Shortcovers - Popular Shortcovers and Mixes

Shortcovers - Popular Shortcovers and Mixes

Oops! I thought I was onto something hot here! I thought Shortcovers was going to let me read what I want to read on my Blackberry, and so I downloaded their app. But what they offer is the opportunity to read what I don't want to read. If you've read any of my blogs or ever met me, you know that the words stern, serious, complicated and difficult are apt. I'm not someone who knows how to have a good time or who has any serious (there I go again) interest in having a good time. I'm always looking for something not just challenging but nearly impossible, and that goes for my reading taste as well as for how I choose to live the rest of my life. If you have a problem, I will solve it. If you want to have a friend, I'm not your guy.

However, if you want to read Heaven is Small, Sex and the City, The Pelican Brief and other popular titles (don't forget the literary classic, Four Blondes) then this seems to be a lower cost alternative to Mobi. They say that some of their titles sell for as little as $0.99 but they didn't have anything I wanted to read so I'm not sure. In any case, the architecture of their web site is sound. All they need is more content. And they are relying on you to point them to it and to give them some ammunition when they go to the copyright holders with a permission slip in hand.

Anyway, most of my readers are librarians, and they're way lighter hearted than I will ever be, so I would say please check out this site. Aside from the dearth of seriously grumpy intellectual content, it's worth your visiting just because it's an alternative to Kindle, so you don't' have to buy and tote another chunk of hardware, and it's an alternative to Mobi, which seems committed to charging the same for a download as for a printed book.

I've no idea how accessible they are for readers with print disabilities. If anyone can evaluate this, please let me know. Meanwhile, I'll go back to reading my gloomy and serious printed books.