Nonstopbooks

These are the droids you are looking for

2011-12-11T14:05:00.000-08:00

The NYT has an article about Cédric Delsaux, a French photograher, who inserts Star Wars characters into his photographs.

NYT article: An Earth Where the Droids Feel at Home

Some of his photographs have been published in the book Dark Lens. (Link to book on Amazon)

Gifts for book lovers

2011-12-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

Here are some gifts for the book lover in your life.

Personal Library Kit

Dragon bookends

Fleur-de-lis Bookends

The Book Lover's Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Celebrated Works of Literature, and the Passages That Feature Them

Used and Rare: Travels in the book world

Curiosities of Literature: A Feast for Book Lovers

Magnetic bookmarks - Chinese symbols

Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks From Jane Austen's Bath to Ernest Hemingway's Key West

Where to get "The Fireman"

2011-12-01T16:28:00.000-08:00

The Fireman was a novella that was a precursor to Fahrenheit 451. The story could be found in a 1950's issue of Galaxy Magazine and from a science fiction anthology from the 1980's. Both of these sources were somewhat difficult to get hold of without liberating yourself of a small pile of cash. Copies of the issue of Galaxy Magazine go for up to $100. As I write this the science fiction anthology from the 80's is selling for around $30. People trying to get a copy of "The Fireman" are the main reason these prices are high.

Now there is a new great way to get the story. Bradbury has released a book called "A Pleasure to Burn" that contains the story. Here is a review of the book.

Keywords: Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, "The Fireman"

Cheap books that qualify for Free Super Saver Shipping

2011-09-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

Many of these books cost less than $2. They qualify for Free Super Saver Shipping. If you need to push an order over $25 these can help you do that. Especially when you need a small amount to get to $25.

Great Brain Books

2010-04-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia entry about the Great Brain series.

Titles in order of chronological continuity include:

The Great Brain (1967)
More Adventures of the Great Brain (1969)
Me and My Little Brain (1971)
The Great Brain At The Academy (1972)
The Great Brain Reforms (1973)
The Return of the Great Brain (1974)
The Great Brain Does It Again (1976)
The Great Brain Is Back (Published in 1995 from loose notes after the author's death)

Lillian Virginia Mountweazel

2010-04-20T16:33:00.000-07:00

Article in The New Yorker about "Lillian Virginia Mountweazel" entry in the New Columbia Encyclopedia.

Infamous Books

2010-03-02T15:40:00.000-08:00

I am thinking about buying each of these books to create a display of infamous books.

Wikipedia entry for each of these books:

How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life

A Million Little Pieces

Love and Consequences

The Last Train from Hiroshima

Articles:

'Opal Mehta' author apologizes

Author Charles Pellegrino to remove 'Hiroshima' impostor from future editions

Author's 'Love and Consequences' memoir untrue

Black Warrior Cedar Pencils

2010-03-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

If you need a cheap item to push an order over $25 at Amazon to get Free Super Saver Shipping here is a great item: Paper Mate Mirado Black Warrior Cedar Pencils, 8 #2 Pre-Sharpened Pencils(58494)

Reasons to buy:

1) Good price $1.98

2) Who can resist a pencil called "Black Warrior"

3) Cedar pencil - smells nice

4) You can write cool things

$2 dictionary qualifies for Free Super Saver Shipping

2010-03-02T11:18:00.000-08:00

This dictionary currently cost $2.31 at Amazon. If you need a $2 item to push an order over $25 this is a great choice. The American Heritage dictionary is highly regarded. This paper edition is a steal at $2. Link to book on Amazon: Houghton Mifflin American Heritage Office Edition Dictionary, Paperback, 960 pages (0618077065)

Cheapest book I can find that qualifies for Free Super Saver Shipping*

2010-02-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

The title of this piece is Cheapest book I can find that qualifies for Free Super Saver Shipping*

What is the * for?

