Internet 'Is Causing Poetry Boom'

The grassroots scene is now growing, with live poetry readings becoming more popular and more poets getting their own pamphlets published Photo: JEFF GILBERT

From The Telegraph:

Poetry, one of mankind's oldest art forms, is enjoying a resurgence due to the internet, according to the writers themselves.

Rather than killing it off, modern technologies like email, social networking sites such as Facebook and online media players are helping poets reach new audiences.

The grassroots scene is now growing, with live poetry readings becoming more popular and more poets getting their own pamphlets published.

Competitions are also booming: the number of entries for the Foyle Young Poets Award more than doubling from 2003 to 2008 to almost 12,000.

Richard Smith, a published poet who is also head of modern collections at the British Library, thought computers were actually helping poetry.

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Bookyards section on poetry is HERE.

Reading Between the Lines on Kindle 2

From Channel Web:

It's thinner than an iPhone, can hold the digital equivalent of a small library, sells for $359 and is making people smile during the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression. In a world of 8-hour and 24-hour news cycles, Amazon's now-shipping Kindle 2 ebook reader is in its third straight day of garnering headlines.

Who would have thought that the next "killer app" would be The Sun Also Rises? (Or The Great Gatsby or Instapundit.com, for that matter?)

(Here's a video review of Kindle 2.)

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Oldest English Words Revealed?

From Live Science:

A game of Scrabble might not have been all that different in Stone Age times.

Using a computer simulation, a British researcher says he's examined the rate of change of words in languages to reveal the oldest English-sounding words, which would have been used by Stone Age humans 20,000 years ago.

Among the Stone Age words that presumably would've sounded then much like they do now in the English language: I, we, two and three.

The study concludes that the frequency with which a word is used relates to how slowly it changes through time, so that the most common words tend to be the oldest ones. While it cannot necessary predict exactly what words were used 20,000 years ago — there's little to go on, since writing was invented only about 5,000 years ago — it makes some interesting guesses.

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Kindle 2 Reads Aloud, as Sci-Fi Predicted

Amazon's Jeff Bezos with a Kindle. Photo from The Sydney Morning Herald

From Live Science:

The latest version of Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader has a text-to-speech feature. The Kindle 2 can read a book or news out loud if you want; it uses a speech synthesizer to convert e-book text or a news article to spoken words. Science fiction writers, who have long predicted electronic books that talk, would say that it's about time.

How long ago did science fiction writers predict that people would prefer to have a machine read to them, rather than read the news themselves?

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Electronic Books And Newspapers -- An iTunes Moment?

Getty Images

From The Economist:

THINGS are suddenly hotting up in the rather obscure field of electronic books and their associated reading devices, the best known of which is Amazon’s Kindle. A new, sleeker version of the Kindle was unveiled on February 9th. Just days earlier, Google said it was making 1.5m free e-books available in a format suitable for smart-phones, such as Apple’s iPhone and handsets powered by Google’s Android software. Amazon said it was working to make e-books available on smart-phones as well as the Kindle. Plastic Logic, the maker of a forthcoming e-reader device, said it had struck distribution deals with several magazines and newspapers. The iPhone, meanwhile, has quietly become the most widely used e-book reader: more people have downloaded e-book software (such as Stanza, eReader and Classics) for iPhones than have bought Kindles. Might e-books be approaching the moment of take-off, akin to Apple’s launch of the iTunes store in 2003, which created a new market for legal music downloads?

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Libraries Put Bible On Top Shelf In A Sop To Muslims

From The Telegraph:

Librarians are being told to move the Bible to the top shelf to avoid giving offence to followers of Islam.

Muslims have complained of finding the Koran on lower shelves, saying it should be put above commonplace things.

So officials have responded with guidance, backed by ministers, that all holy books should be treated equally and go on the top shelf together.

This means that Christian works, which also have immense historical and literary value, will be kept out of the reach and sight of many readers.

The guidance was published by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, a quango answering to Culture Secretary Andy Burnham.

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My Comment:

The Bible can be downloaded from here.

Bookyards section on Christian books is here.

The Koran (in English) can be downloaded from here.

