The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Tarana

WW2 ended only a few years earlier and he worked in British Intelligence during that period.

He was a desk jockey.
His brother Peter Fleming might have been a real spy and wrote better (Travels in Tartary etc).

Le Carre, Deighton etc wrote better spy thrillers. Bond stories are drunken fantasy sex romps. Even Agatha Christie's "Passenger to Frankfurt" is a better spy story.
His son complained that he cared more about Bond etc, and Ian had a moment of revelation. Wrote the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang stories (Roald Dahl messed it up a bit adding in the child catcher in film script though was sacked, the books better than the film). Died not long later. Too much drinking and smoking.

I read some of the Bond books years ago then discovered Victor Canning, Helen MacInnes, Alister Maclaine, Hammond Innes, Nevil Shute, "John LeCarre", Len Dieghton etc. Even Leslie Chartris's Simon Templar.

[Renate]

I like Nevil Shute, even if some of the stuff is a bit sappy.
He was an engineer, a real engineer.
No Highway.

[kandwo]

Bought a book from a bookstore that used watermarks. Unfortunately, it wasn't available anywhere without this "feature". To begin with I had to be treated like a potential criminal, being reminded several times during the buying process that should I share this book they could find out that I'd done it; secondly, the book contained a line like "This book was bought by Name Surname ([email address])" in both the description and at the end of the book.

I found this annoying, so I modified the text in Calibre. I forgot about the whole thing and got to reading. Suddenly, at the end of a chapter this same "watermark" appeared again completely ruining the immersion for me. I found it extremely obnoxious of them to insert this into the actual text/story.

(Is there a way of searching for specific text throughout the whole book in Calibre to remove these mentions? When I edited it Calibre showed each chapter as a separate file.)

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by kandwo

(Is there a way of searching for specific text throughout the whole book in Calibre to remove these mentions? When I edited it Calibre showed each chapter as a separate file.)

In the find/replace dialog, change the file dropdown to all text files

[maddz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But if it works as ePub2, then get rid of the ePub3.

It was the case of the author not understanding the difference being a graphic artist. The story included inline illustrations at specific points and he was concerned that changing to a flowable format would break the relationship between story and illustration.

The main issue for me was that the fixed layout also involved word-specific formatting which turned a large file in epub 2 into something more like a PDF file and wouldn't transfer to my then ereader because of space constraints. There must have been something like a 10:1 ratio between the html and the text.

I ended up reading the initial download on my iPad using iBooks which worked. Apparently he'd checked the output in iBooks and assumed it would be fine elsewhere. I suggested downloading Calibre as another check.

[kandwo]

Originally Posted by DNSB

In the find/replace dialog, change the file dropdown to all text files

Thanks! It was in another three chapters, too.

Now I can finally read it without those distractions

[ownedbycats]

I was reading a not well-written fanfic where two characters were cooking food on the stove, and this somehow lead to them romancing on the countertop (yeah, I don't get it either).

Since I'm a Sims player, I was waiting the entire chapter for the food to start burning or catch fire, but that didn't happen. Disappointing.

[DNSB]

Reminds me of one time my wife fell off the couch laughing. The idiot in the book was cooking bacon in the nude and it was starting to smoke. The other idiot came into the kitchen and was cuddling up to him so he started flipping the bacon. If there is one thing she knows about frying bacon, it loves to splatter hot grease.

[ownedbycats]

I really, really, really hate those multifandom oneshot collections (usually with a zillion tags) on AO3. Especially since 50% of the time the author doesn't even bother to label which fandom each chapter is for.

I've probably complained of this before. It's still a complaint.

[Lukusaukko]

I loaned an "ebook" from my library - a book from well-known and respected local institution - which was all images. The entire book was nothing but about 150 ppi images wrapped with some html code and slapped into a epub format... I felt ripped off, even if it was a loan. If you're not going to do it properly, it's not worth it to even try.

[ownedbycats]

Overuse of exclamation marks!

[John F]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Overuse of exclamation marks!

!!! YES !!!

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by John F

!!! YES !!!

Overuse of all caps

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Overuse of all caps

AND LARGE FONT SIZES!!!!

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

AND LARGE FONT SIZES!!!!

Now I have nightmares for weeks...