eBooks About

Book Technology: the movie

2008-07-07T05:45:00.001-07:00

Either some virus got me or I had too much 4th of July (not sure which) so today's post is short and simple.

A friend sent me this marvelous video about book technology that is very worth watching. Enjoy!

The more things change, the more they stay the same!

The Girl I Left Behind eBook Edition

2008-07-03T03:37:00.001-07:00

The Girl I Left Behind is a perfect counterpoint to the Wednesday Sisters. I hadn't planned it this way. But overnight I moved seamlessly from the fictional 60s to the non-fictional version.

Judith Nies' memoir is the story of her transformation from a naive small town girl to an worldly aware women. It is part coming of age story, part travelogue and part history lesson. It is a report from the front lines from someone who lived it.

Neis captures the essence of the other sixties. Not the "sex, drugs and rock and roll" variety. She portrays in detail the political transformation of a generation.

She weaves together the stories of the cold war, the CIA and the FBI into the fabric of civil rights marches, Vietnam war teach-ins and women's sit ins. She tells of government secrecy and downright lies. She talks of old boy's clubs and class in America.

Her stories of working on Capitol Hill in the late sixties bring some of the pivotal players of that time into sharp focus. They are all on display from Congressman Burton of California to Daniel Ellsburg; from Senator Fulbright to Gloria Stienem. She even manages to compare and contrast the political climate of 1964 and 2004.

She graphically reminds of us of why "The Political is Personal".

This is very much the story of women. Women and their quest for educations and votes. Women seeking equal access to and opportunity in the workplace. The fight for viable health care, birth control and child care. It is the story of women in the 20th century with a straight line from the suffragettes to NOW. Unfortunately, many of these stories have have been forgotten. It is important that we remember them and that we honor the brave women who tirelessly worked to ensure that women today have a measure of equality.

Most young women of today take it for granted that a women can vote. They never question the idea that they can choose a career and be taken seriously in the workplace. Most young girls don't even question the "right" to play sports or have equal access to public accommodations. Thankfully, most young women do not really understand institutionalized sexual harassment.

And for all of that, women are too often judged by their appearance, and faced with conflicting demands about who and what they should be.

We've come a long way, baby . . . and we still have a long, long way to go!

Here is the publishers synopsis:

At the height of the Vietnam War protests, twenty-eight-year-old Judith Nies and her husband lived a seemingly idyllic life. Both were building their respective careers in Washington—Nies as the speechwriter and chief staffer to a core group of antiwar congressmen, her husband as a Treasury department economist. They lived in the carriage house of the famed Marjorie Merriweather Post estate. But when her husband brought home a list of questions from an FBI file with Judith's name on the front, Nies soon realized that her life was about to take a radical turn. Shocked to find herself the focus of an FBI investigation into her political activities, Nies began to reevaluate her role as grateful employee and dutiful wife. In The Girl I Left Behind, she chronicles the experiences of those women who, like herself, reinvented their lives in the midst of a wildly shifting social and political landscape.

In a fresh, candid look at the 1960s, Nies pairs illuminating descriptions of feminist leaders, women's liberation protests, and other pivotal social developments with the story of her own transformation into a staunch activist and writer. From exposing institutionalized sexism on Capitol Hill in her first published article to orchestrating the removal of a separate "Ladies Gallery" on the House floor to taking leadership of the Women in Fellowships Committee, Nies discusses her own efforts to enlarge women's choices and to change the workplace—and how the repercussions of those efforts in the sixties can still be felt today.

A heartfelt memoir and piercing social commentary, The Girl I Left Behind recounts one woman's courageous journey toward independence and equality. It also evaluates the consequences of the feminist movement on the same women who made it happen—and on the daughters born in their wake.

del.icio.us Tags: ebooks,e-books,ebook reviews,ebooks about women,women,women's studies,ebooks about people

eBook Discount: Take an EXTRA 20% Discount on all New York Times Best Selling Fiction!

2008-07-02T02:15:00.001-07:00

Summer is here!

For those of us in the US it is a long Independence Day holiday weekend.

As far as I can tell, the VERY BEST holiday weekend imaginable will be spent on the beach with a good book.

So -- here is your chance to get as many of these NY Times best selling Fiction titles for 20% off.

Use Coupon Code J408 at checkout to get your discount!

New York Times Best Sellers are always discounted 10% and with coupon you will get a full 30% off on these great titles!

Happy Reading!!

del.icio.us Tags: ebooks,e-books,discounted New York Times best sellers,new york times best selling fiction,fiction

Henri's Lament: The Death of the Sunday Morning Bookstore Run

2008-07-01T04:36:00.001-07:00

Gigi and I used to go to the bookstore nearly every Sunday morning.