Bookyards section on Islam is here.

Electronic Books Are Becoming Popular. Will Newspapers Follow?

Well Read -- Economist

JEFF BEZOS, Amazon’s boss, pays attention to symbolism. He named his e-commerce company after the world’s largest river to suggest a flood of books and other products. He named Amazon’s e-book reader, launched in 2007, the Kindle to suggest that it would spark a fire (and not of the book-burning sort). This week he unveiled the Kindle 2, an improved version for the same $359, against the backdrop of a library that was once the private collection of John Pierpont Morgan. Assisting him was Stephen King, a popular author who has written a novella that will be available only on the device. The Kindle 2, Mr Bezos means to say, is about preserving a great tradition—book reading—and improving it, not about replacing it.

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Doing The Retro Thing: Writing On Paper

Image from Uni-Mod

From Tobias Buckell:

Wednesday, while having a car starter installed, I realized I’d left my laptop at home and would be without that particular tool for several hours.

Taking my own advice about using the tools I had around me, I swung by the local Waldenbooks looking for pen and some blank pages (having failed at a card store to find either, or at least, pens that weren’t purple ink and writing pads that weren’t scented and had frilling on the edges). The determination was not to miss my day’s writing just because of a lack of a laptop.

It worked out well, as the store manager there got excited when I signed the Halo novels in stock and asked why I hadn’t done a signing. Well, I’d asked twice over the last couple years and been told ‘no.’ But now they’re ordering a bunch of my stock and would like to do a signing, so I gave them my contact info and then purchased a nice pen and a medium sized moleskine.

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Hat Tip: Instapundit

Anniversary Of Rushdie Book Fatwa

From The BBC:

It is 20 years since Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against the author Salman Rushdie after the publication of The Satanic Verses.

The novel's release led to widespread protest by Muslims who regarded it as blasphemous, including public burning of the book.

Rushdie had to live in hiding and under special protection for several years.

And while he is now able to live a more public life, he says the affair remains "an albatross around his neck".

Last year, he told BBC's Newsnight that he was considering writing a book about the experience.

Nine days after The Satanic Verses was published in Britain in September 1988, it was banned in India.

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DNA May Reveal Origins of Medieval Manuscripts

Tim Stinson carefully cuts a piece from one of the medieval parchment leaves used in the study. Genetic tests confirmed the parchment was made from calf skin. Credit: C. Michael Stinson

From Live Science:

Cutting a piece out of a page of a 15th-century prayer book may seem like sacrilege, but to one researcher, it's a small sacrifice in the name of solving medieval mysteries.

The goal is to build a DNA database of parchment to trace the lineage of ancient books.

Tim Stinson, an assistant professor of English at North Carolina State University, studies medieval texts and literature and how they changed through the Middle Ages. Though thousands of such texts have survived the centuries, the time and place of origin of many is unknown, which makes it hard to place manuscripts in their proper historical context.

Stinson and other researchers try to use clues from the texts themselves, such as handwriting and dialect, to divine a manuscript's origin, but "both of those things are tricky," Stinson said, because they are fairly inexact.

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OLPC's Hidden Killer App: Ultimate E-Book Reader

Click the above image to enlarge.
Image from Wired

From Wired News:

As the One Laptop Per Child project scrambles to revitalize itself after numerous setbacks, staff layoffs and dismal sales, it could find the footing it needs to survive by playing to its product's hidden strength as a low-priced, take-it-anywhere e-book reader.

The OLPC's XO Children's Machine is still a little clunky around the edges, and the availability of free, modern e-books is slim. But several open source projects are emerging that promise to improve the XO's capability as an e-book reader.

Once the kinks around software and content are ironed out, the XO could be pitched to commuters, students and travelers as a purely consumer device — "it's the rugged Kindle!" — the OLPC project can generate much-needed revenue to fund its educational, open-hardware goals.

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E-Books Take Center Stage

Image from Master New Media

From PC World:

New Amazon Kindle rumors and Google's e-book announcement help fuel e-reading furor.

