I had had never considered using a Kindle, at least not as my sole reading aid till some years ago. Even when the kids bought me one regardless, I only read on it occasionally, still preferring my books. But fate has its own ways of asserting itself. With deteriorating eyesight, I began relying more and more on my Kindle and Kindle Cloud App, as they offered the convenience of increasing the font size and adjusting the brightness to help reading.

At first, I went bonkers shopping on the Kindle. I found some great classics that I had not read which were either available for a song or were free to download. One of them was 1984 by George Orwell. What a chilling prediction of exactly what is transpiring around the world today — all in the name of Liberalism. Wonder how I had missed reading it before. In addition to some great Tamil novels by my favourite authors like Sivasankari and Anuradha Ramanan, I also bought Sanjeev Sanyal’s The Incredible history of India’s Geography, Vamsee Juluri’s Writing Across a Cracked World among others in quick succession.

I downloaded the entire Wizard of Oz series too. I think it was free. I had read a beautifully illustrated abridged version of the book when I was in middle school, but finding the entire series and reading them all, in my 60s was such great fun! Then, there was Wind in the Willows, Charlotte’s Web, The Little Prince, and Winnie the Pooh.  So, I love children’s and young adult books, ok? I also enjoy the ‘coming of age’ books. The older one used to tell me that I am regressing in age, and that soon his daughter would overtake me! That she has already overtaken me some years ago, is another matter.

After the initial euphoria, I realised that it was not economical or even practical to buy so many e-books, especially since I could not line them up in my shelves to act as eye-candy! A circulating e-library would have been ideal. I tried Kindle Unlimited but didn’t like it enough to subscribe.  

If I wasn’t going to save the downloaded books, it made sense to try the free e-books. Only this segment is flooded with books that I would not touch with a bargepole. To be honest, nearly 90% of free e-books out there are close to, if not actually trash. And never having been a fan of chick lit, romcoms, erotica, horror, thrillers and the like even during my younger years, I had no interest in them now. Going by the mindboggling numbers of these books, there is a thriving market for them!

The reason for this glut is that it is perhaps the easiest way to publish a book, especially for the newbies. Conventional publishing has become a complicated and expensive technical exercise today, with paid editors, PR and marketing professionals and a significant social media following, for the publishers to even glance at your manuscript. To be fair, for every bestseller, there is an equal number of reasonably good books that just do not make it, for reasons cited above. In fact, even bestsellers are often just ‘made’ by media houses and other literary bodies, with the hapless readers being lured into buying them.

Coming back to my e-book quest, there were these notification/ads that kept appearing on my timeline with regular frequency and just as regularly, I kept ignoring it. Till one day, its persistence won out, and I clicked the link. The name intrigued me – The Fussy Librarian it said. I like librarians in general and a fussy one sounded intriguing. Did it mean the librarian would be super choosy in sending recommendations? There was only one way to find out, and since I could always unsubscribe if it was no good, I subscribed, selecting the categories that interested me from their list.

The Fussy Librarian is a book promotion portal that offers first-time writers a platform and promote their books through limited period free download and bargain offers to readers. You can subscribe to either or both – free and bargain books. It calls itself your ‘personal librarian’ and the recommendation mails come to you from the ‘Head Librarian!’ For someone with a vivid imagination, all the above appealed immensely.

Though I get good recommendations from TFL, the librarian sometimes tries to sneak in a romcom or psychological thriller! I also am not too fond of the various series that are sometimes recommended, possibly to induce a mistake on my part! But I have found some good books in a variety of topics in the past couple of years that I have been subscribed to it. Many of them are well written, vindicating my belief that there are many books out there that are denied their place in the bestseller lists for dubious commercial reasons.

Only the Young Adult category has consistently disappointed. I mean, do young people now only read about witches, wizards, magic, secret superpowers, and saving the galaxy? Or are these the ones Fussy Librarian ends up getting, and therefore promoting?

That said, it is true that most of the books could do with a ruthless ‘slash-and-cut’ type of editing to cut out verbosity and make them shorter and crisper. I have issues with the language too. The idiotic use of ‘I’ everywhere, even where a ‘me’ is needed gets my goat. Another irritant is using ‘laid’ for lay – as in ‘I laid down.’ Huh? What did you lay down, I wanted to ask the first time I came across this gem. Perhaps I have been left behind in the inexorable march of this new English. If after downloading, I find the first few pages peppered with such gems, I just delete the book!

I like stories of struggles and surviving, of overcoming hardships, and I am unapologetic about it. Over the years I have come to look for such books, both fiction and non-fiction that deal with human psychology and provide good insights into human behaviour under various situations. They often bop me on my head to remind me that my struggles are not unique, and help me look at my own struggles with a fresh perspective. Read this article about how fiction helps dealing with real life.

Let me share a few titles which I have enjoyed so far, with a lot more in my ‘library, inc;uding several of them on psychology and spirituality, waiting to be read.

• The Frontier Sisters by A.T. Butler is about the westward journey of three sisters during the Gold Rush. I liked it for the insights into the intricate relationship between them and how they navigate and come to terms with their true natures. I could identify with the youngest sister at many places in the story.
•  One Day I will Meet You by Tamar Ashkenazi, chronicles the heartbreaking journey of an Israeli woman to adopt a Russian girl – going through political manipulation and frustrating delays by the Communist regime, which create an emotional distance between the child and her adoptive mother when they finally get united after several years.
• Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom is the riveting, true, nail-biting escape from slavery of the husband-and-wife duo of William and Ellen Craft, a quarter century before the Civil War.
• I downloaded What Makes a Man a Hero by Daphne Simpkins for the heck of it. A Father’s Day collection of stories about ordinary men who are heroes to their families, I fully expected it to be soppy with cringeworthy stories, but was pleasantly surprised to find it down-to-earth, witty, off-beat, and well written.  
• Letters to Whitman was another great find. A fictional account of an injured Union soldier writing to the poet Walt Whitman who volunteered in the army hospital after returning to his regiment. Witty, with some ‘reviews’ of his poetry, the short story is a quick read.
• Chasing Rabbits by Rodolfo Del Toro is the story of the life-altering experiences of two medical interns in the paediatric cancer ward of a hospital.
• In my favourite ‘coming of age’ and tween category, I would put The Gangs of Athol and Sorry You Missed it.

I have since tried several similar sites but have unsubscribed from them almost immediately because they were either spamming me with promos and upgrades, or sending me hundreds of titles, some even in categories I hadn’t opted for. No such hanky-panky with the Fussy Librarian — just the selected, no-nonsense recommendations in the frequency you have opted for. I am not sure how good a platform it is for the authors, but would highly recommend it to book lovers who are game to pick up a good book by a debutant.

Pics: Zephyr’s Personal collection