Thursday, January 2, 2014
You don't have to be near your local History Society to research anything about America anymore
I'm probably going to move this Blog to Word Press, but before I do, I wanted to make sure those of you who aren't already following the Digital Public Library know to experiment with a non-profit digital portal to all kinds of National museums and archives. Think of it as primary sources that can help you vet what you read on Wikipedia.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
If you like time-travel....
And especially if you lived through the 60s in America, you will enjoy Stephen King's 11/23/63, which I just got around to readings.
It is, among many things, a reminder than Obama wasn't the first President called a Communist by Republicans.
It is, among many things, a reminder than Obama wasn't the first President called a Communist by Republicans.
Monday, May 21, 2012
If you like rediscovering books already published, please visit a new crowdfunding web site, Unglue.it, a new venture I'm working with.
You can read more about this original model for reprinting ebooks using CC licenses (and paying authors and publishers) in this article on The Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/unglueit-free-ebooks-crowdfunding_n_1532644.html
Enjoy!
You can read more about this original model for reprinting ebooks using CC licenses (and paying authors and publishers) in this article on The Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/unglueit-free-ebooks-crowdfunding_n_1532644.html
Enjoy!
Thursday, February 9, 2012
When ebooks make discoverability harder
One of the current buzz words in the book business these
days is “discoverability.” The key to
such, we are told, is better “meta-data.”
The age of the Dewy decimal system as sufficiently “granular” is long
past. Shouldn't ebooks -- with their wealth of "searchable" text -- be easier to discover, even without cataloging tags or high name recognition? Or marketing?
Isn't that why authors may think they don't need publishers any more to be discovered? Nevertheless, to self-publish is not only to forgo an “advance against
royalties” and to pay out-of-pocket for editing and design, but to have to do
your own marketing. That may seem easy if you are an investment advisor with a
book on finance that grew out of your blog and CNN spots. It’s a lot of work if you are an independent
historian (i.e. not an academic) or a newly minted Iowa Writers Workshop
novelist.
Imagine how much harder that can be if you’re dead. Or if your books were published 30 years ago and still sell but only to graduate
students? Or the first novel you wrote has gone out-of-print?
The joy of re-discovery is one of the great pleasures of
browsing – whether in bookstores, in libraries, or leafing through the
footnotes and bibliography of a really good history book. Ebooks – being cheaper than paperback
reprinting – should be easier to “re-discover.” They shouldn't be costly to "re-stock" when print books are lost, stolen, or simply squeezed off a shelf by newer books. That is, if the titles exist in ebook versions and if the publishers allow libraries to lend their ebook editions to patrons (which, as you may know, several large ones, like Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Little Brown, do not.
That ebooks are not easier to discover, especially a reprint of a backlist book, is due in part to the explosion of digital information
makes it harder to distinguish one book from another. An old book is indeed a needle in a
haystack, and author, title, genre and even keywords do not make the stack much
smaller.
Furthermore, DRM software doesn’t just “lock out pirates
(and only un-tech savy ones at that), it makes it hard to browse and discover
ebooks, because each ebook must be read on the particular e-reader attached to the store you buy from, and each
reader and publisher has different rules for “sampling.”
If ebooks are not easier to find than print, and if bookstores and libraries where you can browse physical books become fewer and fewer, how
will our backlist staples of history, science, and independent fiction survive
during the next 70-120 years that they will remain in copyright?
I loaned a book to a friend the other day. He was at my house, we were talking about Henry James, and I realized he would love to read the new history of the Atlantic Monthly I had just finished. A University Press book I had bought in hardcover, I gave it to A*to take with him and read at his leisure without a second thought.
A* has a ferocious appetite for "free reading." He is one of the few people know who takes serious literature classes in Manhattan ("adult education by serious scholars) even though a) he has a full-time day job as a lawyer; b) he has many interests that compete with books, such as Opera, Theater, and a new puppy; and c) he makes as much time to re-read classics as to read new authors.
Just the kind of friend I have loaned books to all my life. And, by the way, just the kind who always returns them.
But I haven't loaned many books recently, because I buy most of my new books from Nook now. Which means I cannot share them, I cannot loan them, and I cannot donate them if by chance the local library is having a fundraiser.