* stands for the cheapest book that I can find that I think is worth getting. There are some other books that may be cheaper or in the same price range but something that you would never read.

Since I am picking the books there may be some of my choices that don't work for you but I am going to maintain a list of very cheap books that I find interesting and that I would use if I need to bump an order over $25 to get Free Super Saver Shipping.

Here is my current suggestion:

Note: When I initially posted this book it was 66 cents and qualified for Free Super Saver Shipping. Amazon fluctuates the prices on items to this book may not be 66 cents when you see this post.

Items under $1 for Free Super Saver Shipping

2010-01-24T22:04:00.000-08:00

Throughout These Forty Days We Pray -- This is a book that can be purchased for .33 on Amazon and the book qualifies for Free Super Saver Shipping. If you need just a few pennies to push an order up to $25 this will do it. This is the cheapest book on Amazon that I can find that qualifies for Free Super Saver Shipping.

Here is a non-book item that is under a dollar

More $2 books for Free Super Saver Shipping

2010-01-24T21:25:00.001-08:00

Here are two books that can be purchased for $2 that qualify for Free Super Saver Shipping. If you have a $23 order these books will push your order to $25 so you get Free Super Saver Shipping

Easy Spanish Phrase Book: Over 770 Basic Phrases for Everyday Use (Dover Easy Phrase) (Spanish and English Edition)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Dover Thrift Editions)

Here is a previous post that list some other books that qualify for FSSS that are in the low dollar range.

Advertising in ebooks

2009-06-12T14:53:00.001-07:00

The idea of putting advertising in ebooks is not a new idea but I wanted to make a few comments on it. Paper books have had advertising in them in the past. Doing some research on the topic I found several references to cigarette ads in paperbacks in the 60's and 70's.

The major critique of ads in paper books is that the ad breaks the flow of reading and that the ads are wasted paper.

I am a Kindle owner and I would like to see a certain kind of advertising for ebooks. I would like to see ebooks sponsored and the process of sponsorship would allow people to buy a cheaper copy of the book.

Let me give an example of a hypothetical ebook that sells for $14.99 on Amazon. The $14.99 edition has no advertising. Honda sponsors the book and creates a "Honda edition". The Honda edition contains the full text of the book and sells for less than the regular edition. Honda would pay the publisher for each copy of the Honda Edition that was sold. After the title page of the Honda edition there would be one or several pages of information (ads) about Honda products. There would be no ads in the actual text of the book.

People looking to buy the book would see two copies available on Amazon. The regular edition ($14.99) and the Honda edition ($9.99). This type of sponsorship would have a strong impact on consumers. I think people would remember the companies that sponsored the books they bought and made them more affordable.

Honda, of course, was just being used as an example. Any company could sponsor a book. If there was some type of connection between the subject of the book and the sponsor of the book that might make the sponsorship even more appealing.

I just looked and the Kindle edition of "Marley and Me" sells for $6.49. Why not a Purina edition of the book that sells for $2.99?

I typically am not a big fan of advertising but I think this idea would create a win/win situation. Memorable strong advertisement would strengthen brands that used this method to advertise and readers would win because they would get cheaper books. Because the advertising is at the front of the book it would not harm the reading experience and the reader would not feel put upon by the ad because they received a specific price reduction because of the ad.

How to be #1 on Amazon.com

2009-06-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

Bailout Riches!: How Everyday Investors Can Make a Fortune Buying Bad Loans for Pennies on the Dollar is the #12 bestselling book on Amazon today. A few days ago it was #1. I think it is highly likely that the author is buying their own book to get a high sales rank on Amazon. If you run searches for the book there are no reviews on the web. There are no mentions of media events about the book.

The book is published by Wiley. Last year another Wiley book with a similar pedigree just appeared at #1 on Amazon. The book was: Multi-Family Millions: How Anyone Can Reposition Apartments for Big Profits. The book sat at #1 for several days at the end of April, 2008. If you run a search for the book now there is an odd collection of websites that show up but there are no reviews.

