Conversations with the creators of the best in science fiction and fantasy. If you love SF literature, are an author or aspire to become one, you'll enjoy this podcast.
Middle-school teachers talking about ideas and challenges in real-world classroom environments. Discussions on education, ideas for both parents and teachers, interviews with top young adult literature authors.
Show Notes: More Listener Commentary… Lots More
Voicemail: Chris from Metamor City corrects Summer’s pronunciation of “sidhe”; Doc from Des Moines on Terry Pratchett’s Alzheimer’s announcement; Doc from Des Moines on Jewish holiday stories; comments on modeling an e-book rental service off Netflix’s model; Mike W comments on the Kindle and alternate PDF sources; Tim in St Louis on a children’s movie trailer for “Mim’s Island”; Chris the Fixed Kitty comments on what she’d expect from the Kindle or any other e-book reader; Shane from NJ on the addiction to print books; Roxanne uses a Dell Axim handheld to read e-books.
Review: Stu Shiffman gives us a review of “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier”.
More Voicemail: Ben from Tampa offers an idea about sharing e-books; David in Seattle asks about downloadable media industry standards; CA desires an easier way to declare old copyrights as abandoned and easier to move into the public domain; Jack Jaffee thinks Lorrie needs to be on the show more often, and weighs in on e-readers for people with dyslexia
Submitting Listener comments: If you have any suggestions or comments, please let us know! “Cover to Cover” has it’s own call-in line, 206-350-READ! That’s 206-350-7323, or just email Michael with a comment you’ve recorded yourself!
Link: North American Discworld Convention: September 4-7, 2009, Tempe AZ
Promo: Second Shift Podcast
Whew. I’m actually glad that it looks like my voicemail got dumped. I made the msitake of calling in while my voice sounded like the whiny guy in all the cold medicine commericals.
Good discussion this week
It’ll be interesting to see which pricing models ebooks mature around. MRM’s thoughts on a Netflix-like model were interesting but face an obstacle that DVD’s don’t. Imagine if Blockbuster allowed you to borrow movies for free. Now imagine that they had books instead of movies. Aha! We now have the public library system 
Why would you pay a monthly fee to borrow books when you already get it for free? (I had to mention this, because my wife is a librarian 
)
I love, love, love the idea of ebooks, but two things are holding me back:
1. Cost. $400 for a Kindle? $10 for a book I could buy in paperback for $7? If these were cut in half, you’d have me.
2. Standardization. ebooks need to standardize around one, portable file format usable by all hardware, similar to what mp3’s have become for music. What happens now if I buy 30 books for my Kindle, and then Sony releases a shiny new ebook reader that I must have? My rights to read purchased material should be independent from the hardware on which I read it. Digital music works that way, so should digital books.
Last but not least – Summer, I hope you feel better soon.
Best Regards,
EWB
What are the call-in review guidelines/recommendations once again? I remember them being posted at one point but can’t find it now. Thanks!
Listener review guidelines:
Can you do an audio book review no longer than 3 minutes? Here’s what we’re looking for:
* Book title, author, publisher, cost
* Must have been published within the past calendar year
* Why did you like the book?
* What about the book will you remember a year from now?
* Why do you want to recommend this book to other potential readers?
If you can record it yourself and email it to Michael, all the better!