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Addictive Writer Written and Managed by R. Alex Jenkins Services Professional services offered by me as a freelance writer, copywriter, translator and editor, including experience and other details. ​ Book Reviews Horror, Science Fiction, Thrillers, Dystopia, Extreme and Disturbing Literature, Existentialism, Classics, etc. ​R ecommended reads - plus some clangers too! 2 to 5 stars. Sortable by Title + Genre + Author + Rating. Expression Articles Articles, thoughts and ideas about Books, Digital E-readers and similar topics, such as how influenced we are by media and marketing. Poems The world, what's in it and how it feels to be alive 🖤. Darlin' My cursory attempt at a coming-of-age horror novel and thriller, with c hapters, descriptions, characters and samples. About R. Alex Jenkins Hello! ​ I live in Belém, Pará, north Brazil and speak fluent English and Portuguese. I am Welsh but consider myself equally English. ​ This site was initially planned as a mega resource for people suffering from depression and addiction - addictive writer - a sort of DIY guide for achieving a better you, but it's not the core ingredient of what makes us tick or remotely interesting to write or read about. ​ We've all got problems. ​ The only way to become a better you is to put the past behind you and learn to produce the goods and use it in your work. Life is for living, right? Try to move on and concentrate more energy, determination and love on creating rewarding content that people will (hopefully) want to read. ​ I am a freelancer writer, editor and translator, who also writes Book Reviews and related types of articles - Expression . The menus show the way. ​ Darlin' is my long-term ambition to write a coming-of-age novel with an emphasis on mental health and horror. ​ T here's even a bit of Poetry if that's your thing! ​ I particularly like reading and writing about dystopia, science fiction and existentialism, but I also enjoy noir, thrillers, vampires, Victorian England, classics, gravediggers and sometimes good romance. ​ What not join me on Goodreads and the Horror Haven reading group? ​ Wish me luck and support me if you can! Most of all, take care out there! About Contact Details Gmail Goodreads Outlook Certified Translator

Book Reviews Reviews by AUTHOR Be wary of extreme and disturbing triggers Title + Author + Genre + Rating 143 How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix average rating is 3 out of 5 Horror, Thriller, Supernatural Read Review 142 Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Collection by Arthur Conan Doyle average rating is 5 out of 5 Classics, Crime, Thriller, Short Stories Read Review 141 Misery by Stephen King average rating is 4 out of 5 Horror, Thriller Read Review 140 Books of Blood (Volumes 1 to 3) by Clive Barker average rating is 4 out of 5 Horror, Short Stories, Supernatural Read Review 139 Books of Blood (Volume 3) by Clive Barker average rating is 4 out of 5 Horror, Short Stories, Supernatural Read Review 138 The Time Machine by H.G. Wells average rating is 4 out of 5 Classics, Science Fiction, Fantasy Read Review 137 Models: Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson average rating is 4 out of 5 Self-help, Non-fiction Read Review 136 Books of Blood (Volume 2) by Clive Barker average rating is 4 out of 5 Horror, Short Stories, Supernatural Read Review 135 We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix average rating is 4 out of 5 Horror, Thriller, Supernatural Read Review 134 The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix average rating is 3 out of 5 Horror, Thriller Read Review LOAD MORE REVIEWS Tags

Reviews by Author All Reviews Author + Genre + Rating Agustina Bazterrica Tender Is The Flesh average rating is 4 out of 5 > Albert Camus The Stranger average rating is 4 out of 5 > Aldous Huxley Brave New World average rating is 4 out of 5 > Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl average rating is 4 out of 5 > Anne Rice Interview With The Vampire average rating is 4 out of 5 > Arthur Conan Doyle His Last Bow (SH #8) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Arthur Conan Doyle A Study in Scarlet (SH #1) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Collection average rating is 5 out of 5 > Arthur Conan Doyle The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (SH #9) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Arthur Conan Doyle The The Unofficial Stories of Sherlock Holmes (SH #10) average rating is 3 out of 5 > Arthur Conan Doyle The Hound of The Baskervilles (SH #5) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Arthur Conan Doyle The Valley of Fear (SH #7) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin average rating is 3 out of 5 > Blake Crouch Dark Matter average rating is 5 out of 5 > Bram Stoker Dracula average rating is 5 out of 5 > Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho average rating is 4 out of 5 > Carlos Castaneda The Power of Silence average rating is 4 out of 5 > Charles Darwin The Origin of Species average rating is 3 out of 5 > Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities average rating is 5 out of 5 > Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre average rating is 5 out of 5 > Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wall-Paper average rating is 5 out of 5 > Clive Barker Books of Blood (Volumes 1 to 3) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Clive Barker Books of Blood (Volume 2) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Clive Barker Books of Blood (Volume 3) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Clive Barker Books of Blood (Volume 1) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Cormac McCarthy The Road average rating is 5 out of 5 > Cormac McCarthy Blood Meridian average rating is 5 out of 5 > D.E. McCluskey Zola average rating is 2 out of 5 > D.H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers average rating is 4 out of 5 > D.H. Lawrence Lady Chatterley's Lover average rating is 4 out of 5 > Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People average rating is 4 out of 5 > Dan Simmons Hyperion average rating is 5 out of 5 > Daniel Keyes Flowers For Algernon average rating is 4 out of 5 > Daphne du Maurier Rebecca average rating is 5 out of 5 > Dave Pelzer A Child Called It average rating is 4 out of 5 > Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything (#3) average rating is 5 out of 5 > Douglas Adams The Restaurant at The End of The Universe (#2) average rating is 5 out of 5 > Douglas Adams The Hitchhikers's Guide To The Galaxy (#1) average rating is 5 out of 5 > Edgar