Textbook Torture

This evening, I decided to be a good college student and do some homework. Once I found my textbook. After tearing my room apart, I found it, which was fantastic because this meant I wouldn't have to spend $100 on a new copy of a book I already owned. The book in question is for my Spanish class, which I am taking as an online course and am required to complete with at least a D in order to graduate college in May. (No pressure!) After a good ten minutes (and a bad even more minutes) of searching, I finally found the unbound textbook and stuck it into a bigger binder than the one it had been in. No, I did not destroy the textbook by ripping it free of the binding. This is the new trend - unbound textbooks are, apparently cheaper and can't be returned for any kind of refund once the semester is up. Yay for keeping books you'll never need again!

Anyway, I find the book and get online and go to the site where the class is and read up on all the information and am thrilled that I now don't have to spend $100 to purchase another copy of this textbook. I got my refund check earlier today (helped pay bills at home) so I'm not flat broke, but $100 is a lot of money for one textbook! Especially when it's a book for a class outside my major field of study and outside any field of interest. I'm taking the class because they're making me. So, I go online and I look at the information and I realize I need a book key. A book key is a 19 character one time use only code that registers your copy of your book with the site. It comes with the book when purchased new. I'm pretty sure I bought my book new...but I can't find the book key.

Resume the tearing apart of the room I'd almost had cleaned. I'm looking for a piece of paper covered in printed type with the code on it that I need to register my book online. Without the code, I can't do any of my work or even see the assignments. I check everywhere - all my bookshelves, under my bed, my trashcan, even my car - but, alas, it is nowhere to be found. This also means that the solid paper and ink book sitting on my desk is of no use to me. I check the site and there's a question there. "What if I bought my book used and don't have a book key?" I check the answer - and the link provided takes you right back to the spot where you can pay $100 for a digital copy of the book, required code automated so it will work with no trouble.

I start searching the internet, ranting about the situation, and the like. A friend heard about my problem (because I called to vent my frustrations) and found a place online that sells just the book key for $30. Oh, joy! A way to save money! I purchase the code and get the code and plunk it into the site where I still have not managed to begin my Spanish assignment and it's now been an hour...and the code gets denied. I try again. Denied. I type it manually. Denied. Denied, denied, denied.

Okay. Setback. Irritating setback. Maybe I can get my money back. Oh no, wait. Because the book codes are one use only, it's in the site's rules that no refunds are allowed on those products. Does this make sense? Yes. Am I happy about it? No.

After another block of searching/ranting/searching/exercising some of my vocabulary's more vulgar selections, I swallow my pride and feel my pocket-book tighten. I have to spend $100 to buy an e-book copy of a text I already own so that I can do the required work for the class so I can graduate after six long, exhausting years. I go to the site and type in my information. My card gets denied. Twice. Because it had been used too many consecutive times in one day (what with the bill paying and such) and the activity, understandably, would seem suspicious. You know, if thieves regularly went around paying bills registered to the same address as the card they stole.

Oh, did I mention that this Spanish class is having an online meeting tomorrow for anyone who might have questions about the content of the course? Yeah. I'm essentially meeting with my professor tomorrow, albeit over the internet, and I have not managed to do ANY of the required work and, in fact have no idea what kind of work is in there because I can't get a freaking book key! Tomorrow, after class, I'm going to, again, try to give this company my $100 to purchase an electronic copy of a book I already own so that I can cram in as much work for the class as physically possible from the time my classes end at 2 and the meeting starts at 7.

This is how colleges make their money. They team up with websites/organizations/textbook companies who have no simple solutions, only sticky fingers. I can't wait to get out of here! Give me my diploma! It's been six years!

A Bookworm on Books

E-readers seem to be the new "thing." I'll admit, I've been in on my fair share of fads in my life and I do own an e-reader - albeit an out of date one that I was given for free. I do appreciate my e-reader and I love having it, don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not going to get rid of it or anything foolish like that. However, a neighbor recently got an e-reader (new, brand name) for Christmas. Because she has the e-reader, she seems to have given up on the idea of paper-and-glue books. This baffles me.

Yes, an e-reader is light, but unless you're reading a biology textbook for fun, a book can't be all that heavy. Yes, e-readers are well lit and portable, but that big ball of fire in the sky can illuminate paper as well as it illuminates electrical devices. Call me a purist, if you like. I prefer the term bookworm. I have books on my e-reader that I do not own in print. This does save me money, but looking at my personal library, I know I'm not ready to add much. I'm already taking home a trash bag full of books (also free gifts; can't wait to get into them!) and, as such, can see where the e-reader will be taking up a lot less space in my car and on my crowded bookshelves. Those are two benefits of e-readers I can't deny - they do save money and take up less space.

Still, there are times when I want to really live the story with the characters and you can't always do that with an e-reader. A prime example is my e-reader copy vs. my printed copy of Watership Down. There are footnotes in the book, designed to explain aspects of Lapine life as the author has developed them. In the e-reader copy, these footnotes are contained where the page ends in the hard copy. What does this mean? You're reading and you come across an unfamiliar phrase, but in the e-book copy you can't find an explanation of the phrase until you hit the end of the printed page, which may not happen for another screen. The footnotes appear in the middle of the narrative, in some cases. This just makes for awkward reading.

