Introducing the New Google eBookstore (with Free Classics)

in Books, e-books, Google | December 6th, 2010

This morn­ing, Google offi­cial­ly opened up the new Google eBook­store, which gives con­sumers access to three mil­lion ebooks, includ­ing many free clas­sics. Tak­ing a page out of Ama­zon’s play­book, Google now lets you pur­chase books at com­pet­i­tive ebook prices and read them across mul­ti­ple plat­forms – mean­ing you can start read­ing a nov­el on your com­put­er’s web brows­er, then seam­less­ly switch to the iPad, Kin­dle, or smart­phone. And the con­tent will stay in sync, all in the cloud. (Get instruc­tions and apps here.) Anoth­er plus: you’re not forced to buy books from just Google. The new book­store is open to inde­pen­dent book­sellers and retail part­ners, which gives these small­er play­ers a chance to play (and per­haps even thrive) in the ebook mar­ket. You can get more infor­ma­tion on the new book­store on the Google Books blog, and don’t miss our Free eBooks col­lec­tion, which comes packed with many clas­sics.

Note: the Google eBook­store is cur­rent­ly lim­it­ed to the US mar­ket.

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David Sedaris and Ian Falconer Introduce “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk”

in Audio Books, Books, Comedy | November 18th, 2010

David Sedaris’ new col­lec­tion of com­ic sto­ries, Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk: A Mod­est Bes­tiary, was recent­ly released with an accom­pa­ny­ing video that fea­tures the voice of Sedaris and the art­work of Ian Fal­con­er.

If you’re not famil­iar with him, Fal­con­er has drawn over 30 cov­ers for The New York­er (see exam­ple here), while also cre­at­ing the amaz­ing Olivia the Pig series for chil­dren. (Be sure to watch this Olivia Goes to Venice clip for a quick primer.) If this video whets your appetite, then let me direct your atten­tion to Sedaris read­ing the actu­al sto­ry “The Squir­rel and the Chip­munk.” It orig­i­nal­ly aired on This Amer­i­can Life.

Or, as reg­u­lar read­ers know, you can snag a free audio copy of Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk – Sedaris does some of the nar­ra­tion! – if you reg­is­ter for a 14-day free tri­al of Audible.com. Once the tri­al is over, you can con­tin­ue your Audi­ble sub­scrip­tion (as I did), or can­cel it, and still keep the free book. The choice is entire­ly yours.

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Books Savored in Stop Motion Film

in Art, Books | November 11th, 2010

This won­der­ful stop motion film makes you pine for the good old fash­ioned print­ed book, per­haps because we all real­ize that Guten­berg’s gift will even­tu­al­ly give way to the Kin­dle and oth­er devices. The three minute film (offi­cial­ly enti­tled This is Where We Live) was shot over three weeks in autumn 2008 to cel­e­brate the 25th anniver­sary of 4th Estate Pub­lish­ers. No less than 20 ani­ma­tors took part in the project, and no less than 1000 books were put to use.

Designrelated.com takes a lit­tle clos­er look at the mak­ing of the nos­tal­gia-induc­ing film. Big thanks to Mike for the good find…

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Writing Studio Floating in Foliage

in Art, Books | November 11th, 2010

When asked to design a writ­ing stu­dio in the woods of New York, archi­tect Andrew Berman began work on his dream project. And here’s what he deliv­ered. If only we could all write in such lux­u­ry…

via Media Bistro

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Paul Auster Reads from New Novel, Sunset Park

in Books, Literature | November 10th, 2010

This week, Paul Auster releas­es his 16th nov­el, Sun­set Park, which gives lit­er­ary expres­sion to the eco­nom­ic mis­for­tunes weigh­ing on the coun­try. The fore­clo­sures. The unem­ploy­ment. The reces­sion and depres­sion. The nov­el starts to paint the des­per­ate pic­ture quick­ly. Above, we have Paul Auster read­ing the begin­ning pages, and you can fol­low along with this tran­script post­ed online by Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media.

Auster also hap­pens to nar­rate the entire audio ver­sion of Sun­set Park, and, as pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned here, you can down­load a free audio copy of the nov­el (or pret­ty much any oth­er book of your choice) if you reg­is­ter for a 14-day free tri­al of Audible.com. Once the tri­al is over, you can con­tin­ue your Audi­ble sub­scrip­tion, or can­cel it. It’s up to you. But, either way, you keep the book.

Thanks to Mike for spot­ting the Auster read­ing…

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Reading While Driving, Seriously?

in Amazon Kindle, Books | November 6th, 2010

I gave up bik­ing on the roads this sum­mer for a good rea­son – too many knuck­le­heads tex­ting, chat­ting, even read­ing, while dri­ving. Read­ing a nov­el while dri­ving? A com­plete aber­ra­tion? Appar­ent­ly not. Join­ing the genius above, we have the Port­land, Ore­gon bus dri­ver giv­ing more thought to the Kin­dle than the road. And then this com­plete piece of work mind­less­ly mov­ing from the tra­di­tion­al book, to the Kin­dle, then to the smart­phone.

via Tech Crunch and Media Bistro

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Talking Literature with Great British Novelists

in Books, Literature | November 4th, 2010

woolf joyce

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

For decades, the BBC has inter­viewed leg­endary British nov­el­ists, ask­ing them how they cre­ate their mem­o­rable char­ac­ters, paint their evoca­tive set­tings with words, and devel­op plots that keep us turn­ing pages. Now, these audio inter­views appear online in a col­lec­tion called In Their  Own Words. The archive takes you back to 1937, to a con­ver­sa­tion with Vir­ginia Woolf, then moves you for­ward to inter­views with Aldous Hux­ley, JRR Tolkien, Doris Less­ing, Mar­tin Amis, VS Naipaul, and Salman Rushdie, to name just a few. These record­ings sit nice­ly along­side a giant archive of lit­er­ary inter­views recent­ly pub­lished online by The Paris Review. (More on that here.) So, if you want to get into the “how” of lit­er­a­ture, you can now tap instant­ly into the col­lec­tive wis­dom of the lit­er­ary greats.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

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In Praise of Copying: Get Your Free Copy

in Books, e-books | November 2nd, 2010

Just a quick fyi: If you head over to the Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press web site, you can grab a free copy of Mar­cus Boon’s new book, In Praise of Copy­ing, which makes the case that “copy­ing is an essen­tial part of being human, that the abil­i­ty to copy is wor­thy of cel­e­bra­tion, and that, with­out rec­og­niz­ing how inte­gral copy­ing is to being human, we can­not under­stand our­selves or the world we live in.” Boon is a writer, jour­nal­ist and Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor in the Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture depart­ment at York Uni­ver­si­ty, Toron­to. You can down­load a free copy of his book in PDF for­mat straight from this link. (Note that the text is for­mal­ly released under a Cre­ative Com­mons license.) Or you can always pur­chase a print­ed copy online.

P.S. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go Press is offer­ing up a free e‑book of its own: The Bour­geois Virtues (632 pages) by Deirdre N. McCloskey. Head here to get a copy.

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