‘…the ePub format, which is open and freely available for any device, unlike the Kindle’s proprietary format, which functions only for Kindle. The ePub format is used by every electronic reader except the Kindle, and promises to be a big selling point for Google Editions, the search firm’s planned Web-based electronic bookstore scheduled to launch this summer, which will allow buyers to read books and much else on any number of devices. (This may include, by year’s end, Google’s own tablet computer.) It’s through ePub that readers have instant access to millions of books in the public domain, that electronic publishing has a chance to become standardized, and that writers will have more options when it comes to disseminating and selling their books. …’
Sue Halpern, “The iPad Revolution“, The New York Review of Books, June 10, 2010 (future date)

Photo "Electronic Book" cc by-sa flickr user timonoko

e-text and e-books are topics I’ve been passionate about since ~1998 when Boris Mann tried to convince me that reading a book on a Palm Pilot could be an enjoyable experience — I never did get through more than a few chapters back then.

I’ve watched with fascination as audio, and then video, not text have migrated to digital. Although, writing has always been the main interface to computing, and digitization it is magnitudes smaller than the other medians, the reading experience has been much harder to improve upon than the listening and viewing experiences.

Fast forward to today and since Christmas (spoiled), I’ve read a half-dozen books on my Kindle 2. I’m already itching for better tech. I’m continuing to eye where publishing goes next, particularly the free culture implications

Sue Halpern’s whole article is excellent, and provides deep insights into e-reading, where the iPad fits in, and where e-books fit into Apple’s iPad business. Her essay is among the best I’ve read in a while: clear domain expertise, wide knowledge (open source shout out), objective, and excellent prose.

I emailed Sue, and she confirmed for me,

“DRM [(digital rights management) protected] books don’t go anywhere– yet. I think this will change when Google gets into the game. Right now epub on new books mainly benefits publishers, who don’t have to have books digitized in numerous formats in order to be read on various devices.”

Still I’m really looking forward to getting into this book and the rest of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. It has been recommended to me numerous times.

I hesitated previously because I don’t like to start series that have not had their endings written. I made that mistake during high school in reading the first 8 tomes of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series — and I mean tomes, each book comes in around a thousand pages of tiny print. Twelve books and twenty years later, the author is dead and the story is still unfinished. I can’t see myself revisiting that one.

A Song of Ice and Fire has 4 books written and 3 more planned.

What has forced my hand a little is that a HBO adaption is imminent. But mostly no other highly recommended books comes to mind.

This will allow me to enjoy a couple books that have images that are too small to get any of the details out of.

Although, I was now tempted by the possibility of getting technical books in the Amazon Kindle format, I was immediately disappointed that there is no way to copy text or search!

Below are some features to be added in the near future:

• Create notes and highlights
  Along with viewing the notes and highlights you created on other Kindle devices, you will be able to create and edit notes and highlights.
• Search
  You will be able to search to find a word or a sentence in the book you are currently reading.
• Zoom and rotate images
  Click on an image to see an expanded view and rotate it if desired.

April 9th Update: in response to the poor quality of Kindle for Mac Wesley Moore says:

This is what happens when you do a rough job of being cross platform with Qt. Evidence for that gleaned from the absence of NIBs in the application bundle and references to Qt in the binary (otool -o -V Kindle\ for\ Mac.app/Contents/MacOS/Kindle\ for\ Mac)

Lately, forwards and prefaces in non-fiction books have been bugging me. Like credits at the beginning of movies, forwards and prefaces are seldom executed well, and almost always too long. Also, the person writing the forward always makes sure to get in a plug for their own books or work.

Worse is an author’s preface telling you what you need to know to read the book or how to interpret it. The Head First technical books each start with a verbose section on how to get the most of the books. The material in each is near identical, but I feel required to read it in case it is not. If you are explaining, you likely have already lost.

If you must have it, move it all postface.

The best of books leave me wanting more, but they never include recommendations of what other books to read or resources to consider. I find this ironic considering the covers are filled with ego stroking recommendations of the book by her peers. Even if your opus, no book is an island.

And why are none of the recommendations by people that I can relate to? People that have been moved or raised by the book?