(the second part of my double-post for this week!)
I do rather like ebooks. They are fast, they are convenient, and they make everything easier. For the person who does not like the 'inconvenience' of going to a bookshop and spending time perusing the shelves, before making their purchase, the ebook is perfect. I, of course, prefer the more personal process of buying and reading books that, frankly, ebooks do not give. But for those days when I simply do not have the time to visit a bookshop, ebooks are a great alternative.
The argument surrounding ebooks has been ongoing for a while now. Publishers are having to move fast to keep up with the growing demand for ebooks as we move into a more digital way of reading, and bookshops are struggling to compete. Evidence of bookshops closing down or struggling all over the country, and libraries being closed down also has been the legacy of the ebook and the ereader (of which there seems to be an endless number).
It seems the executive director of Bloomsbury has hit the nail on the head when he recently remarked in Frankfurt that, "you need to be able to offer both [e-books and an ereader] if you are to take any share of the market." Indeed, the credibility of his words comes to light when you take into account that W H Smith have recently announced a partnership with Kobo to launch a new device also. (This is along with the numerous versions of Kindles by Amazon, the iPad, endless tablet devices, and the Sony ereader, and more). It seems they are all getting in on this as fast as possible just to stay with the market.
The root of the problem when it comes to ebooks, and that has authors reluctant to enter themselves into the market, is the issue of piracy. This, of course, was discussed in Frankfurt (though I think the issue is far from being solved). With digitalisation inevitably comes piracy, and this has made the potential for books being pirated much easier than in the past. The solution seems obvious, something needs to be implemented to protect authors from being pirated. Sounds simple. Right? Wrong. With the internet as large as it is, it seems to be near impossible to monitor sites that would offer books illegally. How would publishers monitor them? How can they assure their authors they can protect them? It was only less than a year ago that I was watching the news and a film company had won a bid to stop a popular site from illegally streaming films. But there are so many more sites out there doing the exact same thing. So if the film industry cannot take actions to prevent this, what hope does the literary industry? One thing is for sure, the question will always remain when it comes to publishers and their authors: to ebook, or not to ebook?
10/14/2011
"Lover Eternal" J.R. Ward
Book 2 in J.R. Ward's Blackdagger Brotherhood series, Lover Eternal, tells the story of the warrior, Rhage. Though the most obviously good-looking of the brothers, (highlighted by his nickname, Hollywood, because of his movie-star good looks), he is also one of the most deadly. Rhage exhibits a playful exterior, known as the joker of the brothers and the most sexual, running through women like a human needs air to breath, but beneath that lies a dangerous predator. I mean this literally, not in the same way I described Wrath from book one.
Cursed with a beast, Rhage is walking pain, living in a constant state of control to the point where if he does not engage in brutal hand-to-hand combat with lessers, or bed multiple women at a time, his beast takes over his body. The process is both physically and emotionally painful for Rhage until he meets Mary Luce. She herself is cursed, but by illness, and I liked the way they could both identify with one another and yet not fully understand each other through this, all at the same time. This, for me, gave their relationship an interesting dynamic that went beyond lust and made me actually believe that they loved each other, because they grew into loving each other rather than merely hurtling blindly into it (as most vampire novels are guilty of).
Having to always maintain control is a struggle for Rhage, and adds another dynamic to his character and his relationship with Mary. The love scenes are a wonderful mixture of his struggle to control himself, and the effect this has on Mary, and then his relinquishing control later on, and the consequential effect this has on his relationship with Mary as a result. This is what sets apart Ward from any other writer of vampire fiction, the love scenes are not simply love scenes. Yes there is sex, yes there is heat, yes there are incredibly sexy male characters, but they are flawed. In this novel, Rhage is famous for being a sex-god, but there is a vulnerability in his love scenes with Mary that make him wonderfully endearing, rather than a just another man who only ever exists in novels.
