None other than Randy Cohen, “The Ethicist” of the New York Times, has decided that illegally downloading an e-book version of a book for which you’ve already paid full price in hardcover is “not unethical… subsequent downloading is akin to buying a CD, then copying it to your iPod.” He adds, “Sadly, the anachronistic conventions of bookselling and copyright law lag the technology.”
The Ethics of Illegal Downloads
German Literature Month
Oktoberfest may be over, but the inaugural German Literature Month is just beginning. If you’re wondering what to imbibe while you sit down with The Sorrows of Young Werther, Magic Mountain, and The Clown, Melville House’s MobyLives blog has you covered.
Mindwiping Technology
This week in book-related infographics: a look at the future according to science fiction.
Language is Power
Recommended Reading: Writers are signing a petition in opposition to Donald Trump.
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True Originals
A while ago, our own Kaulie Lewis alerted readers to The Turnip Princess, a new collection of previously untranslated Bavarian fairy tales. In the latest issue of The New York Review of Books, Marina Warner reads a new edition of the original stories of the Brothers Grimm, comparing them to the most well-known stories in the fairy tale canon (as well as the stories in The Turnip Princess).
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“Do not open until war is over.”
“What he discovered was a box filled with disguised anti-Nazi tracts hidden in packets of tea and shampoo and concealed in miniature books both popular and scholarly.”
Weekend Reading: David Foster Wallace Edition
Looking for something to read this weekend? Perhaps you should work your way through The Electric Typewriter’s round-up of 19 essays by David Foster Wallace.
He’s right. E-publishing may never make paper publishing completely extinct (I happily envision a boutique market for real books, even when publishing is primarily digital, with something akin to prescient nostalgia), but every three-dimensional, dust-catching, bound and beautiful book should include a link to a free, one-time download of same.
A number of recording artists are making free digital downloads available if one buys their CD. It shouldn’t be a problem for the book business to follow suit.