Allan Poe The Raven average rating is 4 out of 5 > Erich Maria Remarque All Quiet On The Western Front average rating is 4 out of 5 > Fyodor Dostoeveky Crime And Punishment average rating is 4 out of 5 > George Eliot Middlemarch average rating is 5 out of 5 > George Orwell 1984 average rating is 5 out of 5 > George Orwell Animal Farm average rating is 5 out of 5 > George R.R. Martin A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire #2) average rating is 5 out of 5 > George R.R. Martin A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) average rating is 5 out of 5 > Grady Hendrix The Final Girl Support Group average rating is 3 out of 5 > Grady Hendrix We Sold Our Souls average rating is 4 out of 5 > Grady Hendrix How to Sell a Haunted House average rating is 3 out of 5 > Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary average rating is 5 out of 5 > H.G. Wells The Door In The Wall average rating is 3 out of 5 > H.G. Wells The Time Machine average rating is 4 out of 5 > H.G. Wells The War of The Worlds average rating is 4 out of 5 > H.G. Wells The Invisible Man average rating is 3 out of 5 > H.P. Lovecraft The Dunwich Horror average rating is 4 out of 5 > H.P. Lovecraft The Shadow Over Innsmouth average rating is 3 out of 5 > H.P. Lovecraft At The Mountains of Madness average rating is 3 out of 5 > Henry James The Turn of The Screw average rating is 2 out of 5 > Herman Melville Moby Dick average rating is 3 out of 5 > Horace Walpole The Castle of Otranto average rating is 2 out of 5 > Iain Banks The Wasp Factory average rating is 4 out of 5 > Isabel Cañas Vampires of El Norte average rating is 3 out of 5 > J.R.R. Tolkien The Fellowship of The Ring (LOTR #1) average rating is 5 out of 5 > J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit average rating is 5 out of 5 > J.R.R. Tolkien The Two Towers (LOTR #2) average rating is 5 out of 5 > J.R.R. Tolkien The Return of The King (LOTR #3) average rating is 5 out of 5 > Jack Donovan The Way of Men average rating is 3 out of 5 > Jack Ketchum Offspring average rating is 4 out of 5 > Jack Ketchum The Girl Next Door average rating is 5 out of 5 > Jack Ketchum The Lost average rating is 3 out of 5 > Jack Ketchum Off Season average rating is 5 out of 5 > James Joyce Ulysses average rating is 2 out of 5 > James Joyce Dubliners average rating is 2 out of 5 > Jane Austen Emma average rating is 3 out of 5 > Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice average rating is 5 out of 5 > Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility average rating is 4 out of 5 > Jane Austen Persuasion average rating is 4 out of 5 > Jane Austen Northanger Abbey average rating is 3 out of 5 > Jane Austen Mansfield Park average rating is 3 out of 5 > Jason Rekulak Hidden Pictures average rating is 3 out of 5 > Jeremy Bates The Sleep Experiment average rating is 2 out of 5 > Joe Haldeman The Forever War average rating is 4 out of 5 > John Ajvide Lindqvist Let The Right One In average rating is 5 out of 5 > Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels average rating is 4 out of 5 > Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu Carmilla average rating is 4 out of 5 > Kenneth Grahame The Wind in the Willows average rating is 5 out of 5 > Kristopher Triana Gone To See The River Man average rating is 4 out of 5 > Kurt Vonnegut Slaughter House-Five average rating is 3 out of 5 > Mario Puzo The Godfather average rating is 5 out of 5 > Mark Manson Models: Attract Women Through Honesty average rating is 4 out of 5 > Markus Zusak The Book Thief average rating is 3 out of 5 > Mary Shelley Frankenstein average rating is 4 out of 5 > Matt Shaw Sick Bastards average rating is 2 out of 5 > Matt Shaw Porn average rating is 2 out of 5 > Matt Shaw, Michael Bray Home-Video average rating is 2 out of 5 > Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich average rating is 4 out of 5 > Neville Shute On The Beach average rating is 3 out of 5 > Niccolo Machiavelli The Prince average rating is 3 out of 5 > Nick Cutter The Troop average rating is 4 out of 5 > Oscar Wilde The Canterville Ghost average rating is 4 out of 5 > Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray average rating is 4 out of 5 > P.G. Wodehouse The Inimitable Jeeves (Jeeves #2) average rating is 3 out of 5 > P.G. Wodehouse The Code of The Woosters (Jeeves #7) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? average rating is 5 out of 5 > Philip K. Dick A Scanner Darkly average rating is 4 out of 5 > Rachel Harrison Such Sharp Teeth average rating is 3 out of 5 > Ray Bradbury Fahreinheit 451 average rating is 5 out of 5 > Richard Matheson I Am Legend average rating is 5 out of 5 > Roald Dahl Charlie and the Chocolate Factory average rating is 4 out of 5 > Roald Dahl James and the Giant Peach average rating is 4 out of 5 > Robert A. Glover No More Mr. Nice Guy average rating is 4 out of 5 > Robert Louis Stevenson Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde average rating is 4 out of 5 > Robert M. Persig Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance average rating is 4 out of 5 > Ryan C. Thomas The Summer I Died average rating is 5 out of 5 > Ryan C. Thomas Born To Bleed average rating is 2 out of 5 > S.E. Hinton The Outsiders average rating is 4 out of 5 > Samuel R. Delany Hogg average rating is 3 out of 5 > Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House average rating is 4 out of 5 > Stephen King 'Salem's Lot average rating is 4 out of 5 > Stephen King Carrie average rating is 5 out of 5 > Stephen King Misery average rating is 4 out of 5 > T.H. White The Sword In The Stone (TOAFK #1) average rating is 4 out of 5 > Thomas Hardy Tess of the D’Urbervilles average rating is 4 out of 5 > Ursula K. Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness average rating is 4 out of 5 > Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon The Deep average rating is 4 out of 5 > Viktor E. Frankl Man's Search For Meaning average rating is 5 out of 5 > Walter M. Miller A Canticle For Leibowitz average rating is 4 out of 5 > Wayne Smith Thor average rating is 5 out of 5 > Willa Cather My Ántonia average rating is 3 out of 5 > William Gibson Neuromancer average rating is 3 out of 5 > William Golding Lord of The Flies average rating is 3 out of 5 > William Peter Blatty The Exorcist average rating is 5 out of 5 > William Shakespeare Hamlet average rating is 3 out of 5 > William Shakespeare Othello average rating is 3 out of 5 > William Shakespeare Macbeth average rating is 3 out of 5 > William Shakespeare A Midsummer's Night Dream average rating is 4 out of 5 > William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice average rating is 3 out of 5 > William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet average rating is 4 out of 5 > William Shakespeare Julius Caesar average rating is 3 out of 5 > William Shakespeare King Lear average rating is 3 out of 5 > William Strunk Jr, E.B. White The Elements of Style average rating is 4 out of 5 > Wrath James White, Monica J. O'Rourke Poisoning Eros average rating is 3 out of 5 > Yevgeny Zemyatin We average rating is 3 out of 5 >

