Courting Greta, Ramsey Hootman’s debut novel, releases in June. Earlier this month I wrote about it as part of H&H’s monthly recommendations column. Check it out at http://www.heroesandheartbreakers.com/blogs/2013/05/may-2013-bloggers-recommendations-teachers-shifters-linebackers-and-more

Courting Greta, Ramsey Hootman’s debut novel, releases in June. Earlier this month I wrote about it as part of H&H’s monthly recommendations column. Check it out at http://www.heroesandheartbreakers.com/blogs/2013/05/may-2013-bloggers-recommendations-teachers-shifters-linebackers-and-more

On reading

On reading

Tags: reading

On reading

On reading

Tags: reading

Johanna Lindsey’s Once a Princess is on sale today for $1.99. It’s a DIK for me, but do yourself a favor and stay away from its sequel, You Belong To Me, which is also on sale.

Johanna Lindsey’s Once a Princess is on sale today for $1.99. It’s a DIK for me, but do yourself a favor and stay away from its sequel, You Belong To Me, which is also on sale.

The book flowchart, simplified

The book flowchart, simplified

Tags: books reading

Amazon’s buyout of Goodreads in late March also had the effect of derailing Apple plans for the iBookstore, say Wall Street Journal sources. During the past year, Apple and Goodreads reportedly discussed integrating Goodreads content into the iBookstore, namely in the form of displaying user reviews and ratings. The scheme would’ve echoed the way Rotten Tomatoes ratings are presented alongside movies on iTunes.

In most cases, paper books have more obvious topography than onscreen text. An open paperback presents a reader with two clearly defined domains — the left and right pages — and a total of eight corners with which to orient oneself. A reader can focus on a single page of a paper book without losing sight of the whole text: one can see where the book begins and ends and where one page is in relation to those borders. One can even feel the thickness of the pages read in one hand and pages to be read in the other. Turning the pages of a paper book is like leaving one footprint after another on the trail — there’s a rhythm to it and a visible record of how far one has traveled. All these features not only make text in a paper book easily navigable, they also make it easier to form a coherent mental map of the text.

In contrast, most screens, e-readers, smartphones and tablets interfere with intuitive navigation of a text and inhibit people from mapping the journey in their minds. A reader of digital text might scroll through a seamless stream of words, tap forward one page at a time or use the search function to immediately locate a particular phrase — but it is difficult to see any one passage in the context of the entire text. As an analogy, imagine if Google Maps allowed people to navigate street by individual street, as well as to teleport to any specific address, but prevented them from zooming out to see a neighborhood, state or country. Although e-readers like the Kindle and tablets like the iPad re-create pagination — sometimes complete with page numbers, headers and illustrations — the screen only displays a single virtual page: it is there and then it is gone. Instead of hiking the trail yourself, the trees, rocks and moss move past you in flashes with no trace of what came before and no way to see what lies ahead.

Tags: reading ebooks

"The implicit feel of where you are in a physical book turns out to be more important than we realized. Only when you get an e-book do you start to miss it. I don’t think e-book manufacturers have thought enough about how you might visualize where you are in a book."

— Do e-readers inhibit reading comprehension? - Salon.com

(Source: salon.com)

Tags: reading ebooks

The results of this Squidoo poll are in conflict with the poll reported here.

The results of this Squidoo poll are in conflict with the poll reported here.