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Domain: booksonboard.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to booksonboard.com.
Comments · 6
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Books On Board Versus Kobo Confuses Me
I'm confused with the random selection in the summary of the two examples. I looked up more nerdish books and was met with many examples of the exact same price: Kobo's Eye of the World vs BoB Eye of the World. Both $6.99. Makes me wonder if the prices aren't dictated by the publisher. I'm also confused how BoB calls itself "the Largest Independent eBookstore" as they're clearly hosting major publishers' works. I'm guessing the McCarthy book cited in the summary is going through different copyright fee channels with the distribution. Either way, I have yet to be impressed with any electronic publisher's prices and I don't think I ever will because when I visit publishers' websites like O'Reilly or Tor (Macmillan sub), the eBooks are often sold at or near the regular book price. So this tells me that our problem isn't the distribution site like Amazon or Kobo but instead the publishers who disagree with me on a fundamental level that a soft copy of a book's worth compared to a physical dead tree version. Until then, I'm staying old school. Go ahead and laugh at my room full of books, at least I own something and not an ethereal "right" on an electronic device locked down by some draconian DRM.
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Re:Old dilema
but virtually no new books are release in digital format. I for one read a lot of SF, and if I could get, say, the latest Iain M. Banks on file, I would buy it in an instant. However, I can't, so I have to order the damn hardcover from the UK, wait a million years for it to be delivered, instead of getting my fix in 2 minutes, for a premium that I'd be willing to pay, to read on an ebook reader that I'd be willing to pay dearly too - if I had a great choice of books to read on it.
Try Fictionwise (Matter is the book you're looking for, I take it?), or BooksOnBoard. Admittedly the amount of books offered isn't very large yet, but there are some efforts being made, and esp. scifi/fant is already fairly well available.
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Not Entirely TrueMaybe he should have followed the link of the first reply's signature? From that site:
Myth:
If you buy a Kindle, you are locked into Amazon's Kindle store.
Truth:
There are many sources for books that can be read on the Kindle.
Some Free Sites (Public Domain / Creative Commons)
MobileRead.com (look for
Some Pay Sites
Fictionwise.com (look for
So your Kindle is still somewhat useful. I would hope that more competition arises and Amazon removes its Kindle services from its e-book services so as to avoid a nasty inevitable anti-trust suit.
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Not all Heinlein is dark... Try these
There are a number of Heinlein's novels that were aimed at the young-adult-to-adult category. Some of my favorites are:
'Have Space Suit, Will Travel.' This is my top pick. Best of all, there's a full-cast audio edition available that's nothing short of a radio play. Outstanding stuff!
Some of my other favorites from Heinlein, though not necessarily available (yet) on audio, are: "Starman Jones," "Rocket Ship Galileo," "Space Cadet," "Between Planets," "Red Planet," "Farmer in the Sky," and "The Puppet Masters."
Others have suggested Anne McCaffrey's works. There are lots of good books from her, true, though I have to say I'm not fond of what I see as a downgrade in quality of writing from her over the last decade or so. If you're going after her stuff, I highly recommend the earlier works, notably the earlier 'Dragonriders' books. Of those, two of my all-time favorites are "The White Dragon" and "The Dolphins of Pern."
I would also strongly recommend the "Inheritance" trilogy from Chris Paolini. The first book in the series, "Eragon" (and the book, BTW, was orders of magnitude better than that horrid excuse for a movie which has, thankfully, faded to obscurity) lays the groundwork. The second, "Eldest," picks up where it leaves off. The third and final one in the series, "Brisingr," is coming Sep. 20th of this year.
There are a couple of lesser-known authors that I went bonkers over as a kid, and I still re-read them to this day. If you can find a book club edition of "The Roads of Heaven," by Melissa Scott, do so. If not, there are three books in her "Silence Leigh" series: "Five-Twelfths of Heaven," "Silence in Solitude," and "Empress of Earth."
If your youngsters are interested in the ocean and its inhabitants, at least one lesser-known author I would recommend is Carl Biemiller. He did a trilogy called "The Hydronaut Adventures" that I found to be a terrific read.
Yet another recommendation (I'm just full of them today) I'd make is the books of James Schmitz who, sadly, is no longer with us. However, he left us a marvelous legacy in the form of wonders like "The Witches of Karres" and the Telzey Amberdon stories.
One of my all-time favorites from Schmitz is a book called "The Demon Breed." Among its other endearing characters, it features a pair of oversize, sentient, mutant otters.
Oh! One more... If you can locate a copy of Edward Ormondroyd's "David and the Phoenix," grab it!
There's probably others I'll think of after I hit "submit," but I think you'll have a pretty good start with this. As for getting the books, many of which are out of print, you would do well to search Powell's Books, as well as abebooks.com, a wonderful site that links together literally thousands of new and used book dealers.
Happy reading!
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Blaming the Media.....again
The deference of blame onto the media is an ongoing problem, as leaders of different communities (in this case, yet another angry church leader) cite the media as responsible for violence apparent in children and teenagers. The book Ill Effects: The Media/Violence Debate by Martin Barker, which can be found in ebook form on BooksOnBoard.com , actually explores the effects of the media on modern culture. Can film, television, and video really be blamed for society's problems? Ill Effects is a radical re-examination of the whole media effects debate, questioning not only whether the media is capable of directly influencing people's views and actions, but also if the idea of "effects" is the most useful way of conceptualizing the relationship between the media and audiences. Ill Effects looks at why the media are routinely blamed for horrific events such as the teenage suicide allegedly caused by the influence of rock music as well as for perceived trends such as the alleged "death of the family". The authors discuss the development and current state of play of research into media effects, the remarkable power of "common-sense" notions of media effects and the way in which the effects issue has become embroiled in debates about freedom of expression and censorship.
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I just bought a Bookeen Gen3
I looked at the Sony reader in Costco and the Kindle online.
The real nice thing about the E-Ink devices (Sony Reader, Kindle, Bookeen,
The Sony is sleek and well designed, didn't like being locked into one store though. I ended up getting a Bookeen Gen3 and am very happy so far -- it weighs very little and looks much nicer than the Kindle. It supports the Mobipocket format and there are 20-30 online stores that have content; you will find some stores have books others do not.
If you want to be able to browse web pages or other interactive things and believe that's more important than a reader device then I suggest you look outside of the E-Ink devices.
If you value being able to search your e-books, something like the Kindle or other readers which have a keyboard may be better suited to your habits.
This matrix compares specs of most major readers out there. http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix/
Books On Board has a pretty good deal on Bookeen: http://www.booksonboard.com//
An avid reader of Sci-F, Fantasy, and the occasional Mystery.
-John