< Back Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 4.0 average rating is 4 out of 5 Dystopia, Science Fiction R. Alex Jenkins Brave New World is a surprisingly enjoyable book with less technical and scientific complications than I expected. It's serious and profound yet also cynical and comical as it remembers to resurface into lighter territory and not get bogged down too much. Do not believe misconceptions that Huxley wrote a turgid, heavy and unwieldy work of scientific pomposity to drag you down into miserable dystopia , but instead breathes as dark and humorous utopia where sexual orgies are commonplace and positively encouraged! People take a collective happy drug every day called soma to tune into the frivolous, sexy fun rather than worry about technicalities such as how close your partner's werewolf eyebrows grow together. Why not live to the superficial max? Take soma all the time! Brave New World is detailed, informative, perceptive, imaginative, fun and flippant. Technology plays a big part, but so does socialism in a world where everyone belongs to everyone else. It’s not all good news though: open promiscuity transgresses what we now consider to be sexual harassment, with men expected to pat women on the butt as a matter of course. The book veers into unexpected waters, moving from a scientific landscape into a rural one, from modern acceptance of corporate brainwashing to basic questioning of everything we're expected to enjoy: the constant bombardment of sounds, media, attractions and entertainment, plus endless parties, gratification and orgy-porgies. A future world that tries so hard to be interesting it seems sterile and fake to the enlightened. No pain, no ageing, no heartache. No being alone. This is H.G. Wells on steroids: well written and fun to read, but also way out there, overtly sentient and a bit bonkers in places. What I really took from the book is our right to turn off the TV, media and all that associated nonsense and be on our own if we like. Can we escape being part of the organised collective? Yes, but only temporarily. This is why we read books - to escape - but also to get closer to each other. To silence the endless din and to live life at our own pace while still remaining part of the greater good. We read about a concise, organised and regimented brave new world that seems so appealing on the surface - with its endless rubber-stamped, drug-induced holidays, flirting, bonking, bling-bling and hollow entertainment - where frivolity is the point of life in a future world where people never age but simply die at a fixed point, who constantly take recreational drugs and behave like twenty-somethings forever. Any moral sense of right or wrong takes a back seat in a world where spirituality isn’t openly considered or discussed. People die totally unaware of God. Why are we even here? In this brave new world? Who cares! Let’s party, copulate and die forever young. We don't need pain and are encouraged not to suffer. If only life was that simple as an ultimate testament to youth. A chicken and egg situation, BNW says it’s time to party, but also reminds us that in the real world we have the right to be independent, alternative and simply ourselves. We don’t have to follow the collective norm like brainless cluckers all the time. What makes BNW so good is the essential message that it's okay to have fun and live in a perpetual party mode if you like, which we sometimes avoid in real life because we're so preoccupied with finances, personal image and behaving like moral human beings for numerous reasons. We worry so much about the opinions of others and how God might be judging us, we sometimes forget to have fun and live for today, while also having the right to age gracefully, stay at home whenever we don't feel like it and do whatever we want. Previous Next

Poems Bless your little heart 🖤! Love 💘🥀 ​ Are you sublime Or are you mine A feeling hard to meet When I turn And see your face And fall upon my feet Sun as rays And happy days A miscontrued perception A while to find The real cause A hope for no deception A hand of love A force above Are you the one who needs me A fathom walked A lifetime talked Perhaps the one who seeks me Or am I prone To being alone An empty swathe of fluster A bitter night A lonely fight A passion hard to muster Perhaps the one To take you home The one to walk you safely A journey's end To begin again I know I need you greatly​ Lamb To The Slaughter 🐑 ​ Rounded with a whip Hell over leather ​ Herd the braying quips Soft as a feather ​ Sharper than a knife Cut through and sever ​ Take home to the wife Sun or rainy weather ​ Salad gently tossed Tastes good forever ​ Stomach filled with nosh Satisfied with pleasure ​ Sitting back relaxed Bleating in the heather ​ Lying on its back Time for never never ​ Spanky 😱 ​ I wank I spank I beat all night for fun I toss The boss Oh how I love to cum ​ I slap The Jap Its one eye looking out I squeeze And tease Tonight's the longest bout ​ Planet 🪐 ​ A rose Or a flower In a desert-clearing green A cloud Or a shower In a planet-cleansing sheen ​ What has been What isn't What always will become What could be What shouldn't What never shall be calm ​ A make-shift Reliant A red breast on the wing A down-thrust Defiant Perhaps all birds can sing ​ What was once What had been What's never really sure What might be What may be A planet to the core ​

