By Salina Christmas Oxford launches bid for World Book Capital 2014; Nook gets Microsoft’s US$300m backing; US DoJ sues big five publishers and Apple; big three publishers sue e-textbook startup; Kindle authors make money; London Book Fair 2012; Tor says DRM no more. And that’s a week (and more) in book news. We made it … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas As readers depend on the internet to consume smaller pieces of information, reading a book – for those who use ‘new’ media alone – could become “a more unusual skill”. Will “reading a book” become a skill associated with taste, and thus, class? Marcus Gilroy-Ware, creator of open source online publishing platform, … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Vook enters the ebook fray; Amazon dodges UK tax; Nook tells London: shop online in the US; Mag+ design competition; more book covers delight; Spanish books go underground in Arizona; PayPal won’t service ‘obscene’ titles; Unicorn Cookbook and Cooking With Poo. And that’s a week (and more) in book news. Is it … Continue reading »
Story Of Books is now at the Mobile Monday London (MoMoLo)’s “Tablets Come of Age + NOOK Developer Workshop”, tweeting live at the event held at the CBI Conference Centre at Centre Point, London. We are waiting to see if the rumour of a new Nook tablet announcement at MoMoLo – ahead of the London … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Google axes ebook affiliates and Android Market, then launches Google Play; Amazon to publishers: ‘Drop ebook prices or else’; Picador redesigns 12 classics; soft sell and hard-ons – web promo the Mills & Boon way. And that’s a Week In Book News. Mills & Boon lunchtime read sizzles “Sweat broke out on … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Using social media such as video virals, Google +, Skype, blogs and also Twitter, educators, authors and publishers around the world have come together to celebrate the World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) on 7 March 2012 in an effort to raise awareness of children literacy. This year, LitWorld, the non-profit organisation which … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Pornography and its online formats almost killed the erotica fiction genre. Kindle and the ebook, however, resurrected the craft again, says George Pappas, author of “Monogamy Sucks”, published on Kindle in 2010. The romance genre and its sub-categories which include erotica are now driving the adoption of smartphones and tablets for ebook. … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas “The digital world is so bent on avoiding accidents that I think sometimes it takes away the possibility for serendipity.” Maggie Nichols is an illustrator based in Portland, Oregon, US. Her distinctive artwork brought to life the book authored by Amber Case, “An Illustrated Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology”. Nichols blogs for Simply … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Ebook generates 15% of the revenues for some publishers, with the romance genre having a huge slice in the market share, says Angus Phillips, Director, Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies at Oxford Brookes University, UK. Although digitality has turned the publishing world upside down, Phillips stressed that it is “an exciting … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas Jie Qi, designer and a mechanical engineering major at Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), US, researches on mechatronics, new media, physical computing and human-computer interaction. While researching with the High-Low Tech Group, she created the Electronic Popables, a pop-up book with electronic interactive elements. Q. What do you think will become of … Continue reading »
By Zarina Holmes. Literary research by Salina Christmas. The heart of a global warming sceptic would thaw out at the sight of Simon Harsent‘s award-winning portraiture of the diminishing Arctic icebergs. He speaks to Zarina Holmes about the D&AD 2010 winner, “Melt – Portrait of an iceberg”, and the recent WWF ad campaign which combines … Continue reading »
By Zarina Holmes Bertil Nilsson‘s Undisclosed is a series of monochromatic portraiture of circus performers. Nilsson published the photobook under his own independent press, Canalside Books. In Undisclosed: Images of the Contemporary Circus Artists, Nilsson’s nude performers are elegantly portrayed. The book captures not only the sensuality, but also the essence and dynamism of the … Continue reading »
By Zarina Holmes REPORT: “Whatever is to become of books?” at London Design Festival 2011. “We are not seeing the world as flat anymore. We are seeing it virtually. The hypertext makes a big difference.” Dr Aquiles Alencar Brayner, Digital Curator of The British Library presents fresh findings on our fast-evolving book reading habit at … Continue reading »
By Salina Christmas REPORT: “Whatever is to become of books?” at London Design Festival 2011. The video presentation by Dr Ernesto Priego of the Comics Grid at our event, “Whatever is to become of books?”, last week was certainly unconventional. It took a while for us to realise that many of the effects used in … Continue reading »
Sojournposse Photofilm at London Design Festival: Every year, we celebrate the festival with a photofilm, to honour the two disciplines we look to for inspiration: poetry and documentary photography. Poet Hamish Low has composed poems for two of our events. This year, he ponders on the moments that fleet by, those captured in pages or … Continue reading »