Another example of awkward e-reader reading is when I'll run across a typo. Well, not a typo. It's more like two words were accidentally jammed together. I have to go back and re-read to figure out which words I'm supposed to be reading. This breaks the narrative and interrupts my reading - do not want!

As I said at the beginning of this blog entry, I do like my e-reader. I enjoy the ease of reading - when I don't run across an amalgamated typo - and I like that I can read multiple books at once. I like having the e-reader, but it has its place. I don't see an electronic device ever replacing my books. I mean, when's the last time you had to plug a book in to charge it before you could continue reading?

Wordless Wednesday - Almost

A real page turner

My series of blog posts on literary villains has been put on hold since real life doesn't seem to want to slow down for me and it's difficult to write about specific villains when you don't have the literature in front of you. My books are all packed up right now, ready for me to get moved into my on campus apartment tomorrow. Today, I thought I would write about a different book that doesn't fall in with my preferred genre of fantasy. Of course, after the first few chapters, I hardly noticed. The night I finished book one of G.M. Dyrek's The Seer and the Scribe series, I stayed up late to do it. I couldn't stop turning the pages and had to know what happened next. Nothing turned out the way I expected, but I was smiling by the end.

Spear of Destiny is the first book in a series that "begins where recorded history is silent" introducing characters such as Hildegard of Bingen and Volmar, a monk and scribe at the monastery at Disibodenberg. The story is set in 12th century Germany, which is a period I know I've never studied. Despite that, I had no trouble at all keeping track of what was happening in the book. Everything starts fairly suddenly, with news of Hildegard's talents as a seer that allowed her to see a murder that had taken place generations ago at the monastery. Volmar listens to her story and helps her find proof that it was true, but before they can find a way to bring the old murderer to justice, Volmar is told of a holy relic with a powerful curse. When another body turns up at the monastery, it is up to Volmar's scientific mind to find out what really happened.

The book isn't very slow to start; it seems to be just the right amount between the opening scenes and the first subplot. Foot notes are provided at the bottom to explain details of monastic life that modern readers may not understand otherwise. I don't normally read historical fiction or murder mysteries, but I already want to get a copy of the next book in the series, Methuselah's Secret. Another cool detail: the author's son and niece are the models for Volmar and Hildegard, respectively. They appear on the cover and in the pencil illustrations inside. The illustrations added another cool angle when they appeared; the black and white style seemed very complementary of the setting and time period of the story. Thank you so much to my mom over at Crazed Mind for letting me review the book. I loved it!

No money was made off of this review. It's just my opinion. :)

Visiting the Classics

I read a lot. Any chance I get, really. Of course, during the semester, my free time to read diminishes significantly in favor of academia related reading. A lot of that reading is good, of course-Macbeth, Henry V, The Mousetrap, etc.-but there's nothing like reading a good piece of literature and knowing I won't have to analyze and dissect it afterward. This semester, I'm visiting some classics.

The first one I picked up was originally read for school. I simply couldn't keep up with the rest of the class when we read Gone With the Wind. I hadn't really been exposed to it before, so I knew nothing about the story. As a result of the forced march reading style the class demanded-I remember having to read four chapters in one night to catch up-I didn't take to the book or it's characters on my first read-through. Some parts of it were over my head. I found Scarlett O'Hara to be stereotyped heavily, a flat character, always the spoiled child pouting to get her way. Why was she the heroine of this story? Why had the story lasted so long?

A year passed before I could pick the book up again. Visiting it on my own terms, within my own schedule, made all the difference. With the ability to go back and re-read passages as often as I wanted, to linger over some, I finally fell in love with the book. I truly saw, for the first time, every sign of Rhett's care for Scarlett. I saw every small change in the Southern belle as she was forced to face the real world. I watched the characters grow and evolve. It has since become a favorite, though one I only pick up when I have the time to dedicate to reading it.

Another that was more of an instant favorite was Watership Down. Richard Adams was brilliant in his writing, taking simple creatures-rabbits-and inventing them an entire culture, with its own myths and legends. I've made the journey with Hazel, Bigwig, Fiver, and all the rest countless times and have loved it more each time. Anyone who hasn't read this book needs to because it is spectacular.

My most recent acquisition in the area of classic literature has much the same story, for me, as Gone With the Wind did. In all honesty, the whole reason I picked up The Grapes of Wrath was because the book I was reading I had left in the car. I looked to my bookshelf and considered before spotting The Grapes of Wrath and thinking to myself I'd never read it before. I grabbed it, taking a chance. So far, I'm only on chapter six and I've completely fallen in love. The simple wording Steinbeck uses makes the images he paints all the more vivid. He doesn't waste words; I appreciate that immensely.

Still, wordy or not, I love most of the literature I've picked up. I wonder what I'll be reading next.