it's not even footnotes that you can see right there and then, but a separate appendix at the back of the book, that you have to keep flicking between. And reading something in this stunted way is so detrimental to the story and I'm pretty sure not what the author had in mind when he or she wrote it. I gave up after about three pages and just read through all the numbers, and, I didn't even go and read the appendices at the end. Ha! I can make sense of the book in my own way without ripping it to shreds, Thank you very much.

As always I'm doing my best to avoid all things Christmas until December, so no mince pies, even though they look delicious, no Christmas markets, no music, and definitely no bloody John Lewis advert. Even when it was shown on The Russell Howard show the other day, I turned my back and busied myself with something else. Blah, blah, blah, some cute message that tries to tell us all to love our neighbours and be kind to others and....wait, it's a super expensive shop where only relatively rich people can afford to shop. Hmmmmmm. Relatable to the people? Perhaps not. And, to add insult to injury, they've released some hideous pink pencils 'for her', because we need 'female' pencils don't we? And each pencil has on a different message which sets women back decades. Yippee! http://www.johnlewis.com/abigail-warner-for-her-pencils-pink/p1995262  And do you know what makes it worse? That they're designed by a woman. Damn it! I think this article sums it up perfectly: http://standardissuemagazine.com/in-the-news/dear-john-lewis/ written by Hannah Dunleavy. Well said.

Oh, and one more thing, the waiting room of the ballet school is not a great place to read a book. People are chatting and there are kids changing and people coming in and out, and people moving chairs around and toddlers toddling about waiting for siblings. And I can't really drown them out with music because I have to be vaguely alert in case my charge comes out needing the toilet  - which happens nine times out of ten. I should be enjoying an hour of sitting and reading, but instead I'm distracted by sounds and movements and conversations and I just want to read! Wah!

Okay, so I should probably be writing or editing or something and now the rants are out it might be easier to do that. It's like passing a large.......Well you get the idea. You feel a whole lot lighter, put it that way. And with that I'll leave you. Happy Tuesday!

Rants