Despite the popularity of long-arc, serialized TV shows,
no one really wants to read serialized fiction, apparently. That's not stopped anyone from trying, though, like say Stephen King with
The Green Mile and
The Plant, semi-successful efforts from
a mega-successful author. That was before the current rise of the ebook, though, and a few
authors (also
here and
here and
here) are betting technology will turn serialized novels into
the next big thing, that we're in "
the perfect environment for a resurgence."
posted by nospecialfx
on Dec 7, 2011 -
44 comments
A new kind of book has been created in Holland, where its sold over 1m copies since it came out in 2009. Now finding its way to England, called the "flipback", the pages are super thin Bible paper with a special lay-flat spine and small format, making it suitable for reading with one hand, thumb page-flips, and shirt pocket storage.
posted by stbalbach
on Mar 21, 2011 -
63 comments
The announcement of the
iPad earlier this week has prompted a lot of discussion about ebook prices among publishers and their sales partners. That discussion took a major turn yesterday when
Amazon pulled the buy buttons for Macmillan's books off their site. Many of Macmillan's titles are still available through Amazon, but only through third parties. Right now, one of the largest publishers in America is no longer available from Amazon because they can not agree on ebook prices.
[more inside]
posted by Toekneesan
on Jan 30, 2010 -
306 comments
From the U.S. National Academies Press: 3,000 Science, Technology, Medical, and Social Science Books Available Free, Online. The interface is clunky - you can only see one page at a time, can't download PDFs (except paid) and image view is via TIFF -
but! the content is all there, and free. Some is quite technical, but much is readily accessible. Some idea of the breadth:
A Doctor's Memoirs of Treating AIDS in Haiti,
The "Drama of the Commons",
The 1872 Research Voyage of HMS Challenger,
Biography of Stephen Hawking,
Biotechnology Research in the Age of Terrorism,
Risk Reduction Strategies for Human Exploration of Space,
Forensic Lead Bullet Analysis,
50 Short Essays on How Mathematicians Think,
Recent Research on Non-Lethal Weapons, and
Introduction to Tough Topics in Contemporary Science.
Also, see their
rather spiffy site on the cosmos.
posted by Rumple
on Jun 12, 2006 -
13 comments
eScholarship Editions. Like ebooks? Want something free, nonfiction,"scholarly", publicly accessible, and more recent than
Gutenberg ? (Lately I'm on an Ancient History kick.) My problem with this "eScholarship" site is they try to make it hard to download a whole ebook to read offline. For one of those, for people who are interested in 20th-century political history-cum-theory that's never had much to do with any U.S. election, today I'm recommending
the Platform.
posted by davy
on Dec 27, 2004 -
12 comments
"This site contains more than 10,000 eBooks formatted for reading on your Palm, PocketPC, Zaurus, Rocketbook, eBookWise-1150, or Symbian cellphone." So if you have a PDA and especially if you're into
the classics, you no longer have to settle for lame
video games on your cell phone or inconvenient newspapers for your
downtime entertainment.
posted by Doohickie
on Dec 20, 2004 -
19 comments
Interesting Column by Tim Whitaker, editor at
Philadelphia Weekly, who "
kind of jests" someone should order the main branch of the Free Library at 19th and Vine streets gutted, all the passé books written by the long since dead and decayed--books that nobody looks at anyway, thrown out, and replaced with computers.
This could be done over a long weekend, and the new Free Workstation Center of Philadelphia would open. Thousands of city residents who'd been priced out of the Information Revolution for well over a decade would rush to the free computers to experience the online rush that comes with access to the WWW.
He says Amazon's new service "search inside the book" is the first glimpse of a full-bore revolution in the way research will be conducted and books will be distributed in the future that spells the death of libraries.
He bounced this idea off of Steven Levy, a Philadelphia native who writes about technology for Newsweek, and he says "It's not that crazy, The future of libraries is a hot topic with librarians all over the country."
"Once the Web has become a full-service digital archive of the whole wide written word, it'll only be a quick innovation or two before we'll have the technology to order and bind books on our own home book-printing systems. Ebooks will finally become reality. Libraries will become mini-museums, where old books are kept under glass, relics of the pre-"inside the book" revolutionary age."
posted by Blake
on Nov 20, 2003 -
22 comments
Proof of Life After Copyright : An overexcited e-mail from the
Gutenbergers:
April 10, 2002 was the day Project Gutenberg reached 5,000 eBooks. By Moore's Law, October 10, 2003 could be the day for number 10,000. We are just over half way — 7,661 as I write this — 2,339 to go! That will take over 300 eBooks per month; we need you to help us push our average up from 268 per month to get to 10,000 by December, 31st.
God help us if the entire universe fails to obey Moore's Law: the IPO of the
singularity could be delayed. So pitch in.
posted by hairyeyeball
on Apr 15, 2003 -
10 comments
Publish someone else's copyrighted book, DON'T go to jail. (I can't believe no one else has posted this yet: at least, I couldn't find anything that looked relevant).
"A U.S. federal judge has rejected Random House's request for a preliminary injunction to stop an online publisher from selling electronic versions of Cat's Cradle, Sophie's Choice and six other books. U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein ruled on Wednesday that the right to print, publish and sell the works in book form in the contracts at issue does not include the right to publish the works in the electronic format."
posted by maudlin
on Jul 13, 2001 -
7 comments
RIDING THE BULLET by Stephen King
E-books are here to stay or lastest of the internet crazes?
Stephen King is letting his lastest book all 1600 word or 66 pages of it out for a small $2.50 from
Simonsay.com
Paperless world, mmm...
How without a laptop or you going to be able to read this in the bath tub or "reading room"?
Try also the
Stephenking.com For more information on the great writer's life and future.
posted by Max's Daddy
on Mar 13, 2000 -
0 comments
