More notes on e-books

I do feel rather badly that my reading of physical books have been somewhat sidelined, as I have been investigating all the e-books available at the Toronto Public Library.  (I believe Robarts has a relatively smaller number of academic e-books but these aren't available to alumni borrowers, so it is irrelevant to me.)  I think the pendulum will swing back fairly soon.  I have 4 books out from the various libraries which may come due during the summer probably, and as the weather gets better out, I will want to sit outside and read.  (As I don't have an actual Kindle, only a Kindle emulator on my computer, the paper-versions will win out.)  I've also been meaning to read several comedies by Aristophanes, so I'll add that to the list.

But back to the e-books.  I'm quite surprised that the library has a largely complete set of NYRB Classics available, even relatively recent books like Grossman's Stalingrad, Doblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz and von Rezzori's Abel and Cain.*  One that has been overlooked is Barbara Comyns's The Juniper Tree.  While not on the NYRB Classics imprint, they have Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, but only an acceptable translation (Ginsburg).  Interestingly, they have a fairly weak translation of Mann's The Magic Mountain, but they have the "good" translation by James Wood of Buddenbrooks.  This was the version I was struggling to find in the used bookstores up here, and then it just happens to be available as an e-book, so I quickly added that to my library queue.

I'm finding that most books with lots of photographs and maps -- so history books and some social science tomes -- don't make the translation to e-book very well.  It's not impossible to do this properly,  but it does cost more and publishers pretty much everywhere are cutting corners as much as they can.  So that's a disappointment (and a general weakness of e-books), though it doesn't impact philosophy and more text-based non-fiction.

On the other hand, there is one book that positively shines through in this new format -- Cortazar's Hopscotch.  This is a book that can be read through straight or in a non-linear hyper-text format.  Now the reader can actually click along to follow to the next proper chapter.  So this will be quite a bit of fun to trace through.

Anyway no question there is far too much to read as always.  I may even pull together a reading list  comprised exclusively of e-books if I decide I can't keep track of what I am reading otherwise.


* I read the first part a bit over a year ago and have to admit I didn't care for it that much, but I've always wanted to read the last, (previously) untranslated part, Cain.  It turns out that they touched up the previous translation slightly, but it is largely the same as before.  I didn't like it enough to read it carefully a second time through, comparing the original to the revised translation.  That said, I did check major sections as they started or ended and found that this entire line was trimmed from the revised translation (which strikes me as a bit over-reaching, assuming that the line was actually in the German text).  This is the last page of The Death of My Brother Abel.  The excised line is in italics: Afterward, Carlotta told me that her ears had buzzed for hours.  It was as if you had expected a line of poetry and were given Mein Kampf to read instead, she said.