Could I recommend to A* he buy the ebook himself? Of course, and he buys a lot of books, as well as borrowing many from the library. Would he be as likely to buy it on my simple say-so as to read a loaned copy? Having read for "free," will he be more (or less) likely to buy a copy as a gift in the future? Who knows.
Is it more important to the future of scholarship that a) he only read what he can buy or get from the library? b) I always Facebook him about recommended reading so he won't forget to make the effort to find it elsewhere c) I pay to "gift" him a reading copy; d) we talk about books we have both read everytime we meet.
A* has a ferocious appetite for "free reading." He is one of the few people know who takes serious literature classes in Manhattan ("adult education by serious scholars) even though a) he has a full-time day job as a lawyer; b) he has many interests that compete with books, such as Opera, Theater, and a new puppy; and c) he makes as much time to re-read classics as to read new authors.
Just the kind of friend I have loaned books to all my life. And, by the way, just the kind who always returns them.
But I haven't loaned many books recently, because I buy most of my new books from Nook now. Which means I cannot share them, I cannot loan them, and I cannot donate them if by chance the local library is having a fundraiser.
Could I recommend to A* he buy the ebook himself? Of course, and he buys a lot of books, as well as borrowing many from the library. Would he be as likely to buy it on my simple say-so as to read a loaned copy? Having read for "free," will he be more (or less) likely to buy a copy as a gift in the future? Who knows.
Is it more important to the future of scholarship that a) he only read what he can buy or get from the library? b) I always Facebook him about recommended reading so he won't forget to make the effort to find it elsewhere c) I pay to "gift" him a reading copy; d) we talk about books we have both read everytime we meet.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Best books are always being read again
I saw a Tweet the other day asking “What was the best book
you read in school?”
My flip response was “I could name one best teacher, maybe,
but best book, no way.” It isn’t just
the snobbery of having become an overeducated English Major (forgive the
redundancy) that makes it hard for me.
What was “best” when I was 10 (Prince Tom) had been
surpassed by many, many others only a few years later. But that fact did not diminish in any way the bestness
of that story about an adopted Cocker Spaniel.
There are also books that I once disliked and yet came to
reconsider and promote to “best.” Lord Jim was one. As I only understood decades later, what
spooked me was the guilt Jim feels for not protecting the passengers from the
Captain who abandons ship. The book was telling me a story I was not ready, at age 12, to
face. I did not want to know that
sometimes people who get drunk, even people you know, can be mean and
stupid. And you can’t stop them.
It is in this way that a book which I thought of as my worst
reading experience, one made more depressing because I didn’t know why it made
me so sad, became “best” book, when I re-read it as an adult.
I do not believe
there could ever be one best book in my life.
Best books are always plural, and always ones that I have
read several times, will re-read again, and can’t imagine having lived without reading
more than once.
That’s why I am working with a start-up company,
Gluejar, which wants to make sure anyone’s “best” book can be reread at any
time. We want to make sure no reader will see that book “out of
print” and lose the opportunity to remember the joy felt the first time she
called that book the “best book I’ve ever read.
Watch for more about Gluejar and our fundraising webstie, Unglue.it.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Backlist discoveries: Make New Friends, but Keep the Old:
I have to admit a weakness for nostalgic childhood songs. As my mother and I say, “we sing off- key, but we remember all the words.”
One of my favorites is this round:
All my life I have taken pleasure in adding to my friends far more often than subtracting any, and in introducing new friends to old. And I think the same rule should apply to reading – and rereading – good books.
This applies especially non-fiction that may have been published in those decades between college and middle-age when you’ve been too busy raising a family and building a career to read as much for pleasure as you did when you were that history major turned law student.
For some suggestions, Time Magazine has just issued a list of 100 top “non-fiction” books (http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2088856,00.html).
These “influential books” include many gems you may not have read in school, (if you are too old or were not an English major), from Claude Brown’s Manchild in the Promised Land (a memoir of growing up in Harlem before the drug epidemic, the only reason the author survived.) to Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, a less pretentious window on Americans in France in the early 20th Century than Hemmingway, especially if you liked Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.