< Back E-Readers vs Physical Books R. Alex Jenkins Intro Overall, the pros of digital e-readers far outweigh the cons. Once you discover the flexibility of digital reading it's hard to exclusively go back to physical books. Technology exists for a reason, to facilitate our reading experience and help us, but there are also drawbacks to using such devices. Here are the positives and negatives of the e-reader experience, particularly the Amazon Kindle. Although not perfect, digital now suits most of my personal reading needs. Some books are not yet (and cannot be) digitalised and often feel more expensive than they deserve to be, so read through the Pros and Cons and see what you think. A small amount of books may never be available in digital format - artistic content, comics, manga or out-of-print novels - so physical copies will always be essential in certain circumstances. The Pros of Digital E-Readers 1. You can have a library of more books than can realistically ever be read, all in one place . This library can be carried around with you on a single lightweight device. On Kindle, books are immediately available through a WiFi connection to download after you purchase them. 2. If your device is lost, broken or destroyed, your digital books are backed up and safely stored with the provider you bought them from. Personal documents should be backed up too. There is no need to repurchase books or maintain a subscription once you've legally bought them. These books are yours forever and will always be associated with you. You can read them on other e-reader devices. On Amazon, books that you don't purchase on this platform can be transferred using ‘Send to Kindle’ to read on this device. Other e-reader manufacturers will have similar methods for transferring epub, mobi, pdf files, etc, to their devices. 3. On the Amazon website there is a list of all of the books you own, sortable in various ways, such as title, author, purchase order and most-recently read. Read.amazon.com is extremely useful. 4. On digital devices it's really easy to keep track of books you have read or that remain unread at the click of a button. No more stacking books on shelves and having to make personalised inventories (if you don't want to). Everything you own, read and download is right in front of you. 5. Digital means there are a lot less physical books to be stored and organised, often taking up valuable space and becoming a physical management problem. Bookworms, couples and families can accumulate thousands of books over time, which can be a problem to manage when doing any sort of relocation. 6. Digital books never get old, damaged or yellowed, and you never have to worry about replacing them over time. 7. Digital is more environmentally friendly than physical. No more cutting down of trees to produce paper pulp. Yes, electronics aren't exactly environmentally friendly either, but once a digital book is created it never has to be printed again. Granted, alternative publishers piggyback the same digital book to create their own versions, so there can be many duplicates out there. 8. Marginalia and highlights are easy to keep track of on digital devices. On Kindle, press the corresponding icon at the top of the screen for all your notes and highlights. No need to track back or hunt for abstract or esoteric details (although this can be fun). If you use Goodreads.com (also owned by Amazon), your highlights are automatically uploaded to the site for future reference, use in reviews and for sharing with others. It's a really great service. You can also send highlighted sections of text to any email address - a bit clunky, but more efficient than constantly jotting things down. There are also inbuilt features to highlight unknown words for immediate dictionary or Wikipedia definitions. You can inspect these words later on for each book, as well as take advantage of scrollable flashcards to improve vocabulary and learning. There is even a magnifying glass to delve even deeper and search for this word in your current book or in all texts on your Kindle. It's a pretty amazing cross-referencing tool. 9. You can easily change the font size on your digital devices. No more poor or miniscule texts that can hardly be read, and no more cracking the spine to really get in there. Lay the device on your lap if you like with both hands free. When I read physical books I usually have to wear glasses, but not with digital e-readers. This is such a bonus for physical-to-digital transitioners. 10. E-readers usually have a backlight, enabling you to read them anywhere, day or night. This is another transition delight from physical to digital - no need to find decent lighting all the time. I like holding my Kindle in one hand, being free with the other, or resting it on my lap. Physical books can be clumsy and awkward sometimes. 11. It's so easy to switch between tables of contents and chapters, and electronically bookmark your progress as you go. You never lose a page: just open your device and resume where you left off. 12. Books are normally less expensive in digital format for obvious reasons. There are so many free classics out there, too, through incentives such as the Gutenberg project. Want to read the complete works of Jane Austen? Do so right now for free! Physical books cost more money to make, reproduce, distribute, etc. 13. There are never any shipping fees! And there is rarely any wait for delivery on an established internet connection. 14. You can quickly and conveniently show other people your entire library, including recently read books, about to read, etc. No need to invite people round to see your physical collection (although that's pretty cool too). 15. Privacy. Let's say you're reading a really difficult book or collection that takes months to get through that you don't want to DNF. No longer feel embarrassed on the daily commute because you're always struggling with the same old tome. It doesn't have to be there for everyone to see. The Cons of Digital E-Readers 1. There is something amazing about owning a physical book that can never be beaten, like buying a vinyl album, taking the disc out of its sleeve and the rewarding sensation associated with that. We like to feel, smell and own things. This can't be fully replicated digitally. When you buy a new digital book, you don't have that material sense of possession, and something can feel missing. However, the important thing is to read books regardless of the medium they come on. It's about getting the experience into your head. You can do that equally well in digital and physical formats. You can go as much/little digital as you want, as well as having several copies of books in various formats. 2. For some people, digital loses that sense of immersion. Many people like to post photos or videos of themselves with massive bookshelves and collections to validate their status as avid readers. You lose that status somewhat with digital books. 