In my opinion, this author has a gift with words, as seen through the, frankly, hilarious exchanges that take place throughout the entire series. It is not that Ward simply inserts such phrases into the novels just for comedic effect, but to show us more of what each character is like that differentiates each from the other. Mary's internal dialogue during one particular exchange with Rhage, where Rhage expresses his happiness that his body pleases her, in which she thinks, "fine, dandy, [...] Then lose the shirt, peel off those leather pants, and lie down on my tile. We'll take turns being on the bottom," had me laughing at the page because, I admit, those would have been my thoughts were I in Mary's position. (We would all think it reading this scene. None of us would be immune!)
Butch also makes a welcome return through the aftermath of the incident in the first novel concerning him and Marissa. Ward makes sure to keep all of the brothers included in each novel, enough to keep the dynamics of the Brotherhood as well as providing small clues as to what will happen in the next novel and between whom.
The novel also introduces the vampire, Bella, Mary's best friend and the potential relationship with the brother, Zsadist, and an added interesting dimension to their story through his twin and fellow warrior, Phury. The warrior, Tohrment, and his shellan (wife), Wellsie, also feature heavily in the novel through the introduction of the vampire (and suspected warrior) John Matthew (whose warrior name is Tehrror). John Matthew is instantly likeable. A mute, he develops a close friendship with Mary and then Tohrment and Wellsie also, who take him in and treat him as a son. John Matthew's character is not only defined by the fact that he is mute. (It would have been easy for Ward to simply fall in this to make this be John Matthew through and through). But he is also a young man who has had to deal with the repurcussions of being homeless, of being a victim, of not understanding the world as he sees it, of not ever feeling as though he ever truly belonged anywhere. John Matthew, in my opinion, is Ward's strongest evidence of her paying attention to her characterization.
An excellent read and one of the best of the entire series.
10/13/2011
The Man Booker Prize (oh, dear!)
(my post for this week! This is the first part of a double-post that will feature for this week!)
As a young English student, I have always found the Man Booker Prize to be a rather prestigious award so to be reading that there has been a lot of criticism surrounding the prize is surprising to me. It seems that a new award known as the Literature Prize has surfaced. Andrew Kidd, the spokesman for the prize, has been only too keen to highlight the shortcomings of the Man Booker, in which he states that the "public deserves a prize whose sole aim is to celebrate the very best novels published in our time". The suggestion obviously being that the Man Booker does not uphold such an approach. Indeed, there has been a lot of criticism of this year's shortlist that has omitted such writers such as Alan Hollinghurst (I get the impression this is a rather big faux-pas by Man Booker).
I was reading an article earlier today by Katie Allen who touched upon the unrest surrounding the Man Booker. There is an argument that the Man Booker has promoted 'readability' in favour of actual artistic merit. Of course, Man Booker administrator Ian Trowin has described this as "tosh." He goes on to argue that how good a book is and the importance of readability are as equally important as each other and that "the two should go hand in hand." I tend to agree with him actually, but then I do wonder why Hollinghurst did not make the shortlist. I admit I have not read The Stranger's Child, (which may seem a little silly for me to even mention it here), but there has been significant buzz surrounding the novel. Surely, then, if this many people are so outraged by such an omission, this proves both the novel's literary merit and readability.
Rather disappointingly, Allen does not offer her own opinion on the matter as a whole, but Anne McElvoy in Wednesday evening's edition of the Evening Standard does. In her article, McElvoy praised the Man Booker as "a braver prize, because it acknowledges risk and serendipity." This is one of the more positive descriptions I have come across on the prize lately. She goes on to defend this year's shortlist, stating that it, "has a selection that takes us on journeys through time and experience, in the way that only literature's magic carpet can." What a lovely and positive way to celebrate this year's writers who must be feeling a little upset by how much negative publicity the Man Booker is getting this year. It is, afterall, a rather big deal to be shortlisted and to win such a prestigious award still. Is it not?
