What I'm reading
Sep. 29th, 2019 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readerjaneSo a couple of weeks ago there was an update to iOS 13.1. And now I can no longer download AO3 fics into the Kindle app on my phone. Pah. The phone seems as if it's downloading the fic, but it doesn't ask whether I want to open the .mobi document in Kindle, and if I check in the Kindle app, it can't see the document I just downloaded. The Kindle app can see the earlier .mobi files from AO3... or it could until I uninstalled and re-installed Kindle; now those are gone as well.
I worked out that if I download fics in .EPUB form, iOS's native Books app can read them. And (this is the crucial part) like the Kindle app, I can switch the Books app's background to black for reading at night when I want to be able to go back to sleep, but just need to distract the anxiety hamster long enough to stop it running on its wheel and make it settle down. I can't select a dark background with AO3's mobile website in a browser. This is an acceptable workaround: purchased books in the Kindle app, and downloaded fic in the Books app, both available with either bright or dim formats.
Only, the Books app appears to be *coaching* me. Earlier this morning it said I had met my "reading goal" for the day and then had the temerity to congratulate me for having read two days in a row! Must do some more research to see whether the whole "goals" functionality can be turned off, or the Books app may become in itself a throwing book.
Anyway.
Through that wonderful practice of Favorites crawling (find an author, enjoy lots of good stories, then go through that author's own favorites or bookmarks to find others), I've discovered Dira Sudis, and her Vorkosigan series The World That You Need, which is a Cordelia/Aral/Jole series apparently written *before* Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. That makes me want to go back and check the scant breadcrumbs Bujold left on Jole himself, to see what thread Dira Sudis pulled on. Or maybe, her seeming prescience is due to the fact that, for any possible combination between characters, there is someone somewhere who ships them.
The writing is lovely, dark and deep.
So grateful for authors with skill and passion, for the interwebs which lets us find them, and for handheld technology, no matter how fiddly.
ETA: Settings | Notifications | Books app | OFF. Heh.
I worked out that if I download fics in .EPUB form, iOS's native Books app can read them. And (this is the crucial part) like the Kindle app, I can switch the Books app's background to black for reading at night when I want to be able to go back to sleep, but just need to distract the anxiety hamster long enough to stop it running on its wheel and make it settle down. I can't select a dark background with AO3's mobile website in a browser. This is an acceptable workaround: purchased books in the Kindle app, and downloaded fic in the Books app, both available with either bright or dim formats.
Only, the Books app appears to be *coaching* me. Earlier this morning it said I had met my "reading goal" for the day and then had the temerity to congratulate me for having read two days in a row! Must do some more research to see whether the whole "goals" functionality can be turned off, or the Books app may become in itself a throwing book.
Anyway.
Through that wonderful practice of Favorites crawling (find an author, enjoy lots of good stories, then go through that author's own favorites or bookmarks to find others), I've discovered Dira Sudis, and her Vorkosigan series The World That You Need, which is a Cordelia/Aral/Jole series apparently written *before* Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. That makes me want to go back and check the scant breadcrumbs Bujold left on Jole himself, to see what thread Dira Sudis pulled on. Or maybe, her seeming prescience is due to the fact that, for any possible combination between characters, there is someone somewhere who ships them.
The writing is lovely, dark and deep.
So grateful for authors with skill and passion, for the interwebs which lets us find them, and for handheld technology, no matter how fiddly.
ETA: Settings | Notifications | Books app | OFF. Heh.
