E-books aren’t like regular books—they’re invisible except on the screen of a computer. Particularly at a time when so many bookstores have vanished, could e-libraries be one way to keep books on people’s minds? And help reinvent the concept of family literacy? Check out my other site, LibraryCity, where I discuss those issues and more. […]
Read MoreE-trends and other fun for book people to mull over: A mix of reckless and not-so-reckless predictions
Note: This is an expanded version of my talk to the Washington Biography Group on Monday at Washington International School. By David H. Rothman Founder of TeleRead, Co-Founder of LibraryCity, and author of The Solomon Scandals SEEING the windmill blades turn—in Al Gore’s multimedia book Are we wasting our time talking about books and the […]
Read MoreWriter’s tiny N.Y.C. apartment: Comfy or scary? I say it’s a mix. Time for Felice Cohen to try e-books as a space-saver?
Felice Cohen is happy here. I’m not sure if I’d be, although I envy her ability as an organizer and wish her luck with her new book on her grandfather who survived the Holocaust. Actually, in The Solomon Scandals, a maverick bureaucrat lives in a space smaller than Ms. Cohen’s. Meanwhile, might Ms. Cohen want […]
Read MoreE-books vs. movies and other streamed media: Which should be first priority at Library of Congress?
With so many local libraries facing cutbacks, the case for a well-stocked national digital library system grows stronger each day. At TheAtlantic.com I’ve written of the possibility of a decentralized public library system existing within the Library of Congress but run by librarians in many cities, so that Washington does not dictate to America what […]
Read MoreLibrary e-books now readable on iPad, iPod and iPhone
DRMed library e-books—at least ePub and PDF ones from the OverDrive service for public libraries—are now readable on the iPad, iPod and iPhone via the free Bluefire app. Psst! The secret is here, shared by Mobiputing. Screen shot, from Mobiputing, is of Bluefire on an iPod.
Read MorePhilip Roth’s new novel: A do-it-yourself ‘Nemesis,’ plus a few thoughts on Roth vs. e-books
Philip Roth was an evil literary influence on me. I don’t write like him, but love his sarcasm, irony and well-crafted dispatches from the battles of the sexes, the very stuff that unsettles Leah Hager Cohen, author of a favorable New York Times review of Nemesis, Roth’s latest novel. Ms. Cohen until recently despised Roth’s […]
Read MoreApple iPad: Another way to read ‘The Solomon Scandals’ and other books
The Solomon Scandals is mostly about yesterday, but e-books do show up briefly in the afterword. We learn about the Scandals as people looked back on them many decades later in the 21st century. So what’s it like to read Scandals electronically on the just-released iPad—via the Kindle e-store or otherwise? As both a reader […]
Read More‘Red Hot’ Engel sisters, possible iPad edition, Henry Adams and ‘Scandalize your classroom’
Remember my optimism about Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, the play by the Engel twins, based on the life of the uppity liberal Texas columnist who fondly gave George Bush the nickname of “Shrub”? So far, the write-ups are upbeat, and I predict that R.H.P. will make it to Broadway—aided by […]
Read MoreA few words on tech, ‘screening’ and e-text—and Danny Bloom (1949-2032?)
I date back to the Smith Corona days of newspapers, and I can fondly recall a group named something like the Anti All Digital Dialing League. I’ll not bow blindly to the gods of technology. Within the book industry, I’m rooting for the survival of paper books and especially of the small independent stores selling […]
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