Regency meets Technology Age

I am a person who has always been fascinated by history; I've always wanted to live in other periods, experience other eras, understand historical societies. I read historical fiction as a child and young adult, drew pictures of historical costumes, wanted to visit every museum I ever encountered.

As a person devoted to history, I have a shameful little secret . I love technology. Which is, I suppose, a good thing, as I am an electronically published author. But I am a technofreak--there, I am now out of the closet.

I'd love to have a Blackberry, and a personal DVD player, and an iPod, and a laptop, and a Mac, and a Kindle (only they are not available in Canada) ...and...and...and

But until Christmas I only had a desktop PC -- not even an LCD monitor! Now I have a Sony E-book Reader, a gift from my husband. And it's wonderful (so is he!).

My family and friends, not being technologically inclined, were never quite sure I really was an author, writing real books. They couldn't go and buy one of my books from a shelf, therefore it wasn't quite true. Now I can show them my books--show them how people read my books, and how people buy my books. That, for me, is great.

Needless to say, I have all my own books loaded on my Sony Reader. I have some of my friends' books loaded up--Jana Richards and Judith Glad right now. I have some classics: Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope. There are genre fiction books--Jennifer Crusie, Merline Lovelace, and Ken Follett. And I have two or three reference books about the Regency that I am reading--Real Life in London, Hints of Etiquette and the Usages of Society, and The Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight. These last I downloaded from Google Books--what a great resource, but that is another post entirely.

Anyway, I have nineteen books on my Sony Reader right now, and it is 5" x 7" and 1/2" thick. It's a little miracle. It has three font sizes, holds pictures and music, can be oriented from portrait to landscape positioning, shows slideshows, and the memory cards can be swopped out for more space.

You can buy items from the Sony E-book Store, or load PDF and Rich-text documents from your own computer. This last is a great thing for me, because what I want to read often does not come from currently available literature.

I'll continue on with my love of history--and the Regency era was a time of great innovation much like our own age. But there will always be a piece of me playing with technology...my own version of a split personality!

Til next time,
Lesley-Anne