Obviously, we both read a lot. The biggest hour in our week was spent browsing the shelves of whatever bookstore we chose on that particular Sunday. That morning period was something we looked forward to with great anticipation on most weeks of the year.

Now it is over! She reads eBooks, and thinks that I am still stuck in the past.

I still get to the bookstore; I’ve been doing that since found out that I could buy a book in the used paperback store on Lake street in Minneapolis for a dime, back in the 1950’s. I haunt the used stores and the new stores whenever I can, but it’s not the same.

The used book stores are going now, disappearing every day. I went back to one last week and it was gone. So was the owner, disappeared into the past like the onsite book trade is threatening to these days. The new stores are not far behind. Some great ones have fallen in the last two years, in New York, Boston, Pasadena and San Francisco to name just a few places where I have lost old friends.

Sure I can use the Internet. I buy books there occasionally, but I still like the feel and smell of a real bookstore. Gigi on the other hand could care less; she buys all of her books eBooks About Everything. At least it pays for her books and mine and a usually a little more. We started it on a whim and it has grown into a real, if small, Internet business.

But I don’t want to read eBooks!!!!!!! I don’t want to buy from Amazon.com or any of the other stores on the Internet that are demolishing the bookstores that I still frequent!!!! I am the man without hope because the way of life that brought me so much joy is disappearing. In every town I ever visited someone used to make a decent living selling books. New books, used books, great books, awful books and every kind in between were all available in those stores.

Too much joy and pain passed through my mind that was carried by the books I purchased in those stores for me to ever want to give them up for something on the Internet. The Internet cannot convey the smell and feel of walking into a different store with the dream of discovering a new author or an unread tome by a favorite writer.

An now, added to that, I am in mourning most of all for all of those wonderful Sunday mornings with my lovely wife spent together searching for books to read on a lazy summer afternoon.

del.icio.us Tags: ebooks,e-book,ebooks about everything,reading

2008 Global Student eBook Survey, the Popularity of eTexts and a New Look for eBooks

2008-06-30T06:05:00.001-07:00

2008 Global Student eBook Survey

2008 Global Student Survey on eBooks is a study designed by 150 librarians. The study explores how students use digital information and eBooks. The study offers the perspectives of nearly 6,500 college and university students about eBook usage, benefits and needs.

The attitudes and awareness about eBooks is definitely changing. Most notable for me was the finding that eBooks were in second place (78%) as the most used resource for research/class assignments. In first place was Google and other search engines; print books followed closely at 77%. Basically Google tops books of any sort.

Students are beginning to see eBook on a parity with print books. Faculty members, however, do not seem to be as convinces. Last year the 2007 Global Faculty Survey showed that teachers put eBooks in 6th place on a list of electronic resources they use.

Maybe this is a case where the students can teach the teachers a thing or two.

eTexts: Why Students like them

And on the subject of eBooks in education. We should note that In the last year there has been a 400% increase in digital textbook adoption. Ingram Digital wanted to find out why. So they did a survey of 680 e-Book Users to find out why. Key findings:

47% of those surveyed believe that "cost in relation to print copies" is very important.
46% stated the convenience of e-books is a big attraction
45% sited interactive features (45%) as being very important.

Price, convenience and interactivity seem to trump the smell or feel of a book.

A New Look for eBooks

Finally, last week researchers at Maryland and Berkeley Universities announced a new prototype eBook. One that let's you turn pages just like you can with a print book.

Why anyone thinks this is a good idea absolutely mystifies me! Evidently there are people who are still clinging to the idea that if you somehow make the digital reading experience more like the paper experience you will get people to eBooks.

Maybe they should refer to the student survey about why eBooks are popular with them: price, convenience and interactivity. This design does nothing to enhance any of those stated reasons.

Personally, I would like to see all of that creative energy go into figuring out how to create the $100 eBook reader that reads every format (with or without DRM).

Or better yet, use that creativity to create real content that people want. Content with enhanced interactivity at a lower price would be a good start.

del.icio.us Tags: ebooks,e-books,etextbooks,ebook readers,ebook ebooks in education

The Wednesday Sisters eBook edition

2008-06-27T04:08:00.001-07:00

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Clayton is as close to a perfect beach read as you can get.

It is a rare book that has one smart, engaging and has a well rounded and believable woman character. Never mind five of them! This is the story of five women living conventional lives in unconventional times.

From a purely technical point of view, Clayton has pulled off an impressive feat. She manages to make each one of these five women real and full character who all get equal time and equal voice.