I like the new writers and books as much as anyone. Far be it for me to stop repeatedly checking Google, as well as browsing all the best book reviewers (NYT, Wash Post, NYRB, Atlantic, New Yorker) in the few places who still employ staff writers
If you are interested in reading more than just the things that make new news every 15 minutes on social media, I hope you’ll check out Unglue.it, where our Team is building a new way to get more ebooks reprinted, into more public libraries, and read by more people -- all over the world.
What’s your favorite book that isn’t yet available as an ebook? Go to www.Unglue.it and let us know, or email me at: amanda@gluejar.com.
On Twitter You can also follow #gluejar or @AMREADERTOO
P.S. (FYI, if you like me sang a lot of rounds at camp or in scouts, my other favorite song is “one bottle top, two bottle top…. But that’s another story.)
One of my favorites is this round:
Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver but the other gold.
All my life I have taken pleasure in adding to my friends far more often than subtracting any, and in introducing new friends to old. And I think the same rule should apply to reading – and rereading – good books.
This applies especially non-fiction that may have been published in those decades between college and middle-age when you’ve been too busy raising a family and building a career to read as much for pleasure as you did when you were that history major turned law student.
For some suggestions, Time Magazine has just issued a list of 100 top “non-fiction” books (http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2088856,00.html).
These “influential books” include many gems you may not have read in school, (if you are too old or were not an English major), from Claude Brown’s Manchild in the Promised Land (a memoir of growing up in Harlem before the drug epidemic, the only reason the author survived.) to Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, a less pretentious window on Americans in France in the early 20th Century than Hemmingway, especially if you liked Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.
I like the new writers and books as much as anyone. Far be it for me to stop repeatedly checking Google, as well as browsing all the best book reviewers (NYT, Wash Post, NYRB, Atlantic, New Yorker) in the few places who still employ staff writers
If you are interested in reading more than just the things that make new news every 15 minutes on social media, I hope you’ll check out Unglue.it, where our Team is building a new way to get more ebooks reprinted, into more public libraries, and read by more people -- all over the world.
What’s your favorite book that isn’t yet available as an ebook? Go to www.Unglue.it and let us know, or email me at: amanda@gluejar.com.
On Twitter You can also follow #gluejar or @AMREADERTOO
P.S. (FYI, if you like me sang a lot of rounds at camp or in scouts, my other favorite song is “one bottle top, two bottle top…. But that’s another story.)
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Open Access is not Unlimited or "Free" Use
The Chronicle of Higher Education just reported that Yale University is suing a Chinese University Press for having transcribed and published in a book -- without permission -- material that Yale posts online as "Open Access" video curriculum courses (http://oyc.yale.edu/)
Chronicle of Higher Education article
The Chinese book used translations of the lectures and turned them into an written anthology.
The copyright issue here is whether anyone can redistribute for profit or create a "derivative" work based on such "Open Access" posting. Under the "Terms of License" on the Yale site, no one may do so with these courses. Any use other than "Non-Commercial Share Alike" -- that is the exact same kind of video display, without editing -- is prohibited under the Creative Commons license Yale is using. You can't adapt or transcribe the video without additional, specific permission for such use.
"Most of the lectures and other course material within Open Yale Courses are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us). Course material under copyright held by a third party may be subject to additional intellectual property notices, information or restrictions."
I suspect that this is not an intentional violation of digital copyright, but a misunderstanding. Even in the US, people often confuse "Open Access" to mean "not copyrighted." In fact, the Creative Commons licenses were developed precisely to make the distinction clear and to protect both copyright holders and the audiences they want to reach. Chinese publishers have been made huge strides over the last 25 years in obeying International copyright laws. In fact, licenses from US and UK publishers for translation into "Simplified Chinese," the written format for printed works in the People's Republic, have become very profitable for commercial and scholarly publishers alike. Many Chinese publishers negotiate directly with the US.
We should expect this mistake to be quickly rectified.
Chronicle of Higher Education article
The Chinese book used translations of the lectures and turned them into an written anthology.
The copyright issue here is whether anyone can redistribute for profit or create a "derivative" work based on such "Open Access" posting. Under the "Terms of License" on the Yale site, no one may do so with these courses. Any use other than "Non-Commercial Share Alike" -- that is the exact same kind of video display, without editing -- is prohibited under the Creative Commons license Yale is using. You can't adapt or transcribe the video without additional, specific permission for such use.
