Kindle users can start borrowing e-books from their local libraries. This seems innocuous enough. But what about the proliferation of textbook rentals (e.g. the type on Chegg)? Some believe it may put us on the road to serfdom.
Checking Out And Renting
“There’s a quiver in the dead flesh.”
Recommended Viewing: Robert Bly reads his poem, “The Dead Seal at McClure’s Beach.”
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War and Hold On a Minute
Reading War and Peace was always a challenge, but how much harder is it in an age of constant distraction? At Salon, Mike Harris, a self-confessed distraction addict, writes about his experience tackling the Russian classic. You could also read our own Kevin Hartnett on the book’s effect on perception.
Libraries: Future and Present
“Flooded with data as we are, each day brings even more innovations and technologies to help us mine, sort, and generate even more information. Asking about the future of libraries is another way of asking where this big, hot mess of information is taking us.” Justin Wadland reviews three books on libraries and attempts to predict the future of these institutions in a piece for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Meanwhile, Florida Polytechnic University has just opened and its library has no books at all.
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The Politics of Naming
Things you can learn about Teddy Wayne from his essay in the New York Times Book Review: one, his first name is Derek; two, he believes the modern lit world is crazy for guys named Jonathan; and three, he once considered using the pen name D.T. Wayne. (For more, you could go read our interview, or else check out our review of his latest novel.)
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Tuesday New Release Day: Amis, LaValle, Auster, Fesperman, Pylväinen, Coplin
American readers can now get their hands on the latest from Martin Amis, Lionel Asbo: State of England. Also out this week: The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle, Paul Auster’s memoir Winter Journal, Dan Fesperman’s spy novel The Double Game, and a pair of debuts, Hanna Pylväinen’s We Sinners and Amanda Coplin’s The Orchardist.
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If public libraries cannot lend eBooks, it is only a matter of time before “your local library” is converted into a Starbucks. I wish this were not the case, I’m a librarian and I hate to think that libraries would be so quickly dismissed, but it is the reality of the situation. If you want to live in a world with public libraries, you should be grateful for, if not celebrate, Amazon’s contract with Overdrive.