3. If you already have a large collection of books, going digital can be a strange new direction and difficult to adapt to. For example: when do you start replacing physical volumes with digital ones? If you only own a few books at the moment, starting a digital collection is easy, but if you already own hundreds or even thousands of books, how can you make that switch? Is it worth it? It can be impossible to decide. You don’t have to go full-on digital, but go at your own pace and with what feels comfortable to you. 4. A digital device is more explicit than a physical book because it holds so much information about you and your reading habits. Some people can get possessive and even irritated by other people scouring their digital collections. Like a mobile phone, it can be wise to use a lock screen if you feel that way. 5. Many people like to outwardly display what they're reading. It validates them, like showing off the latest fashion or trend. The latest physical book of the month is there for everyone to see because of that physical, outward and ostentatious draw to it. Physical books can feel more important, personal and alive. 6. E-readers are far more expensive than individual books, so you'll feel the pinch if they get lost or broken. But then again, there's no danger of losing your entire collection because of fire, flood or another type of unforeseen event. E-readers are an excellent option for people who read a lot . 7. Other drawbacks of digital books: If you don't buy them on official sites you won't see them in retrospective digital collections. You may have to use multiple websites and different apps. The Kindle app and its associated websites are exclusively for Amazon customers, so, if you buy books elsewhere or have PDF or epub/mobi documents, you won't be able to manage them so easily. This ties you into Amazon, which doesn't suit everyone. Digital book publishers want to avoid piracy and also tie you into their services, which is understandable. This isn't a detriment to e-readers as such, but a drawback to exclusively using Amazon or any other digital service provider (think movie streaming services). However, Amazon allows you to transfer pretty much anything you digitally own to your e-reader device. But you can't upload notes and highlights to Goodreads (Amazon-owned) if you obtain these documents elsewhere, nor effectively manage your collection though Amazon apps. Over time you will be able to establish a collection of e-books, documents and physical books. I recommend a personalised spreadsheet and Goodreads to keep track of everything you own. 8. I live in Brazil and ebooks are much more expensive than they are in first-world countries (so are physical books). Book prices are multiplied by exchange rates and increased a little bit more. In relative country-based earnings, prices are often out of proportion. There is a reason for this: to avoid people logging in to foreign websites using a virtual private network (VPN) to purchase books at a fraction of the first-world-country price. Books cost the equivalent in foreign currency all over the world, which is justifiable for publishers and booksellers but bad for people living in poorer countries. Summary Owning a digital reader is part of the future and I recommend it. Thousands of free and cheap books are available from all over the world, with prices often being slashed and multiple bargains emerging all the time. It takes no time at all to get hold of digital books and they are always with you on a single compact device, but there are drawbacks: no physical purchase delight, ostentatiousness and less immersion. Some books aren't available in digital formats either because they've never been digitalized or are incompatible. As you can see, there's no concrete case for exclusively buying an e-reader and abandoning physical books, and you need a bit of both. My favourite aspect of digital is having everything in front of me all at once. It feels concise, clutter free, organised and modern. The most important thing as a book reader is to get that information into your head! If you think of anything else that might be missing from this list of Pros and Cons, please message me at richardalexjenkins@gmail.com . More about R. Alex Jenkins I went for an extended period from 2002 without regular access to new and competitively priced books. I struggled for a while with this transition after I moved from England to Brazil. There was no Kindle back then and no digital marketplace, so when I decided to go fully digital it was easier for me than for some other people. I had less physical books to replace, but sudden and astonishing access to millions of books at accessible prices. It changed my outlook entirely. The benefits of digital reading are phenomenal, but I can understand why many people are reluctant to make the switch. The popularity of physical books has resurged with younger generations, for physical, ownership, aesthetic and outwardly demonstrative reasons. Now I'm a digital convert, I would reluctantly go back to exclusive physical books, but I still buy real copies for multiple reasons: to own them, feel them, have them... The question is, what do books mean to you? Does intellectual property belong to you more because it’s printed on a physical page? What suits you best? Previous Next

< Back A Case Against Buzz Lists R. Alex Jenkins Intro Everyone knows what a news feed is. Swipe left on a mobile phone, open a browser or slide over a PC taskbar for dozens of suggestions that are sometimes welcome, but often intrusive and overwhelming. Open up YouTube and see how much junk there is from 'suggestions' and cookies. Targeted marking based on your browsing habits. It's the same with books. Must read this, best of the year that, friends are reading it, etc. You sometimes feel like a headless chicken running with the pack. It's all a load of buzzcocks As an avid reader and book collector, I regularly scour for bargain deals online, as well as reading lots of classics and just about anything that interests me, but I'm also very selective and snobby about simply diving in. I like to feel that my decisions are made by me! Think about the music charts and how easy it is to get hooked on new sounds. If you exclusively listen to recent hits, maybe you're denying yourself decades of rich music going back decades? If you expand this into classical music, this goes back centuries. No Mozart? It's up to you. Now, compare this with books. Every time you open a feed, willingly or unwittingly, you're greeted with the same types of headlines: fantastic books to read this month, or the best books of this summer/fall. It's insistent marketing. Great literature goes back hundreds of years - even the last 20 years have been amazing - so why limit yourself to feeds, charts or bestseller lists? Are you in a rush for something quick and accessible? Do feel pressured into reading the latest ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) because a publisher wants you to? Do you get paid for it or is it your ego pushing you to remain ahead of the curve? Perhaps you like your hairdo so much and don't want to dilute your cool image? Now-type lists