Tag: e-readers

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Exciting Happenings in the Kindle Store

Hello readers!
Just a quick post to let you know that I’ve published the e-book from the Modernizing Markham project in the Kindle Store. It has all the recipes, plus lots of suggested readings, information on book and culinary history, and some insights about what I learned from blogging and tweeting about historic materials.
The book will also be available as a print on demand book, in the iBookstore, and in the Nook bookstore in the coming weeks and months as things get finalized through Lulu.

Also, my other food blog is now available as a Kindle subscription.
Happy reading!

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>E-book readers’ bill of rights

> This awesome post has been bouncing around the internet, where I saw it on Andy Woodworth’s blog and Sarah Houghton-Jan’s blog. For those who aren’t aware, discussions about e-books have been taking place after Harper-Collins’ announcement that they would be limiting e-book circulation at libraries to 26 uses. This causes tons of problems for access, and while I understand publishers need to make money to continue functioning, my main concern is for library patrons, readers (including students) and for authors.
LIS students–this is a must-read and the topic is one we should all follow. If for no other reason, as a patron who wants to read e-books or even share a book with another student, you want to know that you can use those texts. I have seen a number of people say that e-books are not paper books, and that we need a new set of rules to deal with them. Maybe, but whether or not the suggestions they make are the be all and end all, they are an awesome start because they deal with access and with getting books to readers: the purpose for which they were written in the first place. Since digital books open up the potential for even greater access and sharing because they can be copied almost instantly and without the overhead and resources necessary to create print books. I’m keeping my eyes peeled to see what happens.

Continue reading “>E-book readers’ bill of rights”

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>Circular Texts, both Digital and Tangible

>If you remember my post on readers and new media from a couple weeks ago, I mentioned this article on an author (Jurgen Neffe) who took advantage of the e-reader format to create circular texts, or ones without a beginning or end. A quick internet search on the author revealed this article entitled “The disembodied book,” which is a pretty thorough discussion of the author’s views on the future of the book and authorship, and the future of reading. He is optimistic about the possibility of more authors being recognized and readers interacting with texts in new ways, although he frames this within the downfall of the print book. I’m one of those folks that feels like we don’t have to choose: I have a Kindle e-reader but still read paper texts as well. However, he doesn’t associate the reduction of print books to their complete elimination, which is an argument I feel has been made far too many times (insert frantic ‘print is dying! We will never read printed books again!’ comments here). Continue reading “>Circular Texts, both Digital and Tangible”

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>What New Media Means for Me as a Reader

>I am about to make the most obvious statement ever: there is a lot of cool stuff happening on the internet.
Not a groundbreaking observation by any means, but I am ceaselessly amazed by the sheer number of new ways to participate in the world as a reader of texts. I mean this both in the literal sense (e-texts versus paper texts), and also in how we interpret those texts (and how technology influences that).

Take, for example, this article on ‘circular reading.’ This author has found a way to exploit the e-reader technology in a way that gives us stories with a circular narrative (no beginning or end). As readers of these stories, how does this sort of narrative change our interpretation of the text, and how does it change our interaction with that text? There are many books that challenge us to think of narrative form differently than a ‘beginning-to-end’ reading experience (I was fond of the ‘choose your own adventure’ book when I was a kid), and this book takes that to a new level by using a technology that isn’t bounded by a structure with a clear beginning and end.

Continue reading “>What New Media Means for Me as a Reader”