Yes, so many different revenue streams. I get all my books from charity shops as it’s win-win - cheap books for me, money for them. And I donate them again afterwards.
On Kindle etc, you can also get lost treasures from the '20s and '30s (and even earlier) which aren’t popular enough to get printed by the big houses.
As an English LA teacher it appalls me how teenagers can read through a series of novels as lengthy as the latter HP books and still not pick up a sense of spelling, capitalization, paragraphing and punctuation to apply in their own writing.
e.g.:
dumbledore sliped the putouter back inside his cloak and set of down the street toward number four were he sat down on the wall next to the cat he didnt look at it but after a moment he spoke to it fancy seeing u here professor mcgonagall he turned too smile at the tabby but it had gone instead he was smiling at a rather severe looking women who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape off the markings the cat had had around it’s eyes she to was wearing a cloak an emerald one her black hair was drawn into a tight bun she looked distinctly ruffled how did u now it was me she asked my dear professor ive never seen a cat sit so stiffly ud be stiff if ud been sitting on a brick wall all day said professor mcgonagall all day when u could have been celebrating i must have passed a dozen feast’s and party’s on my way hear professor mcgonagall sniffed angrily oh yes everyones celebrating all right she said impatiently ud think theyd be a bit more careful but no even the muggle’s of noticed somethings going on it was on there news she jerked her head back at the dursleys dark living room window i heard it flock’s of owls shooting star’s well their not completely stupid they where bound too notice something shooting star’s down in kent ill bet that was dedalus diggle he never had much cents u cant blame them said dumbledore gently weve had precious little too celebrate for eleven year’s i know that said professor mcgonagall irritably but thats now reason to loose our head’s people r being downright careless out on the street’s n broad daylight not even dressed n muggle clothes swapping rumor’s she threw a sharp sideway’s glance at dumbledore hear as tho hoping he was going to tell her something but he didnt so she went on a fine thing it wood be if on the very day you now who seems too of disappeared at last the muggle’s found out about us all i suppose he really has gone dumbledore it certainly seems so said dumbledore we have much too be thankfull for would u care for a lemon drop
I gave up after the fourth line.
My impression based on teenagers in my family is this: texting has impacted their writing skills negatively. No punctuation, no capitalization, just stream-of-consciousness, and no re-reading of what they have written.
And when I tell them “writing is communication, so if you cannot write clearly you cannot communicate clearly” they just shrug it off and tell me their friends get what they mean.
Well, do they? Am I just too old and too rigid to understand that “freestyle”?
The question is;
Is that lack of understanding or, is it lack of drive?
As the current President of the United States so proudly demonstrates, writing in a manner that poor can come from anyone, regardless of age, if they don’t particularly care about those they are communicating at (saying to seemed wrong in this context)
The diary manufacturers ‘Leuchtturm’ have a nice slogan: “Writing is thinking with the hand”.
Of course a company selling - expensive - notebooks would say so. But I really think it is a difference whether you write a text by hand or type it. And then again a difference whether you type a text into a typewriter with foolscap - or type it into a word processing application that can effectively make any text look like it was professionally written and edited. In our day you had to know what you wanted to write, where your sentence - and the point of your argument - was going.
Do younger folks no longer communicate because of this? I suppose they communicate differently. There’s the bonmot - or is it a truism? - that irony doesn’t communicate over the Internet. Maybe therefore many users regale everything with irony indiscriminately, which then loses the point of it entirely.
For the purposes of the net, where so many discussions are not in fact about a topic but about making a statement that generates a reaction, any reaction, exchanges could entirely happen with emojis. That would still be communication, even though sender and recipient on purpose leave aside much of the information content.
Frankly, I have no good idea how to change this; I’m not even sure it needs to change when folks apparently are happy to forego the basic rules of language. Make kids write diaries with hand again? Make ‘Written Language’ a high school subject? I really don’t know.
In school they still need to write differently but increasingly have difficulties doing it and accepting the reasons for it. My wife is a teacher and sometimes it takes huge efforts in abstract thinking to ponder the meaning of what one probably could still call a sentence.
The sad part of it: those who still force themselves to learn and use grammar will move on to better jobs, those who consider language skills ridiculous won’t. Which makes all the „no child gets left behind“-educational doctrine all the more absurd.
To be fair, it’s not only kids and young people. I work with texts that come from writers between 20 and 75 every day – and they claim to be pros, journalists. Grammar and wording is more a problem with the younger ones. They have the tendency to write like they speak, which doesn’t read too good at times. With the older ones, it’s sloppy writing.
Spelling is equally good or bad throughout the ages. No one seems to re-read their texts before handing them in. And as I doubt that they’re to stupid to use it, I’m under the impression that they’re simply to proud to use any form of grammar or spell-check. And the fact that most publishers have given up proofreading (costs money) doesn’t help.
How ‘bout that Spectre?
A brilliant film that I’ve just put on my iPad for travel purposes.
I know the soundtrack doesn’t get much love, but I particularly enjoy these atmospheres:
Donna Lucia
Madeleine
Silver Wraith
It gets criticism for reusing Skyfall ques, but given Barry’s scores from the 70’s and 80’s did that…
Arnold’s CR and QoS soundtracks are good, but I still prefer what Newman did and think his scores suit Craig’s Bond more. That said, let’s see what Zimmer delivers.
Indeed, let’s.
“I’m waitin’! This dump gives me the creeps.”
Arnold did have Vesper’s theme, which was potent. But overall, I think Newman had a greater sense of melancholic elegance that got closer to the heart of what Craig’s Bond is all about. Komodo Dragon being the best example - lush but very introspective.
Billie’s NTTD has become one of my favourite Bond songs ever, and Zimmer has that at his disposal. So you never know - Zimmer could match or even surpass that for me.
It’s Daniel Craig’s Moonraker… Nuff said.
You can all quote me on this in 15 years.
That would in fact be a big treat.
I’m counting on you now…
Oh yes I’d be there for that… especially if we were treated to a cameo from the pigeon
I’m sure they can splice it in somewhere…
Director‘s Cut, I suppose.
Did you not see the pigeon at the spectre meeting?