are a great place to start if you don't want to do any background research. Let other people, AI bots or reader groups do the hard work for you. Come home, grab a book and sift the oceans of new content like a whale exposed to readable plankton. Are you happy being a reading sea mammal trying to filter through everything? The funny thing is, you never see any of these lists or recommendations until you became an avid reader. Now they're everywhere, all the time. Why? Because you live the life, read articles, watch videos and generally immerse in these circles. Meaning? Immediate go-to lists are useless and nothing more than marketing tactics to endlessly pump out and sell more content. You're inundated with material you don't want and have no time for. How do you feel about targeted marketing? Our brains are pumped with third-party ideas every minute of the day, from cereal packets to friend recommendations on Goodreads, to advertising and AI-generated feeds. If you see these lists and recommendations regularly, take note, you're obviously interested in literature - your cookies and habits say that much about you - but you're being targeted when you don't really want or need to be. You're already in these circles and focusing on your own interests. Maybe you've read every good book in existence and need read-feeds to keep up to date with the latest releases? There's nothing wrong with that as long as you have a solid foundation to build on, with classics, favourite authors, genres and a decided idea about what you want. Be your own judge. If you're young, buzz lists and now-feeds can act like restrictive blinkers. Someone else is telling you what to read. If you're old, you probably pay no attention to them anyway. You become focused (and narrow-minded to an extent). The rest of us? Herded into reading what the bigwigs tell us to read to make them money and sell more copies. Who knows, you may chance upon a fantastic new read from buzz lists, but if you regularly indulge in this habit you could be dining at the bottom of the marketing trough instead of making your own choices. The rest of your life starts today, but there's also an amazing back catalogue spanning hundreds of years. Maybe take the next 'must read now' list with a pinch of salt. It's not definitive and only there to grab your attention and make revenue for someone else. Previous Next

< Back Physical Book Deception R. Alex Jenkins Intro When I bought my first e-reader (Kindle) I loved everything about it. I still do. It doesn't matter whether you read books on papyrus or if they're somehow beamed by laser into the sky. All you've got to do is read them. Similar to mobile phones, the technical aspects of e-readers are amazing because of how accessible and organised everything is. Physical Book Deception Even though practically everything is now available in digital format, certain books still need to be bought in physical form for multiple reasons: graphical content comic strips currently out of print and the need to seek out second-hand copies not yet digitised books that don't get translated from foreign languages older books that never really sold other books inexplicably unavailable It's hard to understand why certain perfectly eligible books are still not available? If you can get classics written hundreds of years ago in digital format, why not everything else? Sometimes you have to make a choice: buy the physical version or miss out. Readers with limited budgets and enough good sense have thresholds on what they're willing to pay due to physical books costing double or triple their digital counterparts. This is disappointing. It feels like deception. Fortunately, buying or receiving physical books in the post is a yummy experience. It makes you feel complete and warm inside (for a while). They're physical, tangible objects that we can touch, hold and cradle while spending hours perusing and fondling the pages. But there is no electronic version if you're a digital convert. On the road, in the street, away from home, you need to carry around that separate individual tome with you as well as your e-reader for everything else. It's like two universes: an organised digital library accessible from a condensed database, and zillions of physical books that exist individually in their own right. Reading physical books can be a weird experience if you're no longer used to it. No longer having everything in one place. You often need to hold physical books with both hands, find specific positions to sit in and get plenty of light behind you to illuminate the pages. No more one-handed reading in dark corners. For many people it's necessary to wear reading glasses too. This is not a big issue with e-readers because you can pinch or expand the screen to change the font size. Physical books sometimes feel like hard work, old fashioned and clumsy. They are read, shelved and mentally archived just like digital books, but need to be stored in a unique place that's convenient for you. Summing Up Does it matter how you get your reading fix? Digital of Physical? In a nutshell, NO! Maybe it was better in the past when there were only physical books? It was a simpler way of life. Buy a book, read it, store it, cherish it and reminisce over it. Now, it's a mix between devices, versions, backups and reality/virtuality. But it's the central organisation of digital books that makes them such a boon. Switching between different movie streaming services to find specific films or series is much more annoying than anything I have experienced with digital books. Especially when the movie you want doesn't exist anywhere . Hello Stanley Kubrick! Websites like Goodreads help you get over organisational problems between physical and digital books by keeping a record of everything you have read or want to read. Where those books are stored and in what format is just a part of life. It's impossible to keep track of everything anyway. Has anyone else had similar incongruous experiences between digital and physical formats? Like video games split between XBox, Playstation and Personal Computers. Is it too OCD to want your entire book collection in one place? Do you strongly believe in having a physical or digital library, or both? Physical books can feel like involuntarily going back in time to a cluttered and disorganised past. It's great to have real copies and collector items - physical books are often aesthetic and beautiful - but organising, offloading and unhauling physical books is a nuisance. I used to look at the clutter of books, movies and music and think it was impressive. Now it seems gaudy and unnecessary. Once you embrace digital there's no going back. Physical books can be beautiful art, especially when they have great covers, printing and binding, but they can also be a pain to organise and keep tidy. Previous Next

