I recently read a statistic that attempted to explain the expanding popularity of e-readers: shame reading. People want to read crappy books but don't want to be seen in public with them. At first I thought this was ridiculous, but as with most of my initial impressions, it soon faded to irrelevance. Turns out I love reading crap on my phone. I don't even own a kindle. Well, M and I 'share' a 'family' kindle. Which pretty much means I don't have a kindle. But there is a kindle app for my phone and I don't need to to tote anything else with me in the morning. So the phone it is. I linked it to M's (sorry, I mean the 'family' kindle) and got all the books that were on it. Immediately I started in on something I was sort of embarrassed to be reading in the first place - The hunger games. Kid lit, ripped off, holywood junk, whatever, it was awesome. I ripped through it. I shredded the next two too. Best part about reading on the phone? I get to listen to music while I do it. No more listening to loud people on the train. I kept on reading books M downloaded that I didn't think I would normally read - Mindy Kaling, Tina Fey and Michael Ian Black all provided me comedy-memoir junk. By then I was hooked. I had to buy some more. I loaded up on the Stieg Larson books. These are not really so shameful, only that I was the last person on earth to read them and no one wants to be that guy. So they were soon in the 'done' pile. I had to get some more: teen lit, scandi-noir, crime-thriller, sci-fi, and now, the worst of them all fantasy novels. Yes, Game of Thrones in all it's 800 page swords and dragons glory is my current entertainment and I am seriously considering getting the next two. That will be nearly 2400 pages of cold castles and hot maidens. Giddy up. I will admit it, I am book snob. Born into and raised by book snobs. The childhood home is filled with great reading list material. I took great pride in being seen with 'serious' books. I looked down on the train-folk toting mommy-porn and dungeon/dragon tomes. Now I am one of them, but only in secret. Don't tell anyone.
(correction) there are 5 published and 7 total (planned) books in the series if which Game of Thrones is only the first.
