Eeeeeeee

I'm often light years behind others in my reading. I tend to get to books that others have read and discarded years after most have forgotten all about them. I like it that way. I'm not the kind of person who queues outside the local bookshop at 2am to get the first copy of the new 'masterpiece' that will be available when the doors open. Uh-uh. If it's worth reading, it'll be worth reading once all the fuss has died down. If it isn't, well...who was it who said that a wise man learns from other people's mistakes?? I will say that part of my reticence to having to read the new book is the mundane matter of money. Newly published books - especially those that are preceded to the bookshelves by slick marketing - burn a serious hole in your pocket. Now, I have a problem with shelling out money on something that I can either borrow free from the library or pick up second hand at a tenth of the price - if I'm prepared to wait a bit.

Anyway, there's also the small matter of e-books. I've found electronic versions of printed books to be a cheap and excellent alternative to the traditional book. This is primarily true when I'm trying to find a book written by an overseas author and not published or sold here - if it is available as an e-book, I can buy it online and download it to me computer, for a fraction of the price of getting a printed copy and paying to ship it over the seven seas. Plus, I could have the book on my hard drive in a matter of mere minutes, from start to finish. If I find reading online to be too hard on my eyes or something, I can always print it out and read it the traditional way.

Long live pdf!