< Back Too Much Media and Marketing R. Alex Jenkins You grab a book off the shelf called "How to Have a Better Life". Brilliant, it says: get millions right now and achieve the looks and charm of a god/goddess, except that you’re unemployed, live in ropey digs, feel like garbage and think you look uglier than the sole of a boot (you don’t). You’re damned (you’re not) and have no prospects in life, only seeing the outside looking in, unable to look beyond. This is how life can sometimes seem - out of control. You see no qualities within or prospects for a better future without because of all the lucky-lucky people who are richer, better looking and more advantageous than you. It's all about you, you, you and how unlucky you are, or all about them, them, them and how it’s their fault for letting you wallow in this squalid hole called life. It's not your fault at all - it never is - but always theirs, or maybe it’s God’s fault for neglecting and hating you. It's everyone else’s fault for giving you less while everyone else seems to have more. This how you feel when consumed by marketing and advertising. Self-pitying and blaming everyone else for your plight in life. Your dwellings probably aren't that bad and you’ve probably got access to enough money for the basics, but it's easy to exaggerate diminutive status and unworthiness. Because of all those people out there, marketing professionals and influencers telling you how to act , feel and behave. How to be the perfect person that they want you to be. It drives you nuts and really sucks! It's impossible to be content with what you’ve got, but think about it, you never see an unhappy dog if it’s got food, shelter and caring owners. We on the other hand are always looking for more. Old, ugly, fat, thin, rich, poor, it's never good enough, but it's irrelevant. You can put a secret protective dome around yourself to disconnect from the garbage by turning off media-based content and asking yourself... can I be quiet for one whole minute? Can I think or dream for once without being influenced by others? Simplicity can be beautiful. Animals are simple and lovely. Maybe it's better to isolate yourself from marketing influences by learning to self-reflect, cut away from the pack for a while, drop the intensity and just be yourself. This is maybe one of the most important aspects of life. The push and shove, constant advertising, mid-roll ads, buy this, buy that. Be like them! Maybe we listen to all this marketing nonsense because life's a giant crap shoot anyway and our lives mean relatively nothing in universe speak, by wasting thousands of hours trawling through other people's influences just to fill in time as though we’re immortal. It’s an automatic impulse for an instant feel-good fix, while forgetting the most important factor of all: time that will never be given back. We compensate for time spent at work, study, toil, chores, commuting, etc., by grabbing the first dopamine rush available. Sitting in a queue and Candy Crushing the time away, or watching someone else do it, grabbing the next fix as though it's important instead of using this time to think, reflect, plan or be at peace, to appreciate simplicity. We fill in the gaps by absorbing media that helps us do nothing . We turn on, tune in, grab a free minute, flick a switch and watch channels, then repeat that over and over again until our spare time and creativity are gone. Our lives are getting more intense and consumptive every year because of targeted marking. We retreat into what’s available for immediate pleasure, but end up resorting to safety and puerile contentment that gets us nowhere. Disconnect everything and simply switch off. This improves your life. Your brain tells you to delay, procrastinate, YouTube away, etc., for one more fix. This is exhausting and counter-productive, burning the candle at both ends and making you feel knackered. You convince yourself that another half hour won't hurt, which turns into multiple hours that undermine your life. Targeted marketing is getting more intense and AI driven as it constantly bombards us with what we supposedly need, when we actually need none of it. Not a jot. Previous Next

Services Professional services and related experience As a freelancer, I offer a range of Copywriting, Translation (Portuguese and Spanish into English), Editing (native and non-native English text), and Transcription (audio and video format) services. ​ Reach me at: richardalexjenkins@gmail.com Copywriting ​ Made-to-measure copywriting services. Close adherence to customer requirements. Search engine optimization (SEO) friendly. Specific document structures, including titles, lead-ins, answers and read-on details. I use a direct writing style for efficient and informative output. ​ I branched out as a copywriter after editing hundreds of articles for other freelance copywriters, which gave me the impetus and confidence to write my own article​s. ​​ I write paid-for articles about lotteries, gambling, video games, technology, books and many other topics. ​ Copywritten articles typically range from 1,000 to 3,000 words. My fees include post-editing, adding extra text as required, removing/adding segments and working with other copywriters to get articles up to customer standard. Translation ​ Source languages: PORTUGUESE and SPANISH Target language: ENGLISH (UK and US) ​ Software: SDL Trados Studio (fully licensed). My First paid translation task was in 2003, which is over two decades of specialization. ​ Engineering, Computing, IT, programming, telecommunications, electronics, technology, etc. Business and contracts, invitations to tender and bids, requests for proposal, contracts, clauses and annexes, regulations, norms, standards, ISO regulations. ​ I have been a paying member of Proz.com since 2006! See my Proz profile . Editing ​ US and UK English. ​ Editing of native and non-native English documents to corporate writing standards. Adherence to the Associated Press Stylebook, the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and Oxford English Dictionary. ​ My main experience is as a risk report editor for an insurance company over two years, involving very intense and exacting standards. Transcription English source material. Services include full transcription of audio and video files into SRT or VTT formats, including timecodes to the millisecond. ​ I use AI technology to generate the timecodes for incredible accuracy, working on an hourly basis to edit to exact standards.

