Download The Universe

Reviewing Science Books: A Conversation in American Scientist Magazine

Anna Lee Phillips, a senior editor at American Scientist, recently invited me to join her and book critic Phil Manning in a roundtable discussion about reviewing science books.

Here's a taste:

ALP: Do you see differences in the ways science is communicated in books that are published solely as e-books and books published in print? What new strategies are you seeing that you especially like?

CZ: The best of the e-books are the products of from-the-ground-up thinking. Rather than simply cloning an existing book, the innovative people are making good use of the electronic format. That may mean publishing a great 20,000 word story that’s too short for a traditional book but too long for a magazine feature—something we’re seeing done well by sites such as Byliner and the Atavist. Or that may mean reproducing exquisite facsimilies of Leonardo da Vinci’s lost anatomy notebooks interleaved with interactive graphics showing what we now know about how anatomy works—something that Touch Press has just published.

Unfortunately, a lot of e-books have become victims of the general decline of editorial oversight in publishing. We’re coming across a lot of slick e-books about science that show no signs of being edited at all. Some people think that if they just dump some text into a digital format, magic fairies will transform the content into gold.

You can read the rest here.

Pirates, parties, pulps, and PowerPoint: Part 3 of a Download the Universe roundtable on e-reading

On April 4, the Pew Research Center's released an extensive report on the country's e-reading habits as part of its Internet and American Life project. It is, as is oftentimes the case with Pew reports, quite interesting and exceedingly bland. (You can find an introduction to the Pew report here; the full report is also available online or as a free download.) 

Which gave me an idea: Why not tap into our collective brainpower and organize a roundtable? Which is exactly what I did. This is the final entry in a three-part series; the first entry, "Crap futurism, pleasure reading, and DRM," ran on Monday, and "Walled gardens, cruftiness, and a race to the bottom" ran yesterday.

My role was mainly one of gentle facilitation; the other participants are the inimitable Mr. Zimmer, who, in addition to being the DtU fall guy, has extensive experience in publishing both "traditional" and e-books; Maia Szalavitz, who has written about memory and e-books; and io9's Annalee Newitz, who was already a e-reader vet by the time the Kindle came on the scene. Hope you all had as much fun as we had.  --Seth Mnookin

Annalee: I wanted to return to a question that Maia raised, which is whether e-books will become a way for students to pirate textbooks. This interested me because one of the main ways I currently use my iPad is to hold (in the Kindle app, natch) all the books and articles I’m using to research my current book project.

Walled gardens, cruftiness, and a race to the bottom: Part 2 of a Download the Universe Roundtable on E-Reading

On April 4, the Pew Research Center's released an extensive report on the country's e-reading habits as part of its Internet and American Life project. It is, as is oftentimes the case with Pew reports, quite interesting and exceedingly bland. (You can find an introduction to the Pew report here; the full report is also available online or as a free download.) 

Which gave me an idea: Why not tap into our collective brainpower and organize a roundtable? Which is exactly what I did. Today's entry is the second in a three-part series; the first entry, "Crap futurism, pleasure reading, and DRM," ran yesterday.

My role was mainly one of gentle facilitation; the other participants are the inimitable Mr. Zimmer, who, in addition to being the DtU fall guy, has extensive experience in publishing both "traditional" and e-books; Maia Szalavitz, who has written about memory and e-books; and io9's Annalee Newitz, who was already a e-reader vet by the time the Kindle came on the scene. The final entry in the series will run tomorrow. Enjoy!   --Seth Mnookin

Seth: Carl, as someone who has written “traditional” print books and dedicated e-books, I’m curious if your thoughts about Amazon changed over the past few years--because mine definitely have. David Carr’s recent column in the Times, about how the DOJ should have gone after Amazon, not Apple, if it wanted to take on a monopoly threatening the book business, is just the latest data point that has me wondering whether I’m contributing to my own demise by patronizing Bezos’s warehouse of goodies.

Crap futurism, pleasure reading, and DRM: Part 1 of a Download the Universe Roundtable on E-Reading

On April 4, the Pew Research Center's released an extensive report on the country's e-reading habits as part of its Internet and American Life project. It is, as is oftentimes the case with Pew reports, quite interesting and exceedingly bland. (You can find an introduction to the Pew report here; the full report is also available online or as a free download.) 

Which gave me an idea: Why not tap into our collective brainpower and organize a roundtable? My role was mainly one of gentle facilitation; the other participants are the inimitable Mr. Zimmer, who, in addition to being the DtU fall guy, has extensive experience in publishing both "traditional" and e-books; Maia Szalavitz, who has written about memory and e-books; and io9's Annalee Newitz, who was already a e-reader vet by the time the Kindle came on the scene. The conversation will be broken into three parts; the first entry is below.   --Seth Mnookin