"Most of the lectures and other course material within Open Yale Courses are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us). Course material under copyright held by a third party may be subject to additional intellectual property notices, information or restrictions."
I suspect that this is not an intentional violation of digital copyright, but a misunderstanding. Even in the US, people often confuse "Open Access" to mean "not copyrighted." In fact, the Creative Commons licenses were developed precisely to make the distinction clear and to protect both copyright holders and the audiences they want to reach. Chinese publishers have been made huge strides over the last 25 years in obeying International copyright laws. In fact, licenses from US and UK publishers for translation into "Simplified Chinese," the written format for printed works in the People's Republic, have become very profitable for commercial and scholarly publishers alike. Many Chinese publishers negotiate directly with the US.
We should expect this mistake to be quickly rectified.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Another reason to like ebooks
I came out to Seattle to visit my sister and attend her oldest's high school graduation. Being the resident Reader-Geek in the extended family (otherwise full of engineers or math whizzes who are also serious athletes), and knowing she liked math and science, I asked if she had ever read an novel about a scientist? She couldn't think of one, but I remembered Flatland, Edwin Abbots' quirky, 1880 novella subtitled "A Romance in many dimensions," the story of a two-dimensional world. I instantly downloaded the 99 cent classic to her mother's Kindle.
Now, I know there's not necessarily any better chance that she will read the book (after finals) than if I had mailed a print copy to her, but at least she knows it's at hand while she may still remember our conversation. I did think it was hopeful that when I described the story, she immediately asked, "How do they pass each other in only 2 dimensions?" I had probably read it more for the romance than the geometry, and the question would never occur to me.
Do you have favorite novels about science, math, and non-English major subjects you would recommend to a 16-year old? Let me know.
Now, I know there's not necessarily any better chance that she will read the book (after finals) than if I had mailed a print copy to her, but at least she knows it's at hand while she may still remember our conversation. I did think it was hopeful that when I described the story, she immediately asked, "How do they pass each other in only 2 dimensions?" I had probably read it more for the romance than the geometry, and the question would never occur to me.
Do you have favorite novels about science, math, and non-English major subjects you would recommend to a 16-year old? Let me know.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Summer Begins and so does my summer reading list
Just finished reading an interesting Project Gutenberg Edith Wharton story from the Atlantic, The Bunner Sisters. Harrowing tale of spinster poverty in late 19th Century lower Manhattan.
As usual, alternating fiction and non-fiction:
I have begun James Gleick's THE INFORMATION: A HISTORY, A THEORY, A FLOOD hoping to refresh my "geek" credentials. I had just reached the page introducing Alan Turing and at the same time (while pausing to read Google News), I saw that the UK Museum dedicated to breaking the Nazi Enigma Code has just rebuilt a "Turing Machine," the computer that helped win the war.
For someone who has trouble with crosswords and math and can't decipher simple substitution codes, I am addicted to books about codebreaking. I like reading about people who do what I can't, like mountain climbing. Can't wait to visit the Bletchly Park Museum when I get to go back to England.
Also beginning CALEB'S CROSSING by Geraldine Brooks, about the first Native American to graduate from Harvard in 1665. Six miles from my house in Northwestern Connecticut, in the early 19th Century there was a missionary school for young men from Hawaii and other Native Americans. It was disbanded in 1826 when a local (white) woman married a Cherokee graduate, and the mixed-marriage upset the town. Marriage Equality and Affirmative Action have always been prickly subjects
Have a Happy Memorial Day! I am off to Seattle to see my niece graduate from High School (and then head to Penn as an engineer-to-be) and to congratulate my nephew on finishing college (UC Berkeley) and getting a job as the first software engineer in our family's youngest generation -- which also includes our first Turkish and Arab speaking journalist (an American University graduate who is off to the Middle East as a State Dept. Language Fellow). These young people give me infinite hope for a future with fewer and fewer wreaths to be laid at fresh graves on Memorial Day.
As usual, alternating fiction and non-fiction:
I have begun James Gleick's THE INFORMATION: A HISTORY, A THEORY, A FLOOD hoping to refresh my "geek" credentials. I had just reached the page introducing Alan Turing and at the same time (while pausing to read Google News), I saw that the UK Museum dedicated to breaking the Nazi Enigma Code has just rebuilt a "Turing Machine," the computer that helped win the war.
