I freaking love you, Tina Fey

Well that was a FUN start to 2012!
Having had a bit of a, shall we say, odd week, which involved, amongst other things drawing pictures of buses making love and googling 'Robbie Williams eats hamsters in and around Stoke' FOR WORK, one thing I really didn't need was to feel shit about my Kindle.
For anyone who doesn't follow me (@BookElfLeeds) and therefore hasn't seen my blatant product placement (VOUCHERS WOULD BE EXCELLENT, AMAZON, THANK YOU), I got a Kindle for Christmas. This was mostly due to my Dad wanting to read a book about Corruption that's only available as an eBook, so I didn't actually got to play with it until well after Festive Times Had Past, but never mind...
I went round straight away to N's house to Play with my New Toy, resulting in much comparisons of technologies, which always feels odd to me, the world's biggest Ludditeophile. I have subsequently acquired some Lovely Tomes on it, and started to read.
First thing I tried was A Feast For Crows, book 4 of A Song of Ice and Fire. Couldn't do it. Couldn't figure out which font size I should be reading it in, couldn't skip to the maps/family trees/other books with ease whilst having several fingers in the book which meant I had to remember what the chuff was going on all the time, which as we all know is impossible whilst reading Game of Thrones, sorry, sorry A Song Of Ice A Fire (Game of Thrones, DUM diddle diddle DUM diddle diddle etc etc). I finally caved and borrowed R's dead tree version and am now about a third of the way in and it is EXCELLENT.
I then read Unbearable Lightness, the memoir of Portia De Rossi, because I strongly believe the first book one reads in a year should be as depressing as possible. Having never had an eating disorder, it's not for me to judge or review this book, however it is incredibly gripping, and sad, and I would recommend it.
Reading Unbearable Lightness was, for some weird reason, really easy to read on the Kindle. I couldn't figure it out, was it just because this is a linear story that doesn't require constantly referring to maps? Then I tried reading Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men and I couldn't read that either! No maps in that!
Then the magic happened; I started reading Tina Fey.
I love Tina Fey. Mean Girls made me laugh more than anything ever in the world ever. I've never watched SNL, but from the sounds of it, I would enjoy it, and I just adore 30 Rock. I saw that she had a memoir thing out a few years ago after the Sarah Palin shit hit the fan, and remember thinking 'oooo I want to read that', but knowing that I never would.
I just don't read celebrity biographies! Over the past five years I've read a shed load of historical biographies, including that fun period where I was utterly obsessed with the Mitford Sister's and Bess of Hardwick. I read Caitlin Moran's book last year, but only because if I hadn't I would have had to hand my 'lady-book-blogger-who's-also-a-raging-lefty-feministbot' badge back in. I don't read the one's that are bestsellers every year, the Peter Kays, the Kerry Katona's, because they look universally shite, I'm surrounded with them at work, they are incredibly popular and I cannot be arsed.
I guess celebrity biography is where my secret bigotry really comes out; I completely judge people who read them. They're what non-readers give sometimes-readers for Christmas and what celebrities say are their favourite books. I know this is completely inaccurate, and highly elitist for me to be saying, but it's what I've always, in the back of my head, secretly believed. Which is very bad of me.
And that's why I think I could read Bossypants with such glee abandon on my Kindle-no one new I was reading it!
This is what I don't get-why eBook readers haven't picked up on this as a massive advertising campaign-people like trash, are embarrassed by what they like to read because we live in a world where people who like sci-fi are nerds and people who like romance novels are stupid. When Kindles first came out, sales of erotica on Amazon rose by some ridiculous figure (I've definitely read somewhere but cannot find the source of it right now, sorry) in the first six months-I personally cannot wait until payday so I can read me some porn on the bus (AGAIN, AMAZON, VOUCHERS WOULD BE LOVELY). Ebook reader's biggest market is people over fifty, probably because they can afford them and The Young all want ipads or whatever it is the kids are playing with these days, so we've got a load of middle aged people reading porn on trains and there has been no advertising campaign that reflects this!
I feel ashamed to discover I secretly love celebrity biographies but only when no one knows I'm reading them, even more so because I've spent so long bitching about people judging people by what they read. But what to do? I've just downloaded shit loads in glee at the thought of months of happy reading on the bus.
I might get a badge saying 'Currently reading...' and then I can write whatever I'm reading on it, so that when I am reading my Kindle on the train, I don't feel so much like I'm contributing to reading snobbery, looking like a nice middle class girl who's probably reading Austen, or something, when I'm actually reading 'Naked Heat' (It's a real book!!!!!!!). Or a t-shirt saying 'I've Only Got A Kindle So I Can Read More Ladyporn'. Or something.
Or maybe it's just been a stressful week and my brain has craved Fey? Who knows!

Happy Reading!
BookElf xxx

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