Poe

There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes- die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burden so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave.

Edgar Allen Poe – unabridged (23:10)

Inimitable aroma

A pleasantly musty compound of paper and dust.

By Zach Dundas @ Portland Monthly

Bibliotheca, Hoopla and Overdrive are angry with major publishers

“Fuck you, we’re basically a publicly funded marketing department for every publisher in the country, and we constantly hold author events where authors sell lots of books, the profits from which go to publishers and not libraries.”

By Michael Kozlowski @ Good e-Reader

Amazon Publishing

A subsidiary of the store we already buy everything else from.

By Blake Montgomery @ The Atlantic

Medium Massage

Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds Nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today by John Shelby Spong @ Good Reads

From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity by Bart Ehrman @ Sycamore Creek Church

The Apocalypse: Controversies and Meaning in Western History by Craig R. Koester @ SnagFilms

Libraries are fighting to preserve your right to borrow e-books

“Sorry, there is only one copy of that e-book, and a waitlist of over 200 people.”

By Jessamyn West @ CNN

Brave New World

Video Spark Notes (10:22)

Publishers are pissed about Amazon’s upcoming Audible Captions feature

In the publishing world, authors and their agents sign very specific contracts with publishers for their works: these contracts cover everything from when the manuscript needs to be delivered, how an author is paid, and what rights to the text a publisher might have, such as print or audio.

By Andrew Liptak @ The Verge

The Decline of the Christian Bookstore

Yes, they sell sanitized music and “Jesus junk.” But something important gets lost when Christian bookstores disappear.

By Ruth Graham @ Slate

I was a frequent shopper at Christian bookstores in the seventies. Just this weekend I reminisced upon a bygone Christian bookstore I used to patronize in my youth. It was like a candy store for me, back then. I bought Corrie Ten Boom‘s book there, as well as other mind-expanding epistles for my youthful mind. I eventually graduated to a more eclectic library.

Audible will let you ‘read’ an audiobook while you listen

For better or worse – OK, worse – many people just aren’t reading books anymore. Audible hopes the new Audible Captions feature can be part of the solution.

By Edward C. Baig @ USA Today

Dozens of US libraries are boycotting audiobooks

Penguin, Random House, Hatchette, Simon and Schuster and others have recently changed their business model from perpetual ownership to a two year term.

By Michael Kozlowski @ Good eReader

The Truth Behind The Da Vinci Code

Bart Ehrman (1:21:30)

I have not read The Da Vinci Code but I did suffer through the film.

I am a great fan of Bart Ehrman’s work and have read several of his books.

My Favorite Books About Death

…the societal taboos surrounding death and everything about it make it hard for people to discuss it...

By David Mitchell Som @ Book Riot

The Dark Side

Microsoft’s eBook Apocalypse by Brian Barrett @ Wired

Do We Still Need Libraries?

In the internet age what’s the point of libraries? Do we even need these brick and mortar buildings when a lot of knowledge can be found online?

Written and hosted by Danielle Brainbridge @ PBS Digital Studios

Mass Consumption

ebook sales decrease by 4.5% in the first quarter of 2019

By Michael Kozlowski @ Good e-Reader

Conspicuous Consumption

In the future, the Kindle and its ilk will be obsolete; indeed, they are already nearly obsolete. Making notes in my Kindle is a laborious and time consuming process, and I cannot cut and paste on the Kindle. Highlighting is easy enough. I do greatly prefer reading on my Kindle than on my iPhone.

For a mere few hundred dollars more I can purchase a futuristic e-reader right now. I am particularly enchanted by the Onyx Boox Nova Pro 7.8 E-Reader, which would set me back about three hundred and nineteen dollars and ninety nine cents. This Onyx e-reader would allow me to write notes in e-books exactly as I do in traditional paper books, except only better. I hesitate purchasing this e-reader for a few reasons, cost being next to the top reason.

There are a few higher end e-readers out there that have excellent note taking features, for three to five hundred dollars. I anticipate that the future will improve the quality of these high-end e-readers while lowering their costs as they are mass marketed, assuming there is a mass market.

The incredible Sony DPT-RP1/B 13″ Digital Paper, for $598 exactly, strictly reads PDF only, so it wouldn’t work as an e-book reader if the file is not a PDF. And it costs $598.