11:27 AM by jgray in E-Book General | News

For all those who wanted a DRM'ed ebook format on the jetBook, your wish will soon be coming true. According to my source, the "Barnes and Nobel" format will soon be added. I assume that this means the Fictionwise/eReader DRM format.

Although many like how eReader handles DRM, I could wish that either Mobipocket or Adobe's flavor of epub would have been selected as the DRM format to add. Mobipocket DRM would give you access to a large selection today. ADE DRM would probably be the better choice for the future IMO. Having said that, I await the day when DRM vanishes alltogether.

Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if this revelation means that we will soon see B&N or Fictionwise selling jetBooks as well as the Plastic Logic reader?

11:11 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

There's a really cool clip on Youtube:

08:29 PM by pilotbob in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

Help us select the next book that the Mobile Read book club will read for October 2009.

The nominations will run through Sep 27.
Voting (new poll thread) will run for 5 days starting Sep 27.

Book selection category for February per the "official" club opening thread is:

October
MobileRead Author

In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).

How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.

How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a pool at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.

How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.

How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.

How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.

When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.

The floor is open to nominations.

Official choices each with three nominations:

Flash Forward by Robert J. Sawyer
Description from Goodreads:
What would you do if you got a glimpse of your own personal future and it looked bleak? Try to change things, or accept that the future is unchangeable and make the best of it? In Flashforward, Nobel-hungry physicists conducting an unimaginably high-energy experiment accidentally induce a global consciousness shift. In an instant, everyone on Earth is "flashed forward" 21 years, experiencing several minutes of the future. But while everyone is, literally, out of their minds, their bodies drop unconscious; when the world reawakens, car wrecks, botched surgeries, falls, and other mishaps add up to massive death and destruction.
Slowly, as recovery efforts continue, people realize that during the Flashforward (as it comes to be called) they experienced a vision of the future. The range of visions is astounding--those who would be asleep in the future saw psychedelic dream landscapes, while others saw nothing at all (presumably they'd be dead). But those who saw everyday life 20 years hence have to come to grips with evidence of dreams forsaken (or realized). Soon, the physicists who caused the Flashforward are struggling to help the world decide whether the future is changeable--and whether the experiment is worth repeating. Robert J. Sawyer has captured a truly compelling idea with Flashforward, and he fully explores what such an event might mean to humanity. Fans will find this to be his best work to date, although the ending seems rushed after a detailed buildup. --Therese Littleton

The Tide Mill by Richard Herley
Synopsis here: http://www.richardherley.com/TM.html

The Moon and the Sun by Vonda McIntyre
1997 Nebula Award winner
Set in Versailles, France, in 1693, The Moon and the Sun tells the story of a Marie-Josephe, a lady-in-waiting to the niece of Louis XIV -- the Sun King. Marie-Josephe's brother, Father Yves de la Croix, is a Jesuit and also the King's natural philosopher and explorer. He has brought the King a living sea woman and a dead male, both captured on an ocean voyage. So begins a rich tale of conscience, politics, science, history, and love.
Available at http://www.vondanmcintyre.com/index-fiction.html

Verdant Skies by Steven Jordan
The summary is here: http://www.stevejordanbooks.com/novels/verdant.htm

Soul Identity by Denis Batchelder
You can't take it with you...but what if you could? Most people believe their souls outlive their bodies. Most people would find an organization that tracks their souls into the future and passes on their banked money and memories compelling. Scott Waverly isn't like most people. He spends his days finding and fixing computer security holes. And Scott is skeptical of his new client's claim that they have been calculating and tracking soul identities for almost twenty-six hundred years. Are they running a freaky cult? Or a sophisticated con job? Scott needs to save Soul Identity from an insider attack. Along the way, he discovers the importance of the bridges connecting people's lives.

10:09 AM by ProfJulie in E-Book General | News

Microsoft finally released an updated version of MSReader for Windows Mobile 6.0 & 6.1 devices (for .LIT books). You can learn about it and download it here.

02:59 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book Software | Calibre

Calibre V0.6.13 has officially been released and it brings, along with a couple of bug fixes and new and updated download recipes, a new feature allowing you to convert LRF e-books to other formats including ePub. Note that the code is still very new and has only been tested with Calibre-generated books. Quote mastermind Kovid:

I should note that the LRF conversion code is very new and probably has lots of bugs (I did write most of it at it at an airport after all).

As always, get the latest version of Calibre from over here.

10:41 PM by Bob Russell in E-Book General | News

It is easy to say that reading more is good. We all seem to agree it's better to read more. And many find that e-books help with reading, because they make it convenient and enjoyable.

But does it also matter what we read? Mark Twain said, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."

Clearly, there are multiple ways for books to be good for us. They may profit us because we learn. Because they make us think about the world, our life, and the people we relate to. We read in books of people who we desire to emulate in ways. Some books are profitable because they are an escape and a chance to refresh ourselves and reset ourselves in a demanding world. (If we do that with TV, for example, we may feel all the more like we wasted our time or that we are more tired than when we started.)

But I think that it's true. I'm better off for reading some books, but could be all the worse after reading others. Think about the books you read. Are they harmless fun, clearly profitable, or are they potentially even not good for you? I tend to think that we say reading is always good simply because we all have different opinions of which books are good for you and which are not, and because we optimistically assume that we only read the books that are good for us, whether to make us a better person or just to provide entertainment.

So that's the question of the day - Why do you choose the books you read, and are they "good for you"?

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Gosh we've talked a lot this week. Here's your weekly round up of MobileRead's events.

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Shortcovers.com now offering Adobe ePub downloads
• Amazon: "Refurbished" Kindle 1's for $149
• Hanvon N516 firmware update adds Adobe Epub
• Sony Reader Daily Edition model number is PRS-900
• PDF to Epub - a new conversion tool
• Onyx Boox 60 - first impressions
• Plastic Logic under the cover of Barnes and Noble?
• Avast, me hearties!

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Reminder : Paris, France meetup this saturday ! (19 September 2009)

12:14 AM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

Today is International Talk like A Pirate Day. In honor of the day all Pastafarians hold dear, I bring you a list of ebooks here on MR about freebooters, privateers, sea rovers, politicians, and other marauders. Arrrgh!

Harry Collingwood

• Across the Spanish Main (Epub, Lrf, Imp, Mobi)
• A Pirate of the Caribbees (Epub, Lrf, Imp, Mobi)
• The Pirate Island (Epub, Lrf, Imp, Mobi)
• The Pirate Slaver (Epub, Lrf, Imp, Mobi)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• Tales of Pirates and Blue Water (Lrf, Mobi)

Sir Ralph Sir Edward

• The Case of the Desert Pirates (Epub, Mobi, RTF)

Bret Hart

• Queen of the Pirate Isle (Lrf, Imp, Mobi)

John Hutcheson

• Afloat at Last (Epub, Lrf, Imp, Mobi)
• Ghost Ship (Epub, Lrf, Imp, Mobi)
• The Penang Pirate (Epub, Lrf, Imp, Mobi)

Peter Kyne

• Captain Scragg (Lrf, Imp, Mobi)

Frederick Marryat

• The Privateersman (Epub, Lrf, Imp, Mobi)

Max Pemberton

• The Iron Pirate (Epub, Lrf, Imp, Mobi)

Rafael Sabatini

• Captain Blood (Lrf, Imp, Mobi)
• The Sea-Hawk (Epub, Lrf, Mobi)

Robert Louis Stevenson

• Treasure Island (Epub, Lrf, Mobi)

Josephine Tey

• The Privateer (Lrf, Imp, Mobi)