I'm a worrier.

That's right. I'm a worrier. 

And although I've read quite a few books about how to cope, and I've listened to a lot of advice - I still worry. For instance I'm three hours into a nine hour flight and I'm worried about the batteries in my various devices; even though I left them charging until a microsecond before I left home. And I'm typing this on my tablet; and Willie's voice is alternately rasp- and honey-like in the Sony buds connected to my smart phone. What happens if my batteries die? How will I last the rest of the journey?
 
This is not a new phenomenon; in the early days of cell phones I had a housebrick-sized unit and I had three batteries just in case; this was in about 1988 when in Australia almost no one, but no one, called mobile phone numbers. I watch the little battery indicator with sinking feelings as the charge percentage sinks from 90% to 30%, and this is all while the phone appears to be doing nothing. And when I wake in the morning I am in a fury when I discover that for some inexplicable reason it's only charged to 68% - why? 

As I watch the Australian desert slide below and I wonder whether my phone will have enough battery to keep taking photographs. And how about my emails - what will happen if I can't check them the instant we land? 

Like I said I worry. Battery panic. Device deprivation. Just two of the multitude of new causes for concern in the twenty-first century.

Escaping 2013

Does it say something about our current social environment that I am escaping by reading an adventure story that begins in Asia during the chaotic and dangerous days of World War II?


Reading The Persimmon Tree by the late Bryce Courtney. I love it after just reading the short Amazon sample and I've bought the book. At the same time I'm reading the John Lanchester novel Capital which I'm enjoying. But The Persimmon Tree talks to my heart and my spirit - not so Capital even though it is a finely told story and I'm engaged with the characters. So what is the difference? Is it the setting, or the era, or the story, or the characters, or the language? Does Courtney's restless spirit somehow ensnare me as my eyes traverse the text? Do I have a particular empathy with the characters for some reason? Is it that recently I spent a few days on the island of Java where the story begins? If only I knew the definitive answer it would revolutionise my unfulfilled aspiration to write; it's not so much about whether my stories could make money, it's about wanting them to be enjoyed by others.

There was a time when paper texture, the heft, or the binding had influence over what I selected and purchased but sadly these influences are now but a footnote because I mostly read Kindle books. Not perhaps the most elegant volumes, but very transportable.

So. What influences you in the selection of a work of fiction?