For someone who has trouble with crosswords and math and can't decipher simple substitution codes, I am addicted to books about codebreaking. I like reading about people who do what I can't, like mountain climbing. Can't wait to visit the Bletchly Park Museum when I get to go back to England.
Also beginning CALEB'S CROSSING by Geraldine Brooks, about the first Native American to graduate from Harvard in 1665. Six miles from my house in Northwestern Connecticut, in the early 19th Century there was a missionary school for young men from Hawaii and other Native Americans. It was disbanded in 1826 when a local (white) woman married a Cherokee graduate, and the mixed-marriage upset the town. Marriage Equality and Affirmative Action have always been prickly subjects
Have a Happy Memorial Day! I am off to Seattle to see my niece graduate from High School (and then head to Penn as an engineer-to-be) and to congratulate my nephew on finishing college (UC Berkeley) and getting a job as the first software engineer in our family's youngest generation -- which also includes our first Turkish and Arab speaking journalist (an American University graduate who is off to the Middle East as a State Dept. Language Fellow). These young people give me infinite hope for a future with fewer and fewer wreaths to be laid at fresh graves on Memorial Day.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Watch this space....
Ask you local library about ebook loans. An easy way to keep a reading "budget" while playing with your new Kindle, Nook, iPad, Sony or Kobo reader.
From Library Journal reporting on BEA -- annual Book Industry Convention
Growth in demand just beginning
All four panelists described an exponential upward demand for ebooks. For example, Michael Colford, the Boston Public Library's director of resource services and information technology, said he expects the library's ebook budget to triple next year (FY12) from its current total of $105,000 (about 5 percent of the library's materials budget).
From Library Journal reporting on BEA -- annual Book Industry Convention
Growth in demand just beginning
All four panelists described an exponential upward demand for ebooks. For example, Michael Colford, the Boston Public Library's director of resource services and information technology, said he expects the library's ebook budget to triple next year (FY12) from its current total of $105,000 (about 5 percent of the library's materials budget).
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Current Events in depth
I love being able to get the right book (in most cases) instantly on my iPad when I have need background about current events, such as the current crisis in Japan.
I realized I knew Japanese history only vaguely, and very little about how they had gone from isolation to being an economic powerhouse so quickly. I found a wonderful overview, from pre-history to the present, in James Huffman's JAPAN IN WORLD HISTORY (Oxford University Press). Another book I have sampled but not read yet is Mary Mycio's WORMWOOD FOREST, about her many return journeys to Chernobyl after the disaster there.
By the way, if you have never read Ishiguro
I realized I knew Japanese history only vaguely, and very little about how they had gone from isolation to being an economic powerhouse so quickly. I found a wonderful overview, from pre-history to the present, in James Huffman's JAPAN IN WORLD HISTORY (Oxford University Press). Another book I have sampled but not read yet is Mary Mycio's WORMWOOD FOREST, about her many return journeys to Chernobyl after the disaster there.
By the way, if you have never read Ishiguro
Friday, February 4, 2011
I've been snow shoeing to survive lately.....
Sorry for the hiatus. But I will be back soon with a lot of books to recommend.
Meanwhile, given this winter weather, you might want to go back to the best account of Scott and Amundsen's race to the South Pole, THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH by Roland Huntford. And ask Random House to release an eBook, while you're ordering the paperback.
Meanwhile, given this winter weather, you might want to go back to the best account of Scott and Amundsen's race to the South Pole, THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH by Roland Huntford. And ask Random House to release an eBook, while you're ordering the paperback.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Reprint more e-Books
You don't have to read industry publications to realize eBooks are booming, but Publisher's Weekly has a timely story today (see below) that makes it obvious that publishers should release as many new and backlist books as eBooks as possible -- just as trade paperback reprints exploded in the 1980s.
Although there are high upfront costs to making eBooks from books older than 10-15 years (because the original printing was from film and must be converted to digital files not just to a Kindle or Nook format), it is penny wise and pound foolish not to reissue eBooks, especially of authors who have new books just out, whether they are popular novelists or important scholars.
