"The Last Book" Photographic Series

The debate between print vs. eBooks and who will survive has been going on for some time. Photographer Reinier Gerritsen believes that the print book is a "beautiful phenomenon that's vanishing".  Seeking to document the act of reading books, Gerritsen has spent 13 weeks over three years travelling the New York subway, capturing the images of people and what they are reading.  

Photo: Reinier Gerritsen as shown on theSlate.com in Behold, The Photo Blog.

Here he explores the act of reading as it occurs in public spaces the cramped and jostled environment of a subway car. It began as a series of modest observations and transformed into a collection of vivid documentary portraits, set against a visual landscape of best sellers, classics, romance novels, detective thrillers and every kind of printed book, as diverse as the readers. Conceived as an elegy to the end of bound books, in a positive twist it has now become evident that people are moving away from electronic reading devices and that the printed book is alive and well! (excerpt from the press release form the Julie Saul Gallery where Gerritsen's exhibit was on display from December 13 to Febrary 7, 2015)

 

Photo: saulgallery.com

Are we Running out of Intellectual Bandwidth?

Online Newspapers.  E-Books. Streaming Movies. E-mail. Social Media. Skype. List-Servs. Blogs.  
With all the information we seek out electronically, are we exhausting our ability to keep up with it?  Are we at the tipping point? And, will this new direction of how books could be delivered to us help or exhaust us.  Check out the following article by Ryan Tate re-posted from Wired.com

The Future of Books Looks a Lot Like Netflix

Image courtesy Apple

Struggling against plunging prices and a shrinking audience, book publishers think they’ve found a compelling vision for the future: magazines.

Today, the San Francisco-based literary startup Plympton launched an online fiction service calledRooster. It’s sold by subscription. It’s priced by the month. And it automatically delivers regular content to your iPhone or iPad. In other words, it’s a book service that looks a lot like a magazine service. And it’s just the latest example of how books are being packaged like magazines.

With Rooster, readers pay $5 per month in exchange for a stream of bite-sized chunks of fiction. Each chunk takes just 15 minutes or so to read, and over the course of a month, they add up to two books. The service builds on the success of Plympton’s Daily Lit, which emails you classic literature in five-minute installments.

Originally, as part of a partnership with Amazon, Plympton focused on selling its serials one volume at a time. In other words, you’d sign up for a series like “Hacker Mom” for $3.99, receive each episode on your Kindle, and then be done. The company then moved to subscriptions after co-founders Yael Goldstein Love and Jennifer 8. Lee realized Plympton knew far more about its readers than any traditional publisher.

Whereas an old-line book maker sells to bookstores, Plympton deals directly with customers. It knows their email addresses and could at least theoretically use their reading and purchase history to tailor the content of subscription streams (though with only one subscription channel, the company has no immediate plans to do so). Meanwhile, production costs are significantly lower with ebooks, and distribution is essentially free. That means more money can be plowed into online marketing for subscription channels. So, whereas the idea of mailing a monthly batch of books was ungainly in the old physical book market, it has become feasible in the ebook world, feasible not just because digital distribution is easy but because online publishers know and build audiences better.

Rooster follows in the footsteps of the whole-book literary subscriptions offered by indie Brooklyn outfit Emily Books, the all-you-can-eat genre subscriptions offered by F + W Media, and more general subscriptions offered by the likes of Oyster and Scribd. Tim Waterstone, owner of the UK bookstore Waterstones, has also announced Read Petite, a forthcoming short-fiction streaming service.

So now that we know that it’s possible to deliver books like magazines, to sell them like magazines, and to target them at clusters of readers like magazines, the big question looms: Do book enthusiasts actually want to engage with literature the way they engage with magazines? And can they afford to? After shelling out every month for Spotify and Netflix subscriptions, for New York Times digital, for electronic tablet magazines, for immersive online videogames, for online file storage, and, oh right, for high-speed internet, will people sign up for yet another monthly charge? Will they have the intellectual bandwidth to consume what they bought? And will they come to trust or despise the online studios pushing books onto their phones and iPads?

Those are difficult questions to answer. But such is the world of modern book publishing.

Books vs. Technology

Used Book Simulation for E-Readers

source: bookwasthere.org

A Book in Any Language ...

I work on a daily rotating schedule at 8 elementary schools.  Yes, I said 8.  That's a lot of collections and student names to remember.  In the last few years I have come across something else to remember.  Many of the new students are recent immigrants.  They come from all over the world and for many, English is a second language.  Most of these children are first-generation English speakers.  So how can we adjust our home reading programs to accommodate parents and grand-parents who can not read the books we send home with the kids?