In his blog article for the Guardian, Rick Gekoski argued there is far more to the prize than taste, and that is judgement. He acknowledged that in literature, we cannot be truly objective because the art form itself is subjective. He goes on to state that judging a prize requires us to be "more self-critical, more capable of distinguishing our tastes from our judgments, [and] less inclined reflexively to credit our own opinions with more authority than they deserve, or those of others, with less." I suppose he is right, you cannot please everybody all the time, but there is something to be said about a prize that now garners more criticism than it does praise. If Man Booker are constantly having to defend themselves, what does that say about their authority in the literary world? And will the prize itself hold as much weight in the future as it has done in the past?
I am inclined to side with Robert McCrum, who, in his blog article for the Guardian, hopes that the Man Booker "will use the urgent and persuasive challenge of the Literature prize to make some long-overdue reforms."
You never know, perhaps the emergence of the Literature Prize will give the Man Booker the decided kick it needs to reignite its credibility. Perhaps we will all be talking about how the prize has pulled itself back from the edge of total lack of credibility in 2012. Perhaps...
As a young English student, I have always found the Man Booker Prize to be a rather prestigious award so to be reading that there has been a lot of criticism surrounding the prize is surprising to me. It seems that a new award known as the Literature Prize has surfaced. Andrew Kidd, the spokesman for the prize, has been only too keen to highlight the shortcomings of the Man Booker, in which he states that the "public deserves a prize whose sole aim is to celebrate the very best novels published in our time". The suggestion obviously being that the Man Booker does not uphold such an approach. Indeed, there has been a lot of criticism of this year's shortlist that has omitted such writers such as Alan Hollinghurst (I get the impression this is a rather big faux-pas by Man Booker).
I was reading an article earlier today by Katie Allen who touched upon the unrest surrounding the Man Booker. There is an argument that the Man Booker has promoted 'readability' in favour of actual artistic merit. Of course, Man Booker administrator Ian Trowin has described this as "tosh." He goes on to argue that how good a book is and the importance of readability are as equally important as each other and that "the two should go hand in hand." I tend to agree with him actually, but then I do wonder why Hollinghurst did not make the shortlist. I admit I have not read The Stranger's Child, (which may seem a little silly for me to even mention it here), but there has been significant buzz surrounding the novel. Surely, then, if this many people are so outraged by such an omission, this proves both the novel's literary merit and readability.
Rather disappointingly, Allen does not offer her own opinion on the matter as a whole, but Anne McElvoy in Wednesday evening's edition of the Evening Standard does. In her article, McElvoy praised the Man Booker as "a braver prize, because it acknowledges risk and serendipity." This is one of the more positive descriptions I have come across on the prize lately. She goes on to defend this year's shortlist, stating that it, "has a selection that takes us on journeys through time and experience, in the way that only literature's magic carpet can." What a lovely and positive way to celebrate this year's writers who must be feeling a little upset by how much negative publicity the Man Booker is getting this year. It is, afterall, a rather big deal to be shortlisted and to win such a prestigious award still. Is it not?
In his blog article for the Guardian, Rick Gekoski argued there is far more to the prize than taste, and that is judgement. He acknowledged that in literature, we cannot be truly objective because the art form itself is subjective. He goes on to state that judging a prize requires us to be "more self-critical, more capable of distinguishing our tastes from our judgments, [and] less inclined reflexively to credit our own opinions with more authority than they deserve, or those of others, with less." I suppose he is right, you cannot please everybody all the time, but there is something to be said about a prize that now garners more criticism than it does praise. If Man Booker are constantly having to defend themselves, what does that say about their authority in the literary world? And will the prize itself hold as much weight in the future as it has done in the past?
I am inclined to side with Robert McCrum, who, in his blog article for the Guardian, hopes that the Man Booker "will use the urgent and persuasive challenge of the Literature prize to make some long-overdue reforms."
