Ironic books to read on epaper?

[Mathlete]

When I first got my ebook reader, I decided to break it in by reading the most ironic titles I could think of.

I finished Fahrenheit 451 and I'm halfway through Walden. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

[Sparrow]

'The Pickwick Papers' would be kind of ironic; or maybe 'New Grub Street' (a depiction of hack writing in the late nineteenth century).

[rowjimmy]

How about The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte? "The Ninth Gate" would be the movie version.

There is also a Lord Peter Wimsey story in "Lord Peter Views the Body" about his collection of incunabula called "The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head".

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Mathlete

When I first got my ebook reader, I decided to break it in by reading the most ironic titles I could think of.

I finished Fahrenheit 451 and I'm halfway through Walden. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

1984, of course, with its mentions of editing archives, and especially in light of Amazon's recent actions.

I haven't finished A Canticle For Leibowitz, but it starts with a post-apocalyptic setting in which monks are painstakingly re-creating archives of printed paper documents by hand. Reading about that on a digital device seems to have a nice symmetry. Or irony. I get those mixed up sometimes.

If The Elements of Typographic Style were (legally) available in digital format, it'd be perfect.

[DixieGal]

The digital version of the Gutenberg Bible.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Mathlete

When I first got my ebook reader, I decided to break it in by reading the most ironic titles I could think of.

I finished Fahrenheit 451 and I'm halfway through Walden. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Please don't tell us about illegal eBooks you are reading on your reader. Fahrenheit 451 is not available legally.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Please don't tell us about illegal eBooks you are reading on your reader. Fahrenheit 451 is not available legally.

In many countries of the world it's not illegal to scan a paper book you own to read it on electronic device. Unless I missed a paragraph about buying it?

[igorsk]

The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

[Mathlete]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Please don't tell us about illegal eBooks you are reading on your reader. Fahrenheit 451 is not available legally.

You mean I'm breaking the law by reading certain books?
































































































































How ironic.

[Mathlete]

So far I like the idea of reading The Club Dumas, A Canticle For Leibowitz, and something out of The Gutenberg Bible.

[Andybaby]

Originally Posted by Mathlete

I finished Fahrenheit 451 ?

I don't find this too ironic, if Bradbury saw the advent of ereaders/etext, the book couldn't have taken place. I guess it is Ironic. I just don't see it as such.

btw, was it Bradbury who said Bah Humbug to the Internet?

and JS wasn't there a poll that said atleast 40% of ebook readers pirate ebooks?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Please don't tell us about illegal eBooks you are reading on your reader. Fahrenheit 451 is not available legally.

It's not distributable legally. That doesn't mean nobody has a legal ebook version.

I own PDFs of Starhawk's Spiral Dance, Victor Anderson's Thorns of the Blood Rose, and Michael York's Pagan Theology, because I scanned & converted them myself. York's book is on its way to other ebook formats, because I've converted it recently; I'm content for the other two to remain as PDFs. (The Anderson book is poetry, and the pages are small enough to look fine on a 6" screen. I converted Spiral Dance to be able to search it & quote from it; I don't need other formats.)

One of the biggest nuisances in copyright law interpretation (applying it to individual acts rather than just the corporate ones it was intended to limit) is that all that work is benefiting me only; anyone else who wants digital copies will have to reiterate my efforts. That's part of why ebook piracy is so widespread... anything else feels wasteful and selfish.

But trying not to get too far off-topic... ironic digital books:
Steal This Book, by Abbie Hoffman. (Available as HTML in a couple of places online. I firmly believe that Hoffman did not mind who made how many copies of his book.)

Potentially, The Joy of Reading, by Charles van Doren. Haven't read this, but have heard of it. Celebrates not just content, but the whole experience of ink, paper, pages, and so on.

The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, by Lewis Hyde. (Apparently the title was too racy for the ebook crowd, and it's been renamed "The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World.") It'd be delightful to read about transfer-of-property patterns and how they work in various cultures, on a medium that denies that essential part of human relations.

[BenG]

If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino would be ironic if just for the opening chapter.

Excerpt

[doreenjoy]

Originally Posted by BenG

If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino would be ironic if just for the opening chapter.

One of the best books of all time!

I didn't know it was available in E-format, though.

[geneven]

Originally Posted by igorsk

The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

That's a good one, as is Snow Crash, another early Neal Stephenson sci-fi novel. I thought the beginning of Snow Crash was particularly funny, and I guess, ironic. The Gulag Archipelago is also full of irony. Kurt Vonnegut is ironic -- my favorite is The Sirens of Titan, perhaps. Brave New World -- the title is especially ironic.