I have read that the author of the Multi-Family book offers seminars that cost several thousand dollars a piece. If getting the book to #1 on Amazon convinces just 5 people to sign up for a seminar the author might get around $15,000. If you bought $15,000 of your own book on Amazon I bet the book would go to #1. For people selling seminars this scheme to push your book to #1 would completely pay for itself.

What I am suprised about is that more authors do not try this. If you have poured years of your life into a book wouldn't it be worth $15,000 to have the book be #1 at Amazon? In regards to Wiley we will have to see if every spring a new get rich quick book appears at #1 on Amazon with seemingly no web or media coverage of the book.

A site called EarlyWord that watches what happens in the book world noticed that the book went to #1 and contacted the author's pubicist at Wiley. EarlyWord reported the publicist as saying - The book’s rise has been driven by his own direct marketing to his followers and a smattering of appearances in business news outlets

That seems like code for - "he is buying his own book to drive up the sales rank."

If you look at the reviews on Amazon you will also notice that all the positive reviews appeared on the same day. At the exact same tiem the book leapt out of nowhere to #1 on Amazon. If authors are going to game Amazon I would like to see it done by some novelists and not just by the author's of get rich quick books.

Company's 'ATM For Books' Prints On Demand

2009-05-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

On Demand Books has installed a trial machine in a central London bookstore. It's called the Espresso machine, but it has nothing to do with coffee beans. This baby's grinding out books.

Full story at NPR.

Book designers thinking for themselves

2009-05-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

The Irony

Links to books: Never Coming to A Theater Near You

The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don't Think for Themselves

Another free Amazon book

2009-04-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World is available as a free download on Amazon. (Click on title to download free copy of book)

From the creators of the highly acclaimed New York Times best-selling Day in the Life and America 24/7 series, Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt,Blue Planet Run provides readers with a fascinating and thought-provoking look at the water problems facing humanity on every continent, as well as some of the hopeful solutions and courageous “water heroes” focused on alleviating this crisis.

The large-format volume features more than 250 photographs by the world’s top photojournalists, illustrations by leading infographic artist Nigel Holmes, and provocative essays by Diane Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses), environmental leaders Paul Hawken and Bill McKibben, journalists Michael Specter and Jeffrey Rothfeder, Emmy Award-winning TV broadcaster Mike Cerre, Michael Malone, of ABC News and inventor Dean Kamen (the Segway scooter). Advisors and staff include Phillip Moffitt, former editor and owner of Esquire magazine and Stephen Petranek, former editor-in-chief of Discover magazine.

Blue Planet Run highlights the vital contributions of nonprofits around the world, including the groundbreaking work of the Blue Planet Run Foundation, which seeks to provide safe drinking water to 200 million people by 2027. The book includes coverage of the 2007 Blue Planet Run, an unprecedented, non-stop, around-the-world relay race designed as a wake-up call to the world. Twenty-one runners, representing 13 countries, began the race on June 1, 2007, at the United Nations and concluded in New York City on September 4, 2007, having circled the Earth in just 95 days while running over 15,000 miles across 16 countries in Europe, Asia and North America.

Free books for the Amazon Kindle / iPhone / iPod Touch

2009-03-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

There are numerous free books on Amazon; some are books where the copyright is up. For example, books from Project Gutenberg that have been converted for use on the Kindle. We are going to focus on books that are in copyright that are being given away by the publisher. There are good reasons for publishers to do this. If they can expose you to one book by an author you may buy other books by the author. Often the free books are part of a trilogy. The idea is to give you the first book for free and if you like the series you will buy other books.

Here are several free books available for the Kindle. If you have an iPod Touch or iPhone you can download the Kindle software and you can also get these books for free.

Because giving away these free copies is a great way to promote books; I expect numerous publishers will make several books available for free download. I predict that within 3 months there will be 50 or more free books available from legitimate publishers of in-copyright books. If you don't have a Kindle you might want to consider getting an iPod Touch because you can use that to access the free books.

