February 2021 – OZTHOUGHTS

Golden Biker – A Superbly Funny “Road” Ebook

The author of this wonderfully funny and surreal ebook (The Golden Biker) has made a short video in which he tells us the history of how this ebook came about.

Some time ago I read and reviewed this truly funny and anarchic ebook, which I recommended to anyone who enjoys silly reading, as it is both very funny and also has some really quite relevant points to make about how we live our lives and the values that we believe are important to us.

If you read my original review (link below) you will understand better why I am so fond of this absurd ebook, and its weird and wonderful cast of characters, all of whom have remained in my mind ever since I read this enjoyably silly ebook.

Anyhow, as I said, I came across this video in which the author Alexander von Eisenhart Rothe (now that is a name to conjure with!) talks about how he came to write this ebook, and the various hassles he had before it finally became a fully fledged ebook. I thought you might enjoy seeing it and getting a feel for how he thinks, and what he finds important in life.

Ebook Review – Golden Biker; An Insane Romp Through India.

I have just read an amazingly funny and anarchic book called Golden Biker, written by the splendidly named Alexander von Eisenhart Rothe which apart from anything else disproves totally the idea that Germans have no sense of humour.

This wonderful ebook which is a sort of “The Marx brothers Meet Easy Rider” story is set in contemporary India and tells the tale of a most unlikely group of people who are – for a whole range of idiotic reasons – chasing each other across India.

I can do no better than quote, rather fully, from the author’s own description of this story. This description sets the tone of the story and is written in the same style as the story itself, so it will give you a good idea of the atmosphere of the ebook:

Brought together in India through a series of hare-brained adventures are Arthur, an old bohemian from Cologne; Albert, otherwise known as Bear, a snack bar owner who emigrated to Goa; Gerd, a German businessman with a mid-life crisis; and Sherie, a stunningly good-looking prostitute from Bombay.

Together, they embark on a mission to find a mystic figure in the Himalayas: The Golden Biker, who supposedly cruises through the mountains on a golden motorbike, to punish the evildoers and give to those who mean well some of his no less mystical marihuana… known among aficionados as the best grass in the world.

However, the route the foursome has to undertake riding some ancient motorbikes called Enfield Bullets, across all of India is rather long and full of danger. Increasingly so, if you have a gang of ill-tempered Indian Mafiosi, two permanently stoned Israeli secret service guys, a gang of politically correct gypsies, one involuntary guru, a stark-naked blowgun expert, a muddle brained but fanatical old Nazi including his private army, as well as two freelance killers from Bombay at your heels.

How to Read a Book – Is This the Future? Funny Video

So, how do you read a “real” paper book? I know, we can all do that, but will we still know how to in, say 50 years time? We have all seen those videos of small children trying to swipe to the next page in their kiddies books, as they have been brought up on iPads and similar devices and found those videos to be charming and funny in a nice and fuzzy way. But in fact they are showing us the future of reading. Like it or loathe it, ebooks are where we are heading, and patently paper books are slowly but steadily being superseded by their digital descendents.

And it is possible that in the not too distant future, paper books will only be read by academics in pursuit of their knowledge of these primitive predigital eras. Depressing thought isn’t it?

In spite of the fact that I own a blog that is devoted to all aspects of ebooks, I am also a passionate lover of the paper variety as well, and have thousands of them which I read and reread with enormous pleasure. Loving the feel, the smell and the weight of a real book – And those rows of book spines on my bookshelves, all of which promise me so much pleasure and escape to new and different worlds. Whilst I am very fond of my Sony, Kindle and so on, and truly appreciate their convenience, a couple of lonely looking, albeit sleek and smooth ereaders on a book shelf, each containing an enormous number of ebooks are in no way to be equated with the pleasure of the real thing obviously. A total lack of the sense of adventure that a decently filled book shelf offers us.

Paper books sitting there on the shelf offer us in a highly visible manner an escape from the daily grind, romance, friendship, relaxation and all the many benefits of reading, and they do this in a tangible and individual manner. ereaders obviously offer the same experiences, but they are discrete, nothing to be seen, no visible promise of pleasures, actually really very sterile objects.