Where necessary eBook prices could be higher than the average for the initial releases, and Foundations should subsidize academic eBook reissues from non-profits, especially University Presses. If Apple is serious about reaching out to the education market, they should also make it as easy as possible for non-profits to put their books into the iBookstore, regardless of commercial "agency" model issues. Reader on the iPad and iPod Touch will be more than a cool trend ONLY if the iBookstore increases it's inventory. Likewise, Kindle and Nook should discount university press conversions, so that every eBook can be bought from any online eBook retailer that sells the printed book, whether B&N or Amazon.
Readers need a choice of formats and, yes, they don't want to wait a long time for the eBook in order to be "forced" to buy an exclusive hardcover. That's a way to lose readers not gain profits in today's fast moving eBook world.
link to PW here
E-book Sales Jump 172% in August
While sales in the print trade segments shrank in August, e-book sales had another strong month, jumping 172.4%, to $39 million, according to the 14 publishers that report sales to the AAP's monthly sales estimates. For the year-to-date, e-book sales were up 192.9%, to $263 million. AAP said that of the approximately 19 publishers that report trade sales, revenue in the January to August period was $2.91 billion, making the $263 million e-book sales 9.0% of trade sales. At the end of 2009, e-book sales comprised 3.3% of trade sales. The mass market segment, where sales were down 14.3% in the first eight months of 2009, represented 15.1% of trade sales through August. more... link to PW here
Although there are high upfront costs to making eBooks from books older than 10-15 years (because the original printing was from film and must be converted to digital files not just to a Kindle or Nook format), it is penny wise and pound foolish not to reissue eBooks, especially of authors who have new books just out, whether they are popular novelists or important scholars.
Where necessary eBook prices could be higher than the average for the initial releases, and Foundations should subsidize academic eBook reissues from non-profits, especially University Presses. If Apple is serious about reaching out to the education market, they should also make it as easy as possible for non-profits to put their books into the iBookstore, regardless of commercial "agency" model issues. Reader on the iPad and iPod Touch will be more than a cool trend ONLY if the iBookstore increases it's inventory. Likewise, Kindle and Nook should discount university press conversions, so that every eBook can be bought from any online eBook retailer that sells the printed book, whether B&N or Amazon.
Readers need a choice of formats and, yes, they don't want to wait a long time for the eBook in order to be "forced" to buy an exclusive hardcover. That's a way to lose readers not gain profits in today's fast moving eBook world.
link to PW here
E-book Sales Jump 172% in August
While sales in the print trade segments shrank in August, e-book sales had another strong month, jumping 172.4%, to $39 million, according to the 14 publishers that report sales to the AAP's monthly sales estimates. For the year-to-date, e-book sales were up 192.9%, to $263 million. AAP said that of the approximately 19 publishers that report trade sales, revenue in the January to August period was $2.91 billion, making the $263 million e-book sales 9.0% of trade sales. At the end of 2009, e-book sales comprised 3.3% of trade sales. The mass market segment, where sales were down 14.3% in the first eight months of 2009, represented 15.1% of trade sales through August. more... link to PW here
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Remembering The Blitz in fiction
As you may remember, last Spring I had highly recommended Connie Willis' BLACKOUT, about 21st-century time travelers stuck in London during The Blitz; the sequel, ALL CLEAR, is due out from Bantam in October.
Also just published and highly praised is Jessica Francis Kane's novel, THE REPORT (Graywolf), which alternates between interviews for a 1972 documentary and flashbacks about the worst civilian disaster in war-time, when a London Tube air raid shelter panic led to 170+ deaths in seconds, just like the crowds crushed in at the German music festival this year.
If you are interested in more about the "home front" aspect of WW II, in England and America, you will want to read 109 EAST PALACE: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos by Jennet Conant, The author, whose grandfather ran the Manhattan Project in Chicago, describes the tremendous effort required to create from scratch the town that housed the scientists who invented the atomic bomb, largely through the memoirs of a Santa Fe widow, Dorothy McKibbin, who single-handedly made the place liveable for researchers and their wives and children alike.
Also just published and highly praised is Jessica Francis Kane's novel, THE REPORT (Graywolf), which alternates between interviews for a 1972 documentary and flashbacks about the worst civilian disaster in war-time, when a London Tube air raid shelter panic led to 170+ deaths in seconds, just like the crowds crushed in at the German music festival this year.
