Wednesday 30 November 2011

Colour Scheme by Ngaio Marsh

I haven't heard about Ngaio Marsh before joining the Vintage Mystery Challenge. I wanted to read some of the authors I have never read before for this challenge. So I picked this book up.
The action takes place in a Thermal Spa in New Zealand. And the action doesn't begin until almost the last quarter of the book. Marsh takes her time setting up the place, giving glimpses into her characters and finally delivers. Colour Scheme has really colourful characters Dr.Ackrington, Questing, Bert Smith, Colonel Claire, Mrs.Claire, Barbara Claire, Eru Saul, Gaunt and Dikon Bell. The characters are Wodehousian. Dr. Arckington's recommendation to Gaunt's doctor is the funniest recommendation I have ever read. Gaunt wanting to stay in the place after the recommendation is incredible. There is a nice love story.
The characters and final denouement reminded me of Agatha Christie. Pointing fingers in the climax is very funny.
Only, wish the murder took place in the first few pages and not the last few. At one point, the story was exciting, so was there a murder? If there was a murder, who was murdered? Who murdered? There was lots of possibility but it sizzles down on expected lines. There were still a few surprises in the end.

Friday 18 November 2011

Kindle

I had been toying with the idea of getting an ereader for a while. I wanted an ereader for public domain books available free on the internet. But I don't want to spend money on ebooks. An Ebook is equally costly as a hard copy just a few pence less. I prefer buying paperbacks for books not in the public domain. Buying a paperback means that apart from me, my Dad and my Sis could also read.
I was reading a lot on my iPod touch and a bigger screen would be easy on the eye. I do most of my reading in the middle of the night and iPod comes in really handy. I don't have to switch on the light. Just pick-up the iPod and start reading in the dark. As I am already reading a lot on my iPod, I decided to go for a kindle. The price at £89 was tempting. The point that I don't have to order online and wait but just buy it at Tesco kind of sealed the deal. But for £89 you get wifi but no keyboard. So how am I to browse and download books. With keyboard and wifi it was £109. With 3G it was 149 pounds. I didn't want to go for 3G, wifi was good enough for me. So got it, spent another 7 pounds on the cover. I was happy with the deal. I had to charge and register my kindle with an amazon account before I could use. A few free classics preloaded would have been nice. Tried to download free books from kindle store. It wouldn't give the option to sort books according to price from low to high so I could download free ebooks. Had to download from Gutenberg and manybooks.net. Browsing on the Kindle was a pain. I wish there was a touch model available in UK. The eink thing was easy on the eye. Downside- never realised until I switched on the kindle in the middle of the night, that eink means no backlight, which equals no light, so had to switch on the light to read. Beats the purpose, right? All the research I did, being able to read in bright sun light and all that never realised that means I can't read in dark. Amazon is selling a kindle cover with light for £50. I am not going to spend a fortune on a cover with a light. I do my kindle reading in the day and still use my iPod to read in the wee hours of the night. The screen of my kindle is big which means that I don't have to keep clicking to turn the pages every few lines, it is comfortable to hold and read. But Browsing and finding books is a pain, even in kindle store. I use iPod to select books and download it to my kindle app and sync with Kindle. This is much easier than finding books directly in my Kindle. I read Anne of Green Gables and The window at the White cat on my Kindle. There are a million free ebooks available in the public domain, aren't they? Yes, I love my Kindle.