We have a fledgling Dual Language collection, but with so many languages and a dwindling yearly budget, it is simply not possible to purchase a decent collection for all my students.  My various libraries can trade books, but with over 20 different languages that need to be represented in this year's class, we simply don't have the resources.

Digital Age Rescue

The International Children's Digital Library offers a solution.  This searchable database contains picture books in every language I have needed.  Students can be shown the site at school and sent home with a simple instruction guide.  I have had parents and grandparents respond positively.  Many are thrilled that they can now participate in reading with the children and they are happy to support their native language and culture as well.
By supporting literature in both the mother tongue and English, a positive, inclusive attitude is presented to new students and their families.  This goes a long way in  fostering self-confidence in students and participation by the family in their children's education.

41-43. Kobo romance freebie reading spree

When I first bought my Kobo Vox I rushed to take advantage of the free books available.  They generally fell into two categories: lengthy classics and Harlequin-type romances.  This weekend I decided to move some of those romances from the "to-read" shelf to the "read & done" shelf.  Here's the list:

The Bride's Baby by Liz Fielding
Mercenary and the Marriage Vow by Doreen Roberts
Perception by Angela Verdenius
Once a Cowboy by Linda Warren
Hide in Plain Sight  by Marta Perry
Dancing in the Moonlight by Raeanne Thayne
Baby Bonanza by Maureen Child
Baby, I'm Yours by Stephanie Bond
Speed Dating by Nancy Warren

Most of these titles follow the standard formula for Harlequin books: Contentious first meeting, instant lust, sudden unexpected feelings of love on her part, refusal to admit feelings on his part, numerous misunderstandings, angst, and in the final pages they actually talk, realizing they could have solved all this and got on with their lives on page 5, and happily ever after.  Sometimes this can be an enjoyable 1-2 hour long read but often I finish shaking my head and eyes sore from rolling so much. Clichés, sickly-sweet sentiment, ridiculous misunderstandings.  I find that unless there is a substantial plot to accompany the romance story I become close to infuriates with  the man-handling, controlling behaviour and refusal to have a honest conversation.

I'll add to this list the Loveswept romance: I Do by Mallory Rush a.k.a. Olivia Rupprecht.

Mostly because I don't think it deserves it's very own post.  In the case of  I Do, I fell victim to the ever popular 'replacement cover'.  Always one to be intrigued first by the book cover, I saw this and figured...why not?
After reading the book I had a suspicion so I googled the book and located THIS!




SOL--He Promised Her Forbidden Pleasures.... 

He'd nearly died in a foreign land, and in a moment of madness he'd married the woman whose letters had given him a reason to live. But when Sol Standish faced his bride for the first time, he knew he should release her from her vows. Mariah Garnet trembled when her husband stepped off the plane, wildly excited at meeting Sol, but deeply ashamed of the deception that had made her his wife.
Irresistible Temptations
Innocent, passionate, unrestrained in her hunger for the sensual gifts he offered, Mariah was a mystery Sol itched to unveil, but was her reckless courage strong enough to heal a man whose scars ran so deep? Desperate for the trust of his wanton angel, Sol demanded the truth she'd kept from the man who shared her soul. Could he make her believe he'd let no one take her from him, that she was his answered prayer
SOL is his name...and he does start out in the book thinking he actually is Sh*t .Outta .Luck.

I read this book and thought that I may injure myself from the almost constant eye-rolling.  Such cheesy lines and that old story...almost underage girl, innocent and sweet falls for older, hardened, dominating man.  I actually laughed out loud a few times over utterings such as "He realised he was the wind beneath my wings" blah blah

...okay.  All complaining and making fun aside, I admit I did read the whole thing.  In one sitting.  And it was kinda fun.  If you can embrace or even revel in the cheese factor then I Do is actually a bit of fun!

Book publishers curb library access to ebooks

From an article in today's Hamilton Sepecator..

Libraries are getting “caught in the middle” as publishers and others in the book world try to figure out how to make money off ebooks in the new age of publishing, says Hamilton Public Library’s chief librarian.

Last week Penguin announced it won’t allow libraries access to its new ebooks titles. This comes on the heels of a decision by HarperCollins Publishers in March to restrict libraries to circulating an ebook title only 26 times, after which they must buy another copy.

“It’s just one hiccup in the road,” said Ken Roberts, adding that he’s confident that public libraries will have an important place in the future.

Right now the selection of books and authors available digitally is inconsistent, especially considering some bestselling authors have refused ebook publication, he said.

U.S. publishers, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan, do not sell ebooks to libraries.

But regardless, the demand for digital books is growing.
READ MORE HERE...