According to a story in the local paper, an independent data company has established that, post Bank Holiday and everyone coming to town to go to the beach, the Southend R number is 1.6, as opposed to the official number of 0.6 for the East of England. (I think our local R was still around 3 in April.)
My travel Kindle (yes, I have two Kindles, one for the bedroom and one for my shoulder bag) lives in the office now. I’m buying more books on Kindle today. As I’ve said before, the joys of the Kindle are 1) that I don’t fill my already overstuffed little house with more books 2) I can carry a library in my hand. Having two Kindle Paperwhites is a terrible indulgence, but it’s not like I fly around on private jets or anything.
So I’m buying books. And the Amazon recommendations system – and yes, Amazon ecology, bad for things, I know, but see above about small house and also listen I’m paying real money that I know reaches writers in some form in the end because I are one — seems to think I’m extremely interested in grief. To the extent that it feels like Amazon’s version of that Facebook experiment to see if it can make people clinically depressed. Oh, you like books from Fitzcarraldo? Here are just the ones that specifically use the word “grief” in their descriptions. You’ve bought Booker Prize winners? Here are recent Booker-nominated works that mention the word “grief” in the top paragraph. You like science fiction books? These are our suggestions for you, please note that they are all about grief.
Excellent timing.
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