Using the same stock photo?

2009-03-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan was published in 2009.

The Hidden War: A Russian Journalist's Account of the Soviet War in Afghanistan was published in 2001.

As an author would you really want to use the same stock photo as another book that is very similar to yours on topic?

Third Wish

2009-02-25T10:55:00.000-08:00

First published in the Czech Republic (where it quickly became a bestseller), Third Wish is a sweeping, lavishly plotted novel in five parts, bound together by a profound love story that spans the globe. It is at once a classic quest novel and a rich parable for our times, inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll, Milan Kundera, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, among others. Presented in a boxed set as two richly illustrated paperback volumes with an accompanying CD musical soundtrack, this is a true one-of-a-kind novel.

Bezos on "The Daily Show"

2009-02-24T15:08:00.000-08:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jeff Bezos

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

Jeff Bezos discussing the Kindle on The Daily Show.

The $627.59 ebook reader

2009-02-10T14:57:00.000-08:00

In a 1968 report called Toward a Uniform Federal Report Numbering System and a Cuddly Microfiche Reader -- Two Modest Proposals by Harold Wooster you can see pictures of a portable reader that the author thought up. The picture on the left is from the report and shows what the reader would look like. Microfiche was going to be the medium that would store the information on this device. If the author had written this report a couple years down the road I am sure it would have been a proposal for an electronic book reader. The part of the report that I find the most interesting in when Mr. Wooster provides the specifications for his proposed reader.

Here is what he says about the case:

Case: Molded of high impact plastic --Cylolac or equivalent, with all edges and corners rounded. Should be warm and comfortable to hold -- even cuddly!!

If he had known about them Mr. Wooster would have probably said to make it look like an iPod. The language above including the cuddly language was taken directly from the report.

Here is what he said about price:

If -- and I'd be the first to admit it's a mighty big if -- something like this personal, portable, cuddly microfiche reader can be built to retail at no more than $100 -- it would overcome the last major obstacle to the use of microfiche.

Adjusting for inflation that $100 is $627.59 in 2009 dollars.

$100 is clearly a very important price point. In 1968 Mr. Wooster mentioned it as the price that would really work. Here is a 2000 article about ebooks and the magic price point that is mentioned is $100. The Kindle 2 has just been released by Amazon and in articles saying the $359 price is to high the price of $99 is invoked as the price that would really make the item move. Here is one article with the $99 price. In the comments to this posting at Boing Boing a person mentions they would buy one for $99. I know over the years that I have seen dozens of articles and comments where people throw out the $100 price point. eBook makers need to realize how magic that number is. It has been being used since 1968. Maybe the first company with a Kindle like device for $99 will be the one to rule the market.

The Kindle 2 at $359 is way under the $627.59 that Mr. Wooster was willing to pay for the portable microfiche reader.

Some Kindle links

2009-02-10T13:12:00.000-08:00

Amazon Kindle 2: 10 Things You Should Know

Amazon Kindle 2: It's All About the E Ink

Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States

2009-01-31T11:08:00.000-08:00

Video about the Lakeside Classic book: INAUGURAL ADDRESSES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF HE UNITED STATES FROM W.H. TAFT TO G. W. BUSH

Book is on Amazon and it is a great deal.

Always a mention about cuddling

2009-01-26T20:58:00.000-08:00

It seems everytime there is an article about ebooks there has to be a line in it about how you cannot cuddle up with an ebook.

For example in this recent article from the Salt Lake Tribune: "But, books are always going to be around," Fogarty says. E-book devices "are not something people will cuddle up with."

Personally I cringe everytime I read about cuddling and ebooks. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against cuddling but I don't think every passionate reader should be labeled a cuddler. For me the closest I come to cuddling is reading on my couch. When I do read on my couch I like to read on my Kindle. I don't have to hold a Kindle open like I do a book so it is much more relaxing for me to read this way.

