More on: The Bottomless Bottle of Beer, Amazon Kindle Version

The Naif Peers Through Mr. Em's Shop Window
Image by Terrance Lindall

The Kindle version of The Bottomless Bottle of Beer -- introduced a couple of days ago -- is effectively a second, corrected edition. The first edition, a hard copy, was released under time pressure, and consequently had errors, the most significant being in the following, opening passage:

THE WORLD SOMETIMES just declines to cooperate with my good intentions. I had been drinking a bit more than my wife thought reasonable for my health and our pocketbook, and after a close encounter with a breathalyzer that I managed to confound by sheer dint of will, I bowed to her legalistic position on laws against drunk driving and even agreed to stop drinking altogether. I didn't intend to pursue the twelve-step route to complete spiritual indoctrination, so I resolved to quit entirely on my own. But I reasoned that such a significant occasion called for a drink, and I wanted that drink to be extraordinary, even unforgettable. My wife grudgingly acceded to my desire for just one more bottle to celebrate my decision, and I began to wander the town looking for that perfect beer.

My quest took me down to an old part of the city that I'd never seen before, and I was surprised at its narrow and twisting, cobblestone streets. The area looked vaguely European, too archaic for the New World. At length, on a back street that twisted like a wandering maze, only to decline into a dead end, I came upon a shop above whose door was a metal arrow extending, sharp point outward, perpendicular to the shop's façade and from whose shaft, suspended by two hooks, was a small sign bearing some rather puzzling words in Gothic script that I managed to make out after a fair bit of close inspection:

Our Back's Ratskeller
Mr. Faland Em, Proprietor

I could at first only imagine an exterminator of rats, but the word was not "Ratskiller." Definitely "Ratskeller." Was it a misspelling? Curious, I attempted to peer through the window, but the shop was dark, and I could make out nothing of the vague room's shape, nor of anyone within, nothing distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, just seemingly insubstantial shadow.

This passage ends with the lines depicted in the above image by noted artist, illustrator, and curator Terrance Lindall, but the words of the second paragraph are severely cut due to my rushed, cursory copy-editing. Here's the full version, in which paragraph two above is expanded to form paragraphs two and three, as I had originally written:

THE WORLD SOMETIMES just declines to cooperate with my good intentions. I had been drinking a bit more than my wife thought reasonable for my health and our pocketbook, and after a close encounter with a breathalyzer that I managed to confound by sheer dint of will, I bowed to her legalistic position on laws against drunk driving and even agreed to stop drinking altogether. I didn't intend to pursue the twelve-step route to complete spiritual indoctrination, so I resolved to quit entirely on my own. But I reasoned that such a significant occasion called for a drink, and I wanted that drink to be extraordinary, even unforgettable. My wife grudgingly acceded to my desire for just one more bottle to celebrate my decision, and I began to wander the town looking for that perfect beer.

My quest took me down to an old part of the city that I'd never seen before, and I was surprised at its narrow and twisting, cobblestone streets. The area looked vaguely European, too archaic for the New World, but I shrugged the impression off, figuring the streets and buildings had been designed to draw tourists. Such traps are never what they seem to the unwary, but I had to marvel that the effect was so authentic. I noticed a few wine shops, and their selections were truly excellent -- again an authentic touch -- though the shops seemed to stock only older vintages, but I wasn't looking for wine anyway.

At length, on a back street that twisted like a wandering maze, only to decline into a dead end, I came upon a shop above whose door was a metal arrow extending, sharp point outward, perpendicular to the shop's façade and from whose shaft, suspended by two hooks, was a small sign bearing some rather puzzling words in Gothic script that I managed to make out after a fair bit of close inspection:

Our Back's Ratskeller
Mr. Faland Em, Proprietor

I could at first only imagine an exterminator of rats, but the word was not "Ratskiller." Definitely "Ratskeller." Was it a misspelling? Curious, I attempted to peer through the window, but the shop was dark, and I could make out nothing of the vague room's shape, nor of anyone within, nothing distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, just seemingly insubstantial shadow.

I had missed that unkind cut that spliced two paragraphs together in the loss of several lines, but my former student, Eideticboth, caught the error and alerted me shortly before publishing the second 'edition' on Kindle and saved me from later correcting work after the e-book publication.

Aside from the corrections, the Kindle edition offers a different reading experience since the words appear before and after the images rather than words superimposed upon images, as was done originally according to Lindall's aesthetic vision, which can be seen in the (also corrected) sample below:

Personally, I rather liked Lindall's design, for it recalls the underground-comics mentality of the Sixties that I retain a nostalgic sense for, but I have to acknowledge that this current, clean separation of text from image -- which has Lindall's approval -- allows for an easier reading experience.

This distinction of text and image also makes for a more 'novelistic' feel to my story, which now stretches to 156 pages on Kindle, counting from cover to cover, as I discovered when I purchased the Kindle edition on Sunday and read it on my iPad, an enjoyable reading experience of over two hours.