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Ebooks Can’t Burn

But is that a good thing or a bad thing? This writer from theNew York Times Review of Books seems to think eliminating the physical aspect of a book for the ephemeral “pure” experience of reading just the words in sequence is the optimal way for a reader to engage with a book (or at least with “literature” and “literary experience”). I’m not going to get into it now, but I don’t agree with this at all. A physical book is a sensual experience and that can certainly contribute to reader engagement! The writer does make the point that in a censored society, burning an ereader doesn’t have the same impact on access to information that burning physical books does, which is true (unless Amazon or a publisher yanks the book), and is one of the pluses of ebooks.

At the same time that the NYR is expounding on the joys of ebooks, though, another article makes the opposite argument- in some cases, ebooks just can’t measure up. I suggest checking out item number 4, which also makes a valid point about the effectiveness of book burning when it comes to physical books vs. ereaders. And all you horror movie lovers, don’t miss out on #5. The ebook version of the Necronomicon just doesn’t have the visual impact of the physical book, wouldn’t you agree?

I’ve grown to appreciate the advantages of ebooks, but the physical book is, I think, still too necessary, on so many levels, to ever reach extinction… It’s not only because it’s consumed by flames with more impact than an ereader is that the physical book burns brighter in the mind and hands of a reader than an ebook ever will.

Posted on February 23, 2012 by , Reply

Sign of the Times

Time to get mad. Libraries got the message a long time ago to give you what you want, but publishers apparently missed that bandwagon. Want ebooks at the library? Think it’s wrong to keep them out of the hands of hungry readers? Better let the publishers keeping them out of your hands know how you feel.  You’ll find their addresses below, courtesy of Librarian in Black.


Posted on February 15, 2012 by , Reply

Angry Penguins, Anne Rice Returns, and Other Stuff.

Well, the drama from November, when Penguin pulled all their ebook titles from OverDrive (read: libraries) for dealing with Amazon, and then later decided it was okay for libraries to continue to check out ebooks they had already purchased but not new releases while they negotiated, has concluded for the moment, with Penguin choosing to stop releasing new ebooks to libraries at all and any Kindle versions to libraries at all. Instead of me summing it all up for you, I now present you with further reading: an article from Publishers Weekly that provides a basic summary, and some more information here. A bit of analysis shows that while this is extremely frustrating for librarians and library users,  it probably doesn’t do either Penguin or Overdrive much good, since it appears that now the only Big Six publisher making ebooks available to libraries is Random House, even though there is a huge demand for ebooks. So if you’re a small press publisher, willing to make it easy for libraries to work with you, this could be good news for you.

And a few tie ins to Women in Horror Month (kinda):

Anne Rice is back, this time with a werewolf book. Here’s an interview with her, published just a few days ago in the Wall Street Journal.

And this month Madeline L’ Engle’s classic A Wrinkle in Time celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. You can argue that it’s science fiction or fantasy or both, and you’d be right, but it’s also terrifying. I liked this article that talked about how central women writers have been to the renaissance of science fiction and fantasy, especially for the young adult crowd. The author mentions extremely cool writers like Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Lois Lowry, all of whom came long before J.K. Rowling and Suzanne Collins ever hit the scene. Although it’s not addressed in the article, if you look at YA horror, I suspect you’ll find a number of women writers there too; Lois Duncan and V.C. Andrews were staples when I was growing up (although not as likely to be assigned reading in school). It’s interesting to note this, as these are frequently perceived as male-dominated genres… does that just happen when we grow up?

And Rose Fox, over at Genreville, notes that there are more starred horror titles (horror-ish, to use her exact wording) this year already than there were all last year. Woohoo!

 

Posted on February 13, 2012 by , Reply
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