Here are some comments from others about the cuddling idea:

Here is one person that is willing to consider cuddling up with an ebook : My friend Margaret just got an ebook reader for Christmas. Margaret is a cool lady but she isn’t that much ahead of the mainstream. Ray and I were fascinated by the Sony reader when we saw one recently. I read some material about the Amazon Kindle today. You can download books at any time to your reader. It operates like a cellphone so you don’t even need WI-FI available. How awesome is that? As we are creating our ebooks we can add extra features like hyperlinks which make the book even better than the paper version. Maybe we won’t all find paper books quite as cuddily as we used to think. Maybe we will be happy to cuddle up to our readers and feel good that we are saving a bunch of trees at the same time.

At HockeyBookReviews.com (Yes, real site) there was this pragmatic cuddling comment: Forget about the warmth a real book offers when you cuddle up with it by the fire. People spend so much time on buses and planes, in boring meetings, or at kids soccer practices or hockey games. Note: I think I would have been disappointed if the hockey site had gotten too much into cuddling. On another note, this site also linked to a discussion on CBC radio about ebooks.

At the Literary Escapism blog they are debating this question: Though we all know that some books only come out in certain formats, if the world were perfect and you could have a book in any published format, which do you prefer - hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, audiobook or ebook? Why?

Two cent item gets FREE Super Saver Shipping

2009-01-07T00:17:00.000-08:00

Original post is below. Because some of the prices have changed I wanted to link to some items that are currently the cheapest. The .02 book is no longer available but here are some other good choices.

Book of poetry that cost .65 cents.

Some books:
Romeo and Juliet for $1
Christmas Carol for $1 (Have around for Christmas time)
Skeleton Hiccups - Kid's book ($2.80)

Some additional items:
$1.50 item - Classic Travel Posters: 16 Art Stickers
$1.50 item - De Chirico: 16 Art Stickers (Dover Fine Art Stickers)
$1.50 item - Easy Kaleidoscope Stained Glass Coloring Book (Dover Little Activity Books)
$1.50 item - Classic Nudes: 16 Art Stickers

$4.23 DVD - The Informant! (Stars Matt Damon)
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Original post

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I was buying this DVD set on Amazon: The Universe - The Complete Season One (History Channel) and it cost $24.99. If you have more than $25 of items that are labeled FREE Super Saver Shipping you don't have to pay shipping. My order was 1 cent short to get the free shipping. I found this book on Amazon that is a FREE Super Saver Shipping book that only cost .02. I added the book to my order and my total bill was $25.01 with no shipping charge. The 2 cent book was: Contemporary Authors Cumulative Index 08/08 (700 page book for 2 cents)

If you need a larger amount than 2 cents to push your order over $25 here are some books that cost from $1-$2.50

A Christmas Carol $1 (Have this classic around to read at Christmas)

Civil War Stories $1.50

The Egg and Other Stories $1.50 (Very good reviews on Amazon)

The Body Snatcher and Other Tales $1.50

101 Great American Poems $1.50

Books and Reading: A Book of Quotations $2.00

Here are several packs of bookmarks. Each pack is $1.50 and qualifies for FREE Super Saver Shipping

Twelve Quilt Bookmarks (Small-Format Bookmarks)

Twelve Tiffany Bookmarks (Small-Format Bookmarks)

Twelve Celtic Bookmarks (Small-Format Bookmarks)

Twelve Monet Bookmarks (Small-Format Bookmarks)

It's the end of the world as we know it...

2009-01-04T13:45:00.000-08:00

The book Just in Case, which is about how to prepare for emergencies and disasters, is in the top hundred books on Amazon. The sales rank was 56,068 yesterday. Something has really made the sales jump.

The Book Calendar 2009

2009-01-04T13:34:00.000-08:00

TheBookCalendar.com is a site that introduces a new book everyday. The site has an archive so that you can see previous days.

