That's an Improvement?

One of my favorite casual authors is the Scotsman, Alexander McCall Smith, who writes series of books about Botswana and Edinburgh.  I've read more of his works than any other author, always finding pleasure in his humor, supreme niceness, and gentle pace of life.  Early on this year I learned he had a new book coming out in March.  Now, I can't get a brand new book on inter-library loan from my library; I have to wait six months after publication.  So, come the beginning of October, I put in a request.  I heard nothing. Some three or four weeks later, I asked about it.  Oh, they said, they'd look into it.

The very next day, I had a call from the librarian himself to tell me they now had the book; I could pick it up.  It was an e-reader.  Oh, I said, over the phone.  That was kind of you but I didn't want an e-reader.  I wanted a book. A real book.  I'd never dealt with an e-reader and didn't especially want to start.  The problem, he said, was that that particular book didn't come in a regular published form.  It was an e-reader or nothing. And they'd just bought a copy of the text for me.

I admit to finding that a bit of a shock.  Could we no longer find our favorite authors' works as a published book?   Did we have to go to the mechanized version?  Okay, I thought, I'll be a good sport and try it out, though, privately, to my inner self, I didn't like the idea.  So I picked up the e-reader along with its plug to recharge the battery and then sat down to read after locating the various buttons to push or click.  No riffling through pages.  No checking out the blurb about the plot or the end page about the author. No cover illustration or author's photo or any of my old friends from real books.

So I began reading.  But I have to say, I felt uncomfortable immediately.  I didn't like this mechanism, this molded hunk of plastic, telling me to accept it as a book!  I admit:  I soon gave up.  I had no affinity for the experience whatsoever.

So how many votes do I get for thinking that this (below) version of one of the author's earlier works is much cheerier?!  There's even a nice photo on the back showing him with a tuba. Though, in fact, he plays a bassoon in what he calls the RTO, the Really Terrible Orchestra.

Flipping real pages!

Checking out the back cover