Saturday, November 15, 2008

By the book

Doing some reading on the internet about "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" I discovered an interesting feature at an online bookstore (not Amazon but it also does have this feature although you have to be logged into their site to use it). At the Harper Collins site you can browse inside a book - i.e. you can "search" and even read some sections of the (available) book/s online - which means the book could be available electronically - for those of us who prefer to carry our books on a "device" rather than in paper form. While I am more of a device person myself I was forced to read an actual book recently and it seems that this format does have an advantage of sorts - it let's other people know you are reading rather than playing games or social networking. I've also commented on this blog previously that it could be good advertising for the author if there was some way to "show" what you were reading on a device - similar to the bookmark you can printout from one of the Edgar Sawtelle sites I visited yesterday. Hmmmm - I can see it now - tiny little dustjackets for your electronic handheld reading device - mine currently being my iPod Touch. Which reminds me - Apple here in Australia have recently started advertising the Touch on free-to-air TV as being "fun" and showing a whole slew of games - this fits in well with recent overseas news that Apple is going to push the Touch as a gaming device - although its use as a reading device should not be undervalued.

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