Some 40 of his books will be issued as ebooks by Rosetta Books for our considerable reading pleasure. Books such as his ‘A History of the English Speaking Peoples’ and other equally well known and beautifully written books will become available in July.

It is hard to believe, but this extraordinary man was not only an extremely effective politician and leader of Britain during the worst parts of the Second World War, but also a writer of considerable skill – winning the Noble Prize for Literature in 1953.

As I know from my own reading of many of his works, he writes with a superb grasp of the English language, and wrote prose that is so easy to read, regardless of the subject matter – the man was a born writer, and if he had chosen to become a writer instead of a politician, he would have been equally famous I suspect.

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Oceanhouse Media have recently produced an App for the iPad and iPhone specifically intended for interactively reading “And to think I saw it on Mulberry Street“, which was the first book that Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seus) published for kids way back in 1937.

In this book, Dr. Seus’s main character is a small boy called Marco, and he fantasizes as he goes along with his father on his way home from school about all the things he sees as they go.  Elephants, Rajahs, and all manner of other wonderful things, rather to his father’s irritation, who in spite of having instructed Marco to keep his eyes open and to tell him what he sees, doesn’t approve of the wild runaway imagination his son lets rip on their walk home.

But we do, of course!

As this is an interactive version of the book, there are a number of useful and fun possibilities built into it:-

Read to Me

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Ray Bradbury is famous for among other things, hating the idea of ebooks, and indeed the entire internet as well.

As has been remarked upon by other commentators, the idea that Fahrenheit 451 will appear as an ebook has a certain charm, given that the subject of the book is the demise of books as a result of the rise of a faster and more universal form of information spreading.

So, Bradbury has long held out against any of his books being issued as ebooks, saying that ebooks “smell like burned fuel” and calling the Internet nothing but “a big distraction.”

Hmmmmmm…………….

Money talks….. It seems.

As far as I can gather, perhaps the main factor in changing Ray Bradbury’s mind is the fact that this book will shortly come out of copyright, and as Ray Bradbury’s agent, Michael Congdon, explained  the rights for Bradbury’s book were expiring and that the growing digital market, estimated at 20 percent or higher of overall sales, made a deal for e-books inevitable.

“We explained the situation to him (Bradbury) that a new contract wouldn’t be possible without e-book rights,” said Congdon, who added that six publishers had been interested. “He understood and gave us the right to go ahead.”

So, in the end it seems that straight forward business considerations caused Ray Bradbury to change his mind on this subject.

“Fahrenheit 451″ published by Simon & Schuster, price of $9.99.

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Is Bradbury right to apparently dump his feelings about the internet and ebooks for purely commercial reasons?

The much trumpeted Harry Potter Website has had to announce a serious delay in its plans to start selling all the Hogwarts books as ebooks.

The idea was that they would start selling the Harry Potter books online as ebooks this month (October 2011), but apparently owing to a combination of several million frenzied kids playing away at some form of Wizard’s fencing online game on the Pottermore site and other unspecified problems, they have announced that they will start selling those ebooks sometime next year.

Many commentators have pointed out that this means they will miss the Christmas shopping frenzy, but it has also been pointed out that they don’t really need to give a damn about this, as they have already made more money than one would think possible from those books.

As a spokeperson for Pottermore puts it:

(we)are in no rush to launch anything until all potential problems have been sorted out. . A delayed launch may even mean a greater second wave of excitement about the ebooks becoming available as the anticipation builds up over a longer period of time.”

However, one thing they may have overlooked here is that in setting up this website with lots of trumpets and drums, they have pulled Harry Potter fans onto the net, and will certainly have thus caused many of them to realize that they can download any or all the Harry Potter books in ebook format from no end of free (illegal) torrent sites, which must effect sales when finally Pottermore get themselves together enough to actually open shop.

Link to Pottermore: http://www.pottermore.com/

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So, what do you think about not being able to (legally) get hold of Harry Potter books as ebooks?

Life in the American countryside, a bitter sweet ebook about human relationships

I have just finished reading Tom’s Wife, an ebook available from Amazon (see below for link) written by Alana Cash, and it turned out to be one of the best books I have read for quite some time.

You may have read her account of the problems she went through to publish this ebook, if not, follow the link to it below.

Set in the American countryside in an unspecified time, it is the story of Annie, a young woman married to a brutal miner/farmer, the Tom in the title, whose relationship is based on male supremacy and female servitude.   On the face of it, not a subject that makes for happy reading, but in this book Alana has made her main characters so real that the complexities of human relationships bring it all into balance.

All the characters in this ebook are complex layered humans, no one is simply good or bad or in between, they are real, and show all those aspects in their personalities and actions.   Annie, who on the face of it is the “good” one in the story, is basically a very honest young woman, yet she is prepared to cheat and lie if it helps her survive in her very difficult life, so she has a “bad” side too.    Even Tom, who for the greater part is a brutal slob, has his moments of tenderness and uncertainty.   It is this that appeals to me about this ebook, the people in it are all multilayered, and thus real, and interesting, as their reactions to events are not automatically defined by a two dimensional character, as is so often the case in books.

Another thing I liked about this book was that Alana didn’t waste time on setting the scene.  We are never told which part of the USA, or even what period this book is set in.  I guess it is in the 1930’s from internal evidence, but I am probably wrong, and it really isn’t important, as this is a book about people, and their lives, which are much the same whether it is 1936 Kansas or 2011 Kashkar.

In fact the entire ebook is really made up of conversations; there are very few descriptive passages in this ebook, which is a bit complicated for the first few pages, but once you are into the book it all flows very naturally and is perfectly understandable.

Alana has a nice way with words, and comes up with some wonderfully evocative phrases in this ebook, such as the following which I particularly liked. Annie is contemplating her cockerel mating with one of her hens, when the following thought occurred to her: Read full story »

Everything you ever wanted to know about computer cases, but were too embarrassed to ask, is now to be found in this superb ebook.

Tweak Town (a well known site about all manner of highly technical matters to do with computers and other digital things) have just produced an amazing ebook guide about computer cases for anyone thinking of building their own computer.  A definite Must Read.

This ebook has about 250 pages of highly specific advice and information on every aspect of computer cases – what they should include, all the various different types (according to which motherboard you want to bung into it) and all manner of other points you need to consider when deciding which case to buy to build your dream computer into.

What does it cover?

The list of chapters gives one an idea of the range of information to be found in this ebook:

Factors to consider when choosing a PC case

• Form Factor and Motherboard Compatibility
• Materials and Construction
• Coating
• Aluminum
• Plastic
• Steel
• Weight, Durability and Look

Cooling

• CFM and Noise
• Static Pressure
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