Aha, surprised you! My next post is NOT about my missed 2011 books rolling over to 2012's list after all. Instead, in a move I attribute to a delay in shipping experienced by my mail-order pharmacy, I've gone off on an entirely different tangent…

Penguin books.

No, not books about penguins, though I'm sure there is a plethora and I'm probably missing so much by not reading them. I mean PENGUIN BOOKS, as in the publisher. The ones with the cute, wee bird on the spine? You know them.

 

 

On one of my regular blog whistle stop tours I was catching up with things Dovegreyreader and saw she'd posted about Penguin Shorts ebooks, short pieces written by an amazing assortment of really great authors, designed to get readers from Point A to Point B with the added benefit of entertaining their brains with bits of good writing. Or, minus the travel, you still have the entertaining bits.

So, hmmm, thinks I. Penguin. Penguin Shorts eBooks. Rather like the sound of that. I wonder what Amazon might have?

If you enter "Penguin Shorts" in Amazon's general search bar turns out what you get back are: actual shorts (as in clothing), a very odd short story called "Dumb White Husband vs. The Grocery Store" (dear god, don't find me self-published writer) and various tools I couldn't begin to guess the use of and which make me glad I don't need to.

But! Change the search to Kindle Books and, voilà! Anita Brookner's "At the Hairdresser's," published December 1, 2011. One-Click, Bob's your uncle.

 

 

MINE.

Rather than being satisfied by that, reading all my dear friend Dovegreyreader has loaded onto her new Kobo I believed there had to be more Penguin eBook Shorts. And there it was! In the "Customers Who Bought This Thing You Bought Also Bought This Other Thing We Hope You'll Buy, and If So We'll Give Our Marketing Guy a Bonus This Holiday. Maybe."

 

One-Click. Mine.

But, alas. It's here the trail's gone cold. Buying "Protection" will get you referred to "At the Hairdresser's." And buying "At the Hairdresser's" will get you "Protection." While this sounds like it has potential as a film plot, it does not equal Bluestalking obtaining more Penguin Shorts eBooks. It's a circle of VERITABLE MADNESS.

It's at this point I turn my blue eyes, brimming tears, to Penguin. I'm bent in anguish, on the verge of wailing… Where… are… they?

PENGUIN, WHERE ARE YOUR SHORTS?!