If you are interested in more about the "home front" aspect of WW II, in England and America, you will want to read 109 EAST PALACE: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos by Jennet Conant, The author, whose grandfather ran the Manhattan Project in Chicago, describes the tremendous effort required to create from scratch the town that housed the scientists who invented the atomic bomb, largely through the memoirs of a Santa Fe widow, Dorothy McKibbin, who single-handedly made the place liveable for researchers and their wives and children alike.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
It's the software, the page on the screen that matters
Ebooked
Since I have been reading on my iPad, I am very happy with the hardware, but the software makes me want better, better page design, better search and note talking options
As a reader, I want more choices, more mixed media, and more cross-indexing. I want to be able to have list of all my eBooks in one file; I want to be able to sort titles on the "shelf" by subject or keywords. Searching as list is not the same as browsing book jackets. At least until the printed book dies, I want that metaphor on my iPad in all the ways it can really replicate a library.
I love reading on my iPad. Even with the glare from too close reading lamps or outside sunshine is a small inconvenience. With an eBook reader I could only buy from one bookstore, and I couldn't compare page layouts. The iPad also gives me gorgeous black-and-white photographs in any reader,and great color in the iBookstore, although there are few books with any color that aren't Apps.
The true interactive, mixed-media potential of the iPad, the chance to combine audio, animation, video, and web links with text, exists in even fewer Apps than those with color. THE ELEMENTS remains the most imaginative book available, because it has 3D photography (and the Tom Leher song), but the scientific calculations exist only through links to the developer's web site, which, of course, you can access without an iPad.
That said, if I were reading only on a Kindle or a Nook, I would have no option for color or video. Likewise, if I bought only from the iBookstore, I would have a much smaller library of titles to choose from, since several major publishers and most small ones have not yet agreed to Apple's sales' model which is a consignment model unlike the way normal print books are paid for at wholesale prices. The iPad works for me only because it doesn't tie me to one retailer. I can buy from the store with the best inventory. I can also decide which software I like best for reading, which page layout, search function, highlighting and not taking is most convenient.
This software -- not the hardware -- I am convinced, is what readers should focus on now that we have choices, at different price points and with different inventories of books to buy and read electronically
Next blog: the words on the page are what we read.
Since I have been reading on my iPad, I am very happy with the hardware, but the software makes me want better, better page design, better search and note talking options
As a reader, I want more choices, more mixed media, and more cross-indexing. I want to be able to have list of all my eBooks in one file; I want to be able to sort titles on the "shelf" by subject or keywords. Searching as list is not the same as browsing book jackets. At least until the printed book dies, I want that metaphor on my iPad in all the ways it can really replicate a library.
I love reading on my iPad. Even with the glare from too close reading lamps or outside sunshine is a small inconvenience. With an eBook reader I could only buy from one bookstore, and I couldn't compare page layouts. The iPad also gives me gorgeous black-and-white photographs in any reader,and great color in the iBookstore, although there are few books with any color that aren't Apps.
The true interactive, mixed-media potential of the iPad, the chance to combine audio, animation, video, and web links with text, exists in even fewer Apps than those with color. THE ELEMENTS remains the most imaginative book available, because it has 3D photography (and the Tom Leher song), but the scientific calculations exist only through links to the developer's web site, which, of course, you can access without an iPad.
That said, if I were reading only on a Kindle or a Nook, I would have no option for color or video. Likewise, if I bought only from the iBookstore, I would have a much smaller library of titles to choose from, since several major publishers and most small ones have not yet agreed to Apple's sales' model which is a consignment model unlike the way normal print books are paid for at wholesale prices. The iPad works for me only because it doesn't tie me to one retailer. I can buy from the store with the best inventory. I can also decide which software I like best for reading, which page layout, search function, highlighting and not taking is most convenient.
This software -- not the hardware -- I am convinced, is what readers should focus on now that we have choices, at different price points and with different inventories of books to buy and read electronically
Next blog: the words on the page are what we read.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
After the world as we know it ends in new ficiton
I’ve discovered two recent apocalyptic novels which I highly recommend: FAR NORTH by Marcel Theroux and THE GONE AWAY WORLD by Nick Harkaway. These are not dark, dystopic fantasies; they are more like Margaret Atwood’s books than Mad Max.