It's more than Amazon.com

2008-12-28T16:14:00.000-08:00

An article in the New York Times called Bargain Hunting for Books, and Feeling Sheepish About It discusses how book publishers and booksellers are faltering and it’s all the fault of the Internet used books market.

When people think about online book selling the first thing that comes to mind is probably Amazon.com. Here is one thing the author says about Amazon in the article, "This is not about Amazon peddling new books at discounted prices, which has been a factor in the book business for a decade, but about the rise of a worldwide network of amateurs who sell books from their homes..."

I agree with the author that this is bigger than Amazon. What I would like to look at are the other players in this field that either sell used books online or provide online tools that amateurs can use to find and move used books around.

Online bookstores other than Amazon that deal in used books

Online remainder sellers - These sites sell remainder books. Remainder books are the books that bookstores and publishers were unable to sell new. In a Faustian bargain the publishers sell these books for cents on the dollar to remainder sellers so that the make some money on the books. The problem is that these books compete against any future sales of these titles by the publisher.

Bookcloseouts.com

Hamilton Book

Book price comparison websites - these sites allow people to find out what online seller has the cheapest price for a used book. Bookfinder rails against the high cost of textbooks but seemingly without any reflection on how they may be one of the facets of upwardly spiraling textbook costs.

Bookfinder.com

Fetchbook

Used book trading sites - these sites allow people to post their used books online to trade for other used books. More than a million used books are listed on these sites.

Bookmooch

Paperbackswap

Beedle the Bard - SOLD OUT

2008-12-28T12:42:00.000-08:00

JK Rowling created seven hand made copies of Beedle the Bard. Rowling gave copies to friends that had helped her when she was writing the Potter series. One copy was sold for charity and Amazon.com bought it for $4 million. Amazon has a special page on their website where they showcase the original they purchased: Amazon Beedle the Bard Original

There is a standard hardcover edition of Beedle the Bard that is for sale. A new copy sells for roughly $10 on Amazon. There is also a collector's edition that was limited to 100,000 copies worldwide. That may sound like a lot of copies for a "limited edition" but when you consider that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had a first printing of 12 million copies in the United States you realize that the Potter books are in a different realm. The limited edition was being sold by Amazon for $100. The limited edition has now sold out and the only copies available are on the secondary market. The current low price for a copy is between $280-$300.

We will keep an eye on the book and report back as things change. It will be interesting to see how high (or low) the price goes.

Olive Kitteridge

2008-12-26T23:40:00.000-08:00

The book Olive Kitteridge is up 3500% in sales rank going from around 1000 to number 25 on Amazon.com in one day. There was a glowing review of the book by author Melissa Banks on All Things Considered on NPR.

Of Red Ryder BB guns and fake books

2008-12-23T12:16:00.000-08:00

Jean Shepherd was the author of the short story collections In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories: And Other Disasters which was made into the movie A Christmas Story. The main character Ralphie wants an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle for Christmas. Jean Shepherd was not only the author of the book he was the narrator in the movie. On top of all this he was the creator of a great literary hoax.

Shepherd was a radio broadcaster for WOR in New York for part of his career. Sheperd was critical of how list of bestsellers were compiled. In addition to copies sold being counted booksellers also reported what books were being asked for. Sheperd directed his listeners to go out to bookstores and try to buy the fictional book I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing. The title was suggested by a listener calling into his program.

Listeners went out and asked for the book. Bookstores started to request the book from distributors. There were also great stories of people claiming to have read the book when it did not even exist. These were not the listeners of the radio program trying to perpetrate the hoax but people trying to avoid appearing unread.

Ballantine books in conjunction with Shepherd and SF writer Theodore Sturgeon created a real book to complete the hoax. Here is the record for the book on Amazon.

Wikipedia entry about I, Libertine.

You can listen here to an interview of Shepherd in 1968 where he discusses the hoax. (MP3) Here is a paraphrased transcript of the interview.