You never know, perhaps the emergence of the Literature Prize will give the Man Booker the decided kick it needs to reignite its credibility. Perhaps we will all be talking about how the prize has pulled itself back from the edge of total lack of credibility in 2012. Perhaps...
Google EBook Store?!
(My post for last week! I have tried to upload this three or four times in the last few days so apologies for the delay!)
Ok, so I admit I am an owner of a Kindle! But I am a student afterall, and I buy printed books whenever I can! But there is also no shame in owning a reader or ebooks so long as you enjoy reading. Right?
The UK launch of the Google store has my feelings split on. Not only on what the store itself is, but on the whole market of ebooks themselves. On the one hand it is a sign that the book industry is moving itself into a more technologically enhanced way of distribution. Books in ebook form are far more accessible to everyone with an internet connection. But, on the other hand, with bookshop after bookshop closing down or struggling against powerhouses like Amazon and supermarkets selling books cheaply, it makes me sad to think that we might end up with no bookshops at all, someday. I shudder to think of that day should it come.
I admit that it has been a long time since I last went into a bookshop, browsed around, and picked up a book that I found interesting, and bought it. No book recommendations on my computer screen steered me to consider a select group of titles based on my previous purchase, no having to search for a book if such titles did not tickle my fancy, and no option of buying it as an ebook. I used to enter bookshops just for the sake of being surrounded by books. It was comforting, especially if I was having a bad day, I could simply walk into a bookshop and shut out the outside world as soon as the doors closed behind me. So simple. Not anymore. I miss those days when bookshops were actually quiet, full of people browsing, reading, and browsing some more, but always, always quiet. I miss the days when I would travel to the huge Waterstones in Picadilly and walk around for what would feel like miles, looking for a book that I could just sit and read for a little while before taking it home. Somewhere down the line I stopped doing that, perhaps James Daunt is right to scrap the 3-for-2 offer that has for so long been the Waterstones staple offer. It was not until I read an article in which he spoke about his plans for Waterstones as the new Managing Director of the chain that I realised I stopped visiting Waterstones so much because he was right: I did not even remember that there were other books in the store that were not part of the promotion. Eventually, I realised this promotion was little different to Amazon's recommendations. It had made the literary world, a world that is in fact ripe with endless possibilities, so much smaller.
So then maybe this is why so many people are taking to reading ebooks rather than print books. Afterall, the internet also provides us with this notion of endless possibilities, a world that is literally at our fingertips. Perhaps this is what we get out of ebooks, the idea that literature has once again become endless and vast (and, of course, at our trusty fingertips). I don't know about you but this makes me both happy and sad at the same time, because I do not experience the same comfort when I click buy on my Kindle. It is not the same. It is a simple need to buy, and that is all.
The Google store has had many big name publishers already sign with them such as, Hachette, Penguin, and Random House, proving that publishers are working quickly to keep up with the growing market for ebooks. This is, at least, comforting news, to know that publishers are moving to associate their names with the new big thing. They are paying attention and making the necessary moves to stay current, to not get swallowed by the ever-growing powerhouses that are Google and Amazon. It is also encouraging to see that Google are appearing to make an effort to support independent booksellers who can, if they wish, affiliate themselves to the store or direct customers to the store, in return for a commission, (demonstrating that they too are paying attention).
It does, however, look like the battle between Amazon and Google continues, with each side doing launching something bigger and better, it seems, every few months. Amazon, for example, having launched a new Kindle Touch in the US, (and an £89 Kindle in the UK), will also be launching the new Kindle Fire next month, a tablet that offers, apps, videos, games, books in colour, and some kind of new browsing element. All of this begs the question: what exactly is different about this to an iPad? Granted, I have not tried the Kindle Fire or the Google store out for myself so my point probably holds little weight, but I can ask the question: when does it stop? I wander, will there come a time when the technology is more important than the actual book? Already, the Kindle Fire offers apps, and videos, and games, all things that ultimately distract from the joy of reading, no? So then, to what extent is technology making our experience of reading better? And to what extent is reading going to become important once again to our future generations?
