Natterings From Nepantla

I've just read Light Chaser by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell. Decent book, but with one of the more amusing dedications I've ever come across:

To our families, decent people who through no fault of their own have to live in the same house as writers

I dunno, any spouses involved presumably made a deliberate choice about it? Unless there's something else I didn't know about writers?

findthatbook is usually for tracking down specific books that people can only vaguely remember. I think some of you could help with this request, though:

I am currently writing my Master's thesis on perceptions of death and proper ways of mourning in Victorian England. I am analyzing samples of life writing and comparing those depicitions of grief and death to examples in popular literature.

I am struggling to find th eliterature though! So far I have Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Dickens' Old Curiosity Shop, and possible North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

As some of you know, some of my fannish volunteer time goes to reading books for the Endeavour Award. Each book has to be read by seven different people (out of a pool of 15-20 volunteer readers), and then the highest scorers become the finalists are are judged by industry professionals.

I used to pick up a batch of reading copies every few weeks during my lunch break, but with everyone staying home I have had to accept that the last few are going to be e-books. The first batch I was assigned as e-books were PDFs, so no problem there. But the latest couple have been sent to me as NetGalley links. Here was the setup process:

1. Forward link from my work e-mail (where it got sent because, since I used to pick up/drop off books during lunch, that's where I usually communicate with the administrator from) to a personal e-mail so I can download the book to my computer.

2. Click link, arrive at NetGalley, set up profile. Wind up describing myself as "Professional Reviewer" because that was the closest category available in the absence of "volunteer for regional sf award".

3. Go back to work e-mail because NetGalley wants to verify my address, which seems redundant because it required me to set up a profile with the address the link was originally created for. Click verification link.

4. Back to personal computer, log in, find e-book. Download options include MOBI, which is suggested specifically for Kindle users, and ePub. Go back to my notes about e-book readers, decide on Calibre, download that.

5. Click download link, which does not result in an ePub file. Go back to NetGalley's help and learn that it only works with one specific Adobe program.

6. Go to Adobe's site, register, download the required program.

7. Open mysterious file with Adobe program, which decides I am worthy and then downloads the actual ePub file.

8. Read book.

Like everything else these days, the Endeavour Award is attempting to become as virtual as possible, which means switching to electronic reading copies. Anyone want to recommend me an e-reading app for Windows?