< Back Greats Books Turned into Mush R. Alex Jenkins Thousands of fantastics books have been written and will continue to be written for thousands of years. The reason we read these books is because they're the purest form of storytelling. They are the cleanest source of the message. Reading is relaxing, entertaining and informative, but we sometimes behave like misguided zombies who constantly need frivolous pieces of bite-size entertainment to make life whole. Reading books is too abstract, bland maybe, for many of us because it requires too much effort to read and digest words without images or trained professionals to help us along. We have to use our imaginations! Great books are sometimes made into great movies and when it goes right we get an amazing window into the imagination of the author and their fascinating ideas, through the eyes of a director, actors and movie-making crews. Unfortunately, there's also the mush! A great book turned into an average movie, turned into an even more diluted streaming series for the masses. It happens too often. It's not all bad news, but there is so much mush out there you can spend a lifetime sifting through it for scant reward. Some people call it light entertainment. I call it junk TV, unnecessary piles of goo and pollution that can make you want to jump off a cliff. I want my brain back! So much mush, sire! Sometimes a series can be so good that the source material is irrelevant , unheard of or quickly becomes forgotten. That's the problem. If it's half decent we're guaranteed to get more diluted versions until it turns into soap opera mush. Do you have to sift through this poor pulp until you find something good? Is that even enjoyable? No. Read books instead and decide for yourself. Coming home from work, tired, switching on whatever's in front of you until your brain's frazzled with nonsense. Books are better. This is the problem with commercialism. There's so much of it. What was once perhaps brilliant in its written format can often become translucent and soulless, sucked of good quality for more profits, until the series gets too diluted and eventually dropped. Should you avoid streaming services then? At your peril! There's a lot of great stuff out there, but you have to sift through so much easily-accessible pointlessness. Books are often hit and miss, sifting through so much clutter and there are millions of mush-brained volumes out there. Even so, books are nearly always superior to the movie or series versions, and definitely series #2, #3... If you've binge-watched a series, finally gotten bored and haven't investigated the source material, it's your loss. Your life could be mush without even realising it. Previous Next

< Back Why eBooks on Amazon can feel like a Ripoff R. Alex Jenkins Amazon.com has multiple equivalent domain names around the world. I live in Brazil and although I can visit US and other Amazon websites at will, I cannot purchase ebooks on these sites. I am redirected back to the .br domain and my purchases are refused. It seems a bit strange if you have a valid credit card and simply want to make online purchases in another country, so why is this? It’s to make as much profit as possible for Amazon, let me explain. Let's say a book costs USD 10 on Amazon.com (USA). The equivalent price on Amazon.com.br (Brazil) in relative earnings should be about BRL 20 or 30 maybe - two to three times the USD price. This is NEVER the case. The actual price is multiplied by the exchange rate plus a little surcharge on top. If the exchange rate is 5, that's USD 10 * 5 = BRL 50, plus extra on top, so around BRL 55. Always! This is quite expensive for people in Brazil. It's even MORE expensive in regions with even lower exchange rates such as Africa or Asia, not that it matters if you live in a first-world country, right? Why does Amazon do this, besides the desire to make more profits? If eBooks are too expensive, people won't buy them, surely, so why the massive price hike? Because of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). For a monthly cost, a VPN enables you to mask your IP address and appear like you live in another country. People use VPNs to play in foreign casinos, access country-exclusive streaming networks, and especially for online gaming. A VPN would allow you to log in to Amazon.com as though you’re a resident of the United States to potentially purchase ebooks. More to the point, if eBooks were more fairly priced in poorer countries, people from first-world countries would log on and buy eBooks for a fraction of the amount they cost at home. Abusing the VPN. Obviously, there’s no point actually doing that because prices are always multiplied by the foreign exchange rates to make sure there is no exchange-rate trickery. The upshot of this is that prices are much more expensive for anyone living in third-world or emerging countries. As a corporation, Amazon doesn't care too much about this because third-world countries are not core markets for them anyway, and people who read eBooks in these countries tend to be in higher earning brackets and can afford the extra costs. Everyone else in poorer countries has to take promotional ‘bargains of the day’ with a pinch of salt and are also more selective about what they buy. It also means there is a lot more eBook piracy in comparison to the USA. Blowing USD 100+ a month on eBooks might be a regular occurrence in the US, but not so much in poorer countries because of the exchange-rate injustice. Previous Next