Notes on E-books and Readers

The big news this week was the iPad announcement, including the tech-world’s dismissal of it. (Fraser Speirs addresses that nicely.) But there’s a lot more happening in the world of e-books.

For example, NASA just opened an e-book section and its first offering is a history of the X-15 hypersonic test aircraft.

And the Library of Congress has made Harry Houdini’s books available through Google Books.

Ursula K. Le Guin is still pissed at the Google Books settlement, and is sending a petition to the judge in charge of the case.

And if you missed it, Amazon and MacMillan Publishing are now at war over book prices. Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi has two posts, one on e-book pricing and Amazon and the latest on why Amazon might have done this on a Friday.

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Brian Spears is Senior Poetry Editor of The Rumpus and the author of A Witness in Exile (Louisiana Literature Press, 2011). His poem “Upon Reading That Andromeda Will One Day Devour Triangulum and Come For Us Next” was featured in Season 9 of Motion Poems.

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