Time capsules and libraries

2008-12-16T21:36:00.000-08:00

NPR had a story called Time Capsule Brings Headlines From 1896. In the story there is a mention about an elementary school in Baldwin, New York that buried a time capsule in 1967. The capsule was opened in 2000. Here is what happened:

Warned that the contents may have disintegrated due to the elements, school officials pulled the capsule out of the ground weeks before the event for a sneak peak. It was perfectly preserved, so they closed the lid and returned it to the earth.

Unfortunately, the broken seal allowed water to seep into the capsule in the weeks before the ceremony. Many of the papers were soggy and illegible, but the other items — such as a flashlight, a TV Guide, a bobby pin, a rubber band and a pencil sharpener — were mostly intact.

As a librarian the destruction of the papers seemed like the biggest tragedy to me. This got me thinking that libraries might be able to use time capsules as community projects to get people thinking about how information is preserved. The library could encourage people in the community to write texts to be read on some date in the future, say 100 years from now.

If community members wrote text, what would need to be done to have the text read in 100 years? If the text were stored on a server and also put into a book which version would be accessible in 100 years? A time capsule project would allow people to think about the idea of having lots of copies to make sure that an item is preserved, as well as other ideas about preservation. Maybe the library itself is a time capsule? If the time capsule project contained written, audio and video media the community could create interesting content for future generations.

Another idea I had that related to the time capsule deals with going back in time. This picture gave me the idea:

This is a picture of a newstand that was taken in November of 1938. Several of the magazines on this stand could be obtained by a library or are already in their collection. My idea is to display the picture with the date and then have the magazines from November 1938 for people to view. This would effectively create a time machine. People will be seeing what they would see if they walked up to this newstand in 1938 and pulled a magazine off the rack.

A display like this would be a way to show how the library preserves information and to get people thinking more about the role of libraries.

Every Executive Should Have a Kindle

2008-12-01T00:11:00.000-08:00

I think that every executive should have a Kindle. I don't think the Kindle is a complete solution to meeting the information needs of an executive but I think it can be extremely useful. There are currently 200,000 books available for the Kindle. With it's ability to download books over the Sprint EVDO network the Kindle provides quick access to the books that are not available on the Internet. When I talk about availability on the Internet I am not talking about the ability to purchase a paper copy online but the ability to read the full text online.

It is late in the evening as I am writing this. Bookstores are closed. Libraries are closed. I read about a book called Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies and I want to read it tonight. With the Kindle I can have the book downloaded and start to read it in less than 5 minutes. Even if my local bookstore or library is open and they had the book it would take an hour round trip to go to a local library or bookstore and borrow or buy the book.

People running companies and organizations should have ready access to quality information. The Kindle is one tool to make that happen. A wise executive would also have access to a good librarian, library, and the Internet to round out their ability to access quality information in a timely manner.

Thirteen Books That Shaped America

2008-11-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from book review of Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America

Some books are so well-known that almost no one actually reads them. They have had so much influence that we "know" them merely by living in the world they have helped create. And yet, as the distinguished poet, novelist and critic Jay Parini demonstrates in "Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America," there's a lot to learn by giving them another (or a first) look.

"The Federalist Papers"? "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin"? "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Or how about "How to Win Friends and Influence People" or "The Feminine Mystique"? Most of us can probably say something about each of them, maybe even something true, but very probably at the expense of reducing a complex thesis to the dimensions of a bumper sticker.

Parini gives a quick but faithful summary of each book, as well as a brief social history: how the book was received, how its reputation has changed, how it shaped later writers and thinkers — including in some cases Parini himself, who in this reappraisal of our literary past becomes our surrogate everyman, albeit an uncommonly sensitive and articulate one.

Full book review in The Seattle Times
Piece on NPR about book.

