Though some of us persist in our refusal to even enter into discussions regarding “the future of the book,” there’s no longer any point in denying that there are now all sorts of people who are positively gung ho about the possibilities of portable reading devices and electronic books. People are buying them in staggering numbers and you can already buy some knock-off version of a Kindle at the Pump N Munch. Print devotees may relish fantasies about these gadgets ultimately languishing in thrift stores, garage sales, and landfills—someday every Third World urchin will have an e-reader! How can that not be a good thing?—but for at least one more holiday cycle we’re all just going to have to play along with what is essentially an upscale Cabbage Patch Doll phenomenon that creates serious money for maybe a dozen already onerously wealthy people.

This week’s big news on the e-book front is Google’s launch of its eBookstore. One more pig has joined the pile! According to MobyLives, however, this pig might not be quite so piggish as the other pigs in the pile; through Google’s entry in the e-book biz, Nathan Ihara writes, “American Booksellers Association bookstores now have the opportunity to sell eBooks directly from their websites, offering them a first opportunity to take advantage of the rapid increase in the eBook market and to fight back against the corporate juggernauts of Amazon, Barnes and Noble, andApple.”

It’s obviously early, but the list of independent stores that are already hawking their e-book wares over at Google is modestly encouraging. Paul Constant, writing for the Seattle Stranger’s Slog blog (quoted in the MobyLives piece), says that before indies can hope to generate real online traffic and sales, they “need to figure out ways to make their websites into destinations that are just as interesting, appealing, and welcoming as their physical stores.”

The Google development is encouraging, in other words, but Constant reminds the little guys that they still have work to do:

Like it or not, your website is just as important as your physical store; the bookselling business is about to go through a change as dynamic as when Barnes & Noble and Borders first came on the scene, or when Amazon suddenly became the go-to bookseller for America. This time, indie booksellers have a shot at reclaiming some ground from the big boys; if you blow it, you'll go out of business. It's that simple.

Source: MobyLives, The Stranger 

Image by anitakhart, licensed under Creative Commons.

Twitter will not single-handedly save journalism. It’s also not silly and dumb. “The single greatest export on the internet—greater, even, than information—is hyperbole,” Paul Constant writes for the Stranger, and the reactions to Twitter have dolled out hyperbole with gusto. Constant, a former Utne Reader contributor, dissects the Twitter phenomenon, the backlash, and the backlash to the backlash, in messages of fewer than 140 characters. He also includes some great insights into internet culture. Here are some excerpts: 

A great deal of time on the internet is spent finding different ways to say, "Oh, you didn't know that already? Huh. I've known for ages." 

Here's another truth: Nobody has any clue what's going on. That's why sneering at Twitter is worse than blindly loving Twitter.  

Historically, very little has been accomplished by being cynical (maybe some broken hearts have been prevented, but at what cost?).

Source: The Stranger 

In a delightfully “gigantic, sloppy fan letter,” The Stranger’s books editor Paul Constant recalls his first encounter (and subsequent infatuation) with the novelist James Morrow. His charming opus is a must-read, I’d say, for anyone who’s ever had a love-at-first-chapter, life-changing stumble into an author. As Constant tells it:

When I was 10, I’d read all the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books and everything by Terry Pratchett. A friend recommended Kurt Vonnegut, and I cut a swath through his entire body of work like only an awkward adolescent could. I needed something new, and I browsed the science-fiction section, where I picked up a $4.50 Ace paperback with a hideous, faux-marble cover called Only Begotten Daughter, by James Morrow.

I don't remember what, exactly, drew me to pick it up, but I can tell you why I bought it with my gift certificate. The blurbs sold me—two compared Morrow to Vonnegut—and I liked the premise, cheesily described in the back-cover text:

It could only happen in New Jersey. Call it a miracle. Call it the Second Coming. Call it a mishap at the sperm bank. But somehow, a baby daughter was born to the virgin Murray Katz, and her name is Julie. She can heal the blind, raise the dead, and generate lots of publicity. In fact, the poor girl needs a break, even if it means a vacation in Hell (which is unseasonably warm). So what did you expect? It ain't easy being the Daughter of God... 

To someone raised Catholic who never had a devout moment in his short life, this was quite possibly the Most Appealing Book in the World.

Source: The Stranger