Tag Archives: books

Why Books Are the Length They Are

The corsetting of the modern novel to fit between the tight constraints of binding costs and price elasticity of demand will be unstrung, or replaced by bras, or some other over-stressed metaphorical construct.

Charlie Stross discusses logistics of mass production and the potential of electronic delivery, part of his “Common Misconceptions about Publishing” series.

Brilliant

… internal marketing. I don’t know how effective it will be at anything other than impressing other people in the industry, though.

This video was prepared by the UK branch of Dorling Kindersley Books. Originally meant solely for a DK sales conference, the video was such a hit internally that it is now being shared externally.

Of course, everything really clever has already been done:

The second-place in AARP “U@50” contest, in 2007, itself explicitly inspired by an award-winning ad made in Argentina for candidate Lopez Murphy.

All Offered by Google

Intellectual Property

The halls and rooms on the upper floors are for hobbies. Here people make pottery, draw and paint pictures, build model airplanes, or play musical instruments. There are teachers to help you with every hobby.

A very popular room is the library. There are no books. The floor is shaped into tables and benches. Built into these tables are hundreds of vision phones. The books, films, and newspapers are all stored in the library computer.

First you dial the library index. This file contains all the books that have ever been written. It does not matter whether they were first written in Chinese or French. They will be here, translated into English. There is also an index of films and newspapers. You could spend all day watching comics, but it wouldn’t be a good idea.

This is a single page from a children’s book about how the future would look.

Back when I was a boy, I bought a children’s book at my town’s library book sale called “2010: Living in the Future” by Geoffrey Hoyle. Written in 1972, it had been withdrawn from the library’s collection by the mid-80s, when I picked it up. I’ve somehow managed to hang onto it for 25 years and now, suddenly, here we are: 2010. I’m reproducing this long out-of-print book here to see how we’re doing. Are we really living in the future? | a project by Daniel Sinker

Read the whole thing at Sinker’s project site. (Bonus, Geoffrey Hoyle is the son of legendary astronomer Fred Hoyle, coiner of the term Big Bang. Learn more about the father at this site dedicated to his life and work.)

Seven(ish) Things I Have Been Enjoying Lately

 

Two of a Kind

Appalachian Journey and Appalachian Waltz – Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O’Connor

Blueberries

The 30th Anniversary Edition of The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins

Bike rides in San Francisco – through Golden Gate Park, along the Ocean, out Skyline, around Lake Merced, over to Fort Point

Mad Men, Deadwood, and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr

Old National Geographic magazines

… and BatmanYear One, The Dark Night Returns, The Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum: Serious House on Serious Earth, Prey, Night Cries, The Long Halloween, and The Man Who Laughs