A bit of a snag

I’ve just been test driving the new Kindle.  I downloaded Julie Walter’s autobiography That’s another story – I have been a fan for years and was confident it would be a good read and it was – but where was the lovely cover photo of Julie?  You don’t get that in a Kindle

The first third of the book is about her childhood and her unique family and one can understand where Julie is coming from and why she is so special

I found it difficult to put the book down - especially as it is so much easier to hold the Kindle when one is prostrate in bed, rather than a heavy tome.  I was about a third of the way through - you can see the percentage already read at the base of the page - when MTL became concerned at the sight of my heaving shoulders and tears trickling on to the pillow.  I was reading about her early nursing years and she was dealing with elderly patients dying.  I’m a little ashamed to say they were tears of uncontrollable laughter.

I remember being in the same state when I saw the Victoria Wood sketch with Julie playing an elderly waitress.  Seems the older I get the funnier I find it.

She has had a long and varied career on stage and screen, won countless prestigious awards both here and in the USA and seem to have come through it all unscathed and unspoilt.

I have to be honest and admit that when she is writing about the time she lived in Soho and her early days on stage I did cringe a little.  I remember working in Soho in the fifties and in those days found much of it distasteful and tried to rise above it and carry on working.  Even now I find a little sleaze goes a long way but Julie exposes it and almost revels in it.  I was glad when she got on to the fascinating story of becoming a formidable actress with the ability to have her audience moved to tears or helpless laughter.

One really gets the feeling that no ghost writer was involved, as if one was having a drink with Julie and she was telling her story- and she is not afraid of long sentences which furthers the illusion.

Back to the Kindle –I missed seeing photos of her loved ones, her childhood, her triumphs, her loves.  I have no doubt many of these are in the book proper (and the next time I’m in WH Smiths – I’m going to check.)

I often want to go back to reread a particularly moving excerpt but – as Beleek(see sidebar) pointed out this is not so easy with Kindle and at one time I thought I was going to get a Kindle thumb from turning the pages – but I soon got used to it.

In conclusion Julie’s book is well worth reading and the Kindle is a useful tool – and I’m glad to have one- but it can never replace books proper - so rest easy UB.

The fact that- as far as I know - there are no photographs in Kindle - is food for thought with regard to publishing an autobiography.  And also – as Macy and Keith (sidebar) point out any other e-book won’t carry a Kindle story.  Or do you know differently?