Friday, 12 April 2013

Subscription Stories

Sounds like an interesting project. Read as much as you want for a monthly subscription. I'm not sure many people spend £12 a month on their reading habit, though.

 Waterstones founder to launch Spotify for books.

Any thoughts?
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Thursday, 28 March 2013

PLR Decision Made

It seems the debate about which organisation will manage PLR in Britain has been decided, according to this article in The Bookseller:

PLR to transfer to British Library

It is now going to be managed by The British Library. I don't know whether that's a good or bad decision, but at least it looks like no-one is going to lose their job.
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Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Creativitiy in Children

An interesting article here from the BBC News website that says:
  
Children should be allowed to get bored, expert says

in order to spark creativity.

I was brought up with the saying 'Only boring people are bored' and I'm not sure that bored is the correct word here, because if you're being creative to fill time, then you're not bored, are you? However, I do think kids are often provided with too much press-of-a-button entertainment, rather than having to entertain themselves.

What do you think?
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Sunday, 24 March 2013

When I Die...

Have you ever thought about what might happen to things you have written when you die? Or when copyright runs out? This article, in the New York Times, tells how one author's letters are now being published even though she had, apparently, specified that this should never happen:
  
O Revelations! Letters, Once Banned, Flesh Out Willa Cather

I know we don't write many letters these days, but how would you feel if, seventy years after your death, all your e-mails were published, for example? Does that sound scary? Better watch what you say, then, because it seems that nothing's safe!

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Saturday, 16 March 2013

Too Much to Read?

An interesting article from The Spectator here:

The curious incident of the books on the Kindle

on how people seem to be addicted to downloading content that they will never read.

I do have lots of books on my Kindle that I haven't read yet, but I do try not to download books that I have no intention of reading. I think I have about fifty waiting, but some of them are only short stories, so that's not too bad.

So, are you an eBook hoarder, or do you only download books you truly intend to read?
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Thursday, 14 March 2013

The Development of eBooks

Another interesting article from the Guardian Online last weekend:

Top novelists look to eBooks to challenge the rules of fiction

It seems that anything goes (or will go) with eBooks in the future. Although, I do have to wonder why you would create a novel that has passages in it that you don't need to read. If they're not necessary, then why are they there at all?

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Tuesday, 12 March 2013

The Rules of Grammar - or Not

Over on Yahoo News! there's an article on:


I think it's fascinating how some of these rules came about, but I'm sure I know a few people who would argue for keeping them. And I'm sorry, but 'I could care less' really bugs me.

Do you agree or disagree that these rules are bogus?


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Sunday, 10 March 2013

Do you have a word for that?

Freeword online has just published another list here of:

Favourite Untranslatable Words

I think my favourite is Tsundoku, which is a Japanese word for "The act of leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piling it up together with other such unread books."

I have a lot of those on my Kindle, that's for sure. I could also do with a Startijenn once in a while.

Do you have a favourite?


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Thursday, 7 March 2013

World Book Day

It's World Book Day today, in case you hadn't noticed.

I was interested while reading this article in The Guardian Online yesterday:

World Book Day aims to be the 'biggest book show on earth'

to see that it isn't all about paper books, there is actually an app containing stories being launched for young adults. This seems like a sensible step seeing as, by all accounts, young people spend most of their spare time on some kind of digital platform.

I wonder how long it will be before they do this for younger children too? Especially now that we have tablets that can display picture books at a reasonable size and are easy to operate. Maybe next year.


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Wednesday, 6 March 2013

Character Reviews

Have you seen this article in Galley Cat?

Characters from novel turn up in Amazon reviews

I don't know whether you've seen any of the fake reviews on products before - some of them are quite bizarre - but it seems this idea has now been used for a book's reviews. A number of the characters in the novel are giving their 'versions' of events.

It's quite fun, but it gives you very little idea about how good the book is. But then, I don't suppose people would have bothered going to so much effort if they didn't like it.


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