Books featured in: Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America

Plymouth Plantation 1620 - 1647

The Federalist Papers (Signet Classics)

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

The Journals of Lewis and Clark (Lewis & Clark Expedition)

Walden With Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essay on Thoreau (Everyman's Library)

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Norton Critical Editions)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Souls of Black Folk (An African American Heritage Book)

The Promised Land (Penguin Classics)

How to Win Friends & Influence People

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care

On the Road (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)

The Feminine Mystique

Cory Doctorow - Publishing Science Fiction

2008-11-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

Cory Doctorow is known for releasing his books as ebooks under a Creative Commons license. For most of the titles that Cory has written you can easily obtain a copy of the book at his website. His book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Science Fiction was not released under the Creative Commons license. As I write this the cheapest copy of the book available on Amazon is $95. The book is out of print and if you want to obtain a copy you have to buy from a used book seller.

This post is not a critique of the "Idiot" guide not being released under Creative Commons. Right off the top I can see two major reasons why it was not released with a Creative Commons license. First, Cory has a co-author on this one so changing the rights on the book involved more people. Second, this particular publisher probably would not have released the book under a Creative Commons license even if both authors wanted to do this.

I just think it is interesting to see what happens to the price of a book when it goes out of print. Because Cory releases his other books under a Creative Commons license you can compare what happens to the price when a book is in paper only vs. a book that is in paper and electronic. With the added facet that the electronic copy is available under a Creative Commons license.

Publish and be wrong

2008-10-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

One group of researchers thinks headline-grabbing scientific reports are the most likely to turn out to be wrong

IN ECONOMIC theory the winner’s curse refers to the idea that someone who places the winning bid in an auction may have paid too much. Consider, for example, bids to develop an oil field. Most of the offers are likely to cluster around the true value of the resource, so the highest bidder probably paid too much.

The same thing may be happening in scientific publishing, according to a new analysis. With so many scientific papers chasing so few pages in the most prestigious journals, the winners could be the ones most likely to oversell themselves—to trumpet dramatic or important results that later turn out to be false. This would produce a distorted picture of scientific knowledge, with less dramatic (but more accurate) results either relegated to obscure journals or left unpublished.

Full article in the Economist.

New Bible has a 'green' theme

2008-10-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

A new edition of the Bible sets out to show that the seeds of environmentalism were first sown in the Garden of Eden.

Just as "red letter" Bibles highlight the words of Jesus in red ink, The Green Bible, in stores this week, uses green ink to spotlight more than 1,000 passages extolling the goodness of creation and God's charge to mankind to care for it.

The first chapter of Genesis is grass green, as are big chunks of Psalms and threads through every book including the Gospels, where Jesus considers the lilies of the field and keeps his eye on the sparrow.

Publisher HarperOne uses the New Revised Standard Translation of the Bible to present the earth-loving book printed with soy ink on recycled paper and bound in eco-friendly linen.

Full article at USA Today.

Controversy Embroils Nobel Literature Prize

2008-10-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

Even before the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature was announced Thursday morning, it was already drawing attention — for the wrong reasons. An official of the Swedish Academy — which awards the Nobel Prizes — caused a furor last week when he described American literature as isolated and insular, and therefore unqualified for literature's most prestigious award.

Playwright Edward Albee, whose credits include Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe and Zoo Story, has gained a sort of cranky perspective when it comes to awards. "All prizes are peculiar," he says. "There's politics in everything, and some judges just don't know what they're doing."

Full story at NPR.

Great Crash

2008-10-08T23:28:00.000-07:00

The Great Crash 1929 is up over 80% in sales rank at Amazon.com. They had the book listed in their movers and shakers section on October 8. Not that surprising considering the current headline at the New York Times is U.S. May Take Ownership Stake in Banks.

Antonia Juhasz: 'Tyranny of Oil' Is A Grave Threat

2008-10-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

Author and activist Antonia Juhasz argues that the oil industry's grip on policy and government has never been stronger.

What's more, Juhasz says, the business and politics of oil's production pose such grave implications on so many fronts — the environment, human rights, the economy, worker safety, public health — that the current state of petroleum-industry affairs is fundamentally antithetical to democracy.

Full story here.