Ok, so I admit I am an owner of a Kindle! But I am a student afterall, and I buy printed books whenever I can! But there is also no shame in owning a reader or ebooks so long as you enjoy reading. Right?
The UK launch of the Google store has my feelings split on. Not only on what the store itself is, but on the whole market of ebooks themselves. On the one hand it is a sign that the book industry is moving itself into a more technologically enhanced way of distribution. Books in ebook form are far more accessible to everyone with an internet connection. But, on the other hand, with bookshop after bookshop closing down or struggling against powerhouses like Amazon and supermarkets selling books cheaply, it makes me sad to think that we might end up with no bookshops at all, someday. I shudder to think of that day should it come.
I admit that it has been a long time since I last went into a bookshop, browsed around, and picked up a book that I found interesting, and bought it. No book recommendations on my computer screen steered me to consider a select group of titles based on my previous purchase, no having to search for a book if such titles did not tickle my fancy, and no option of buying it as an ebook. I used to enter bookshops just for the sake of being surrounded by books. It was comforting, especially if I was having a bad day, I could simply walk into a bookshop and shut out the outside world as soon as the doors closed behind me. So simple. Not anymore. I miss those days when bookshops were actually quiet, full of people browsing, reading, and browsing some more, but always, always quiet. I miss the days when I would travel to the huge Waterstones in Picadilly and walk around for what would feel like miles, looking for a book that I could just sit and read for a little while before taking it home. Somewhere down the line I stopped doing that, perhaps James Daunt is right to scrap the 3-for-2 offer that has for so long been the Waterstones staple offer. It was not until I read an article in which he spoke about his plans for Waterstones as the new Managing Director of the chain that I realised I stopped visiting Waterstones so much because he was right: I did not even remember that there were other books in the store that were not part of the promotion. Eventually, I realised this promotion was little different to Amazon's recommendations. It had made the literary world, a world that is in fact ripe with endless possibilities, so much smaller.
So then maybe this is why so many people are taking to reading ebooks rather than print books. Afterall, the internet also provides us with this notion of endless possibilities, a world that is literally at our fingertips. Perhaps this is what we get out of ebooks, the idea that literature has once again become endless and vast (and, of course, at our trusty fingertips). I don't know about you but this makes me both happy and sad at the same time, because I do not experience the same comfort when I click buy on my Kindle. It is not the same. It is a simple need to buy, and that is all.
The Google store has had many big name publishers already sign with them such as, Hachette, Penguin, and Random House, proving that publishers are working quickly to keep up with the growing market for ebooks. This is, at least, comforting news, to know that publishers are moving to associate their names with the new big thing. They are paying attention and making the necessary moves to stay current, to not get swallowed by the ever-growing powerhouses that are Google and Amazon. It is also encouraging to see that Google are appearing to make an effort to support independent booksellers who can, if they wish, affiliate themselves to the store or direct customers to the store, in return for a commission, (demonstrating that they too are paying attention).
It does, however, look like the battle between Amazon and Google continues, with each side doing launching something bigger and better, it seems, every few months. Amazon, for example, having launched a new Kindle Touch in the US, (and an £89 Kindle in the UK), will also be launching the new Kindle Fire next month, a tablet that offers, apps, videos, games, books in colour, and some kind of new browsing element. All of this begs the question: what exactly is different about this to an iPad? Granted, I have not tried the Kindle Fire or the Google store out for myself so my point probably holds little weight, but I can ask the question: when does it stop? I wander, will there come a time when the technology is more important than the actual book? Already, the Kindle Fire offers apps, and videos, and games, all things that ultimately distract from the joy of reading, no? So then, to what extent is technology making our experience of reading better? And to what extent is reading going to become important once again to our future generations?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)