It’s been over a year since the Amazon Kindle e-book reader was introduced. And the electronic-ink-based device--which in many ways has transformed the e-book category--has spent much of that time in high-demand: The Kindle was on backorder and sold out during the holidays. Today the Kindle remains on backorder at Amazon's site, by three to five weeks.

Rumor has it that the second-generation Kindle will be introduced at an Amazon event in New York on Monday. Last fall, images purported to be the Kindle 2 surfaced on The Boy Genius Report.

The first-generation Kindle cost $359--when you could buy it. “The Kindle has spurred much interest in the e-book category, not only because of its wireless capabilities, but also because it extends the footprint of Amazon nearly anywhere," notes Ross Rubin, NPD Group director of industry analysis. "It's been one of the first wirelessly connected consumer electronics products to offer fast connectivity at no end-user cost to the consumer.”

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Library Of The Future?

Alderman with her iLiad ... 'The words are the same whatever format I read them in'.
Photograph: Teri Pengilley/Guardian

From The Guardian:

Paper books come at an environmental cost. Switching to electronic readers could be a much greener way to enjoy the printed word, says author Naomi Alderman

I never used to believe in ebooks. How could an electronic device hope to replace the beauty of the printed book form, the elegance of its design, the tactile sensation of turning the pages and the smell of good-quality paper? I love libraries. I love bookshops. I love the scent of the leather bindings and the musty pages.

The mere presence of a large number of books induces a profound sense of wellbeing in me.

And this is all still true. But recently I've been intrigued by the idea that ebook readers could be a greener way to distribute the printed word. And since I started using one my position has begun to evolve.

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Google Offers 1.5million Books To Download FREE Onto Your Mobile Phone

Novel: Google is offering free classics to download, such as Oliver Twist

From The Daily Mail:

It is one of the world’s biggest libraries,but fits neatly into the palm of your hand.

Google has unveiled a free service that allows users to access a wealth of
classic books on their mobile phones.

The internet firm is offering 1.5million electronic novels to download, including classics such as Oliver Twist, Emma and The Jungle Book.

It believes the latest generation of phones, which have large colour screens, now make it viable to provide the service.

Google said it hoped it would lead to more people reading regularly.

The move will see the firm taking on Amazon and Sony, which offer dedicated electronic book readers.

Experts said they expected an online battle for the market.

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Reported Kindle 2 Photos Look Like The Real Deal

Credit: mobileread.com

From CNET News:

According to the post, the Kindle 2, which is expected to be announced Monday at 10 a.m. in New York, will be available on February 24 and carry a list price of $359--just like its predecessor. All in all, the device looks similar to what we saw in earlier leaked photos, but in these shots the Kindle 2 looks sleeker and decidedly more impressive. While we have no confirmation that this is the real deal, these look like marketing shots if I ever saw them.

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Amazon Kindle Books Coming To Cell Phones?

Image: Kindle titles could be available soon on a variety of mobile devices. (Credit: Amazon)

From CNET News:

Some people have criticized Amazon for essentially making the Kindle a "closed" e-book reader system. However, word from Yahoo Finance is that it might not be so closed after all and that Amazon will be making its Kindle books available on a wide variety of mobile phones in the near future.

At this point, it's unclear whether it will be offering up all its Kindle titles (the Kindle Store currently has about 230,000 e-books for sale) or just a fraction of them. Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener simply said the company is working on making Kindle books available "on a range of mobile phones."

Additionally, Google announced Friday that titles from its Book Search service will be available for reading on the iPhone and T-Mobile's G1, which uses Google's Android operating system.

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Digital Books Should Be Taken As Read

From The Guardian:

A quiet revolution is taking place - or trying to take place - in the way we read books, which hasn't changed much in the past 1,500 years. The printed book, supreme for centuries, has even repelled the advances of the digital age. Until now, that is. Most people who have tried one of the ebooks from Sony, Amazon and others have been extremely impressed by the readability and the way in which you can download new books if you run out on holiday. The downside is you have to carry another device around with you.

Or do you? Half of the planet already has a phone. Why can't that be used? Most people recoil from the prospect of reading books on a phone. Unless they are from Japan, where half (admittedly, graphic novels) of the top 10 books in a recent survey were read on mobiles. Is something happening?

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