Theroux’s novel is very much like Russell Hoban’s RIDLEY WALKER, in that it is a first person account by a survivor who is focused on staying alive, yet who still wonders if it is safe to hope for more. This novel is set in a near-future Siberian Arctic desert where only one woman, Makepeace, still lives in the small town her Quaker parents had founded when they migrated from Alaska to avoid the world’s drought-baked famine. Her English is conventional (unlike Ridley’s phonetic, pidgin voice in Hoban’s superb novel), her trials and tribulations tough but surmountable, and I felt I traveled back and forth along the Tundra in a world that was all too easy to imagine could be real in a few decades.
Harkaway (a screenwriter and the youngest son of John Le Carre) is a very original story teller. His protagonist knows exactly what Armageddon was like and how lucky he is to have survived. Along the way, there are intricate layers of lyrical descriptions of the horrors which technology has wrought and Taoist mysteries which survive to fight them. The plot often doubles back on itself with confusing (and fantastical) digressions, but in the end, Harkaway makes believable that human beings can reinvent themselves as much more than predator and prey.
Theroux’s novel is very much like Russell Hoban’s RIDLEY WALKER, in that it is a first person account by a survivor who is focused on staying alive, yet who still wonders if it is safe to hope for more. This novel is set in a near-future Siberian Arctic desert where only one woman, Makepeace, still lives in the small town her Quaker parents had founded when they migrated from Alaska to avoid the world’s drought-baked famine. Her English is conventional (unlike Ridley’s phonetic, pidgin voice in Hoban’s superb novel), her trials and tribulations tough but surmountable, and I felt I traveled back and forth along the Tundra in a world that was all too easy to imagine could be real in a few decades.
Harkaway (a screenwriter and the youngest son of John Le Carre) is a very original story teller. His protagonist knows exactly what Armageddon was like and how lucky he is to have survived. Along the way, there are intricate layers of lyrical descriptions of the horrors which technology has wrought and Taoist mysteries which survive to fight them. The plot often doubles back on itself with confusing (and fantastical) digressions, but in the end, Harkaway makes believable that human beings can reinvent themselves as much more than predator and prey.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Transitioning ebook discussions to new blog
Please watch this space for a new blog which will be devoted solely to eBooks and digital publishing issues. READ TO SURVIVE will remain my book review blog, and I will be trying to introduce indexing for the books discussed in archive posts.
Amanda
AMeckeCo website
Amanda
AMeckeCo website
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Michael Pertschuk, a writer for optimistic liberals
A coalition builder's lesson for progressives
By Katrina vanden Heuvel;
By Katrina vanden Heuvel;
Read today’s Washington Post recommending
Michael Pertschuk’s new book:
Michael Pertschuk’s new book:
THE DeMARCO FACTOR:
TRANSFORMING PUBLIC WILL INTO POLITICAL POWER
(Vanderbilt University Press, paperback)
TRANSFORMING PUBLIC WILL INTO POLITICAL POWER
(Vanderbilt University Press, paperback)
Mike has been a friend since I worked with him on REVOLT AGAINST REGULATION, which he wrote while standing firm as Liberal on Regan’s FTC.
He has been a life-long anti-smoking advocate, someone dedicated more to improving public health and saving lives rather than scoring ideological points, but he has no illusions about the obstacles to common sense changes that progressives continue to face.
You cannot learn from a better consumer advocate who walks the walk as well as talking the talk, and one of his heroes is Maryland’s Vincent DeMarco.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
The best book news in Ages
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/business/30books.html?th&emc=th
In the NYT today a great story about how Google eBooks will help independent bookstores compete with the Chains:
In the NYT today a great story about how Google eBooks will help independent bookstores compete with the Chains:
Now one element of Google Editions is coming into sharper focus. Google is on the verge of completing a deal with the American Booksellers Association, the trade group for independent bookstores, to make Google Editions the primary source of e-books on the Web sites of hundreds of independent booksellers around the country, according to representatives of Google and the association.
The partnership could help beloved bookstores like Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore.; Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, Calif.; and St. Mark’s Bookshop in New York. To court the growing audience of people who prefer reading on screens rather than paper, these small stores have until now been forced to compete against the likes of Amazon, Apple and Sony.
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