Wednesday, May 17, 2017

I Guess Some Conversions Don't Take

I mentioned in a previous blog post that George Orwell's novel, Burmese Days, was one on the books in the queue for reading soon. I became interested in this particular novel after reading Orwell's essay, Shooting an Elephant (which can be read on line here).

According to a wikipedia article on the essay, there is some confusion as to whether or not the story is fiction or non-fiction. In either case, "the story is regarded as a metaphor for British imperialism, and for Orwell's view that 'when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.'"

As to whether Burmese Days remains in the queue is open to question. I found the novel on line and printed it as a pdf using CutePDF Writer. After creating the pdf, I uploaded the document to a website that, among other things, converts pdf to mobi. I prefer to read documents as mobi using the Kindle and I've used this website many, many times. However, after opening the recently converted mobi file using my pc's Kindle reader, I discovered that the site did not convert the Burmese Days pdf correctly.

After checking the mobi document on my hand-held Kindle and finding it unreadable, I deleted the mobi from both devices and attempted to convert the pdf once again. Unfortunately, this second attempt failed as well.

I've glanced over the pdf and I'd really like to read this novel, but I find reading novels in pdf format difficult. I don't enjoy reading 128 page pdf on my pc's monitor. I could, of course, load the pdf onto my Kindle, but I don't believe the Kindle will open the pdf at the "last page read" the same as with a mobi document. I'm sure I can manage, but I'll have to put forth a bit more effort.

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