The story starts with the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and traces these women's lives through roughly 10 years. Those ten years include the Apollo space flights and burning bras; peace marches and Miss America contests, the birth of modern Silicon Valley and the first New York Marathon.

The story is about women and friendship. As the world around them changes these women are busy building relationships with each other and with books.

In a broad sense It is about family. The ones we come from and the ones we create. It is about the frailty and fortitude. It is about awaking, change and growth.

It is also laugh out loud funny and tear-jerkingly sad. I mean really, how can you resist a book that starts out:

"That's us, there in the photograph. Yes, that's me-in one of my chubbier phases, though I suppose one of these days I'll have to face up to the fact that it's the thinner me that's the "phase," not the chubbier one. And going left to right, that's Linda (her hair loose and combed, but then she brought the camera, she was the only one who knew we'd be taking a photograph). Next to her is Ally, pale as ever, and then Kath. And the one in the white gloves in front-the one in the coffin-that's Brett."

I was hooked from the first paragraph.

So grab your suntan lotion, your favorite drink and a bag of chips, sit in your favorite lounge chair and prepare to enjoy!

Here's the publishers synopsis:

Friendship, loyalty, and love lie at the heart of Meg Waite Clayton’s beautifully written, poignant, and sweeping novel of five women who, over the course of four decades, come to redefine what it means to be family. For thirty-five years, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally have met every Wednesday at the park near their homes in Palo Alto, California. Defined when they first meet by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love that has enveloped most of the Bay Area in 1967. These “Wednesday Sisters” seem to have little in common: Frankie is a timid transplant from Chicago, brutally blunt Linda is a remarkable athlete, Kath is a Kentucky debutante, quiet Ally has a secret, and quirky, ultra-intelligent Brett wears little white gloves with her miniskirts. But they are bonded by a shared love of both literature–Fitzgerald, Eliot, Austen, du Maurier, Plath, and Dickens–and the Miss America Pageant, which they watch together every year. As the years roll on and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers circle to express their hopes and dreams through poems, stories, and, eventually, books. Along the way, they experience history in the making: Vietnam, the race for the moon, and a women’s movement that challenges everything they have ever thought about themselves, while at the same time supporting one another through changes in their personal lives brought on by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success. Humorous and moving, The Wednesday Sisters is a literary feast for book lovers that earns a place among those popular works that honor the joyful, mysterious, unbreakable bonds between friends.

del.icio.us Tags: ebooks,e-books,ebook review,The Wednesday Sisters,Clayton,summer reading,fiction,women

Discounted eBooks - June 26, 2008

2008-06-25T05:33:00.000-07:00

I am having a hard time coming up with something to say about this week's selections. Vodka, a porn queen, Steve Jobs, Silicon Valley Friends and Jave -- can't find a thread. Oh well, enjoy!

This week's coupon code is C2MJ4. Use it at check out to get your discount.

Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea eBook edition

by Handler, Chelsea

The eagerly awaited collection of personal essays from the bestselling author of my horizontal life. . . When Chelsea Handler needs to get a few things off her chest, she appeals to a higher power -- vodka. You would too if you found out that your boyfriend was having an affair with a Peekapoo or if you had to pretend to be honeymooning with your father in order to upgrade to first class. Welcome to Chelsea's world -- a place where absurdity reigns supreme and a quick wit is the best line of defense.

eBooks About

Book Technology: the movie

The Girl I Left Behind eBook Edition

eBook Discount: Take an EXTRA 20% Discount on all New York Times Best Selling Fiction!

For those of us in the US it is a long Independence Day holiday weekend.

As far as I can tell, the VERY BEST holiday weekend imaginable will be spent on the beach with a good book.

So -- here is your chance to get as many of these NY Times best selling Fiction titles for 20% off.

Use Coupon Code J408 at checkout to get your discount!

New York Times Best Sellers are always discounted 10% and with coupon you will get a full 30% off on these great titles!

Happy Reading!!

Henri's Lament: The Death of the Sunday Morning Bookstore Run

2008 Global Student eBook Survey, the Popularity of eTexts and a New Look for eBooks

2008 Global Student eBook Survey

eTexts: Why Students like them

A New Look for eBooks

The Wednesday Sisters eBook edition

Discounted eBooks - June 26, 2008

Reading the Future -- It looks like eBooks to me

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything eBook Edition

eBook Discounts for June17, 2008

Kids Read for Fun -- The Scholastic Report

The Scandal Plan: Or: How to Win the Presidency by Cheating on Your Wife (eBook edition)

eBook Discounts for June 11, 2008

Enhanced eBooks -- Penguin Style