My sister is supplying fodder for my blog. Here is today’s offering (from Huffington Post), about the future of books.

I’m not sure how I feel about this topic. I do not romanticize books, turn them over in my hands to treasure, rever and keep forever. When our youngeset kid started kindergarten the teacher came to visit each child before school started, and I felt the need to explain that we did not have a lot of books in the house, but we made extensive use of the public library. (I feared that she would have a checklist of the important factors that correlate to academic success, and would write us off from day one.)

As you can deduce from my book reviews, I spend quite a bit of time reading real books, mostly from the library. I don’t have a Kindle or like, although I am open-minded about one being in my future.

The Concubine’s Daughter was a good antidote for some recent heavier reading. It was an example of how much of my knowledge about the world has come from fiction. Now I have learned a lot about martial arts, European merchants in China, herbal medicine, gangs, pre-WW2-Macau. (Since the main character did not have her feet bound, my knowledge of that practice has come from other novels.)  All of this was disguised in a bodice-ripping romantic swashbuckling adventure novel.What more could one ask for?

I see that this author has another book out “Red Lotus: A rare beauty. A fierce heart. A destiny she must resist.” I must not resist my own destiny – I’ll go look for this book in the library catalogue.

UPDATE: Whoa! I have just learned that Pai Kit Fai is actually Geoff Pike, an Australian-born writer, who is now over 80. Hmmm. However, he has a nice website so, after a moment of reconsideration, I’m ready to seek out the book anyway. Australia is high on my radar these days.