A charming French novel about an old-school publisher trying to get to grips with the digital ageAt more than one point in this novel I found myself asking: could this be any more French? Early on we meet a character described thus: “She used to be incredibly good-looking and now at thirtysomething she is creditably handsome.” Sorry? What the narrator, an ageing male publisher, looks like, or how creditably or uncreditably good-looking he is, we don’t find out. Another woman leaves the room “in a wiggle of buttock” – I dropped my annotating pencil when I read that line. “Artichokes require a degree of elegance” – there’s another drop of essence of Gallic for you.But there is more to Dear Reader, and what kept me going was that one of the subjects exercising our narrator is the issue of electronic readers – Kindles or, as our hero Robert Dubois has it, the “dear reader” of the title. This book is an elegy for a dying world: that of the printed book and, that death’s darker corollary, the reader who is still interested in, or has the attention span for, the long-form narrative. (I always thought these things were arranged better in France, with no Net Book Agreement and tax breaks for bookshops, but apparently not.) In the world of Dear Reader, there has been a general collapse of cultural understanding: the interns point out to Dubois the remarkable coincidence that the publishing house they have landed in has the same name as him. Meanwhile, Dubois cannot quite get to... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
Soon, when you go to stream Succession or The Last of Us, you'll no longer be looking for an app called HBO Max. As has been rumored, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is changing the name of the streaming service to simply "Max." The company is folding content from Discovery+ into the platform to... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-04-12 17:16:11 UTC ]
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Isn't it ironic that tiny nuances of tax law can often cause colossal results out in the real world? It's one of those judgments that has rocked Europe after its highest court ruled that ebooks aren't actually goods at all. Currently, paper books so... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2015-03-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A charming French novel about an old-school publisher trying to get to grips with the digital ageAt more than one point in this novel I found myself asking: could this be any more French? Early on we meet a character described thus: “She used to be incredibly good-looking and now at... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Barnes & Noble says it plans to keep making its Nook electronic readers and will focus on offering content to its customers, even as its first-quarter net loss nearly doubled.The quarterly results came as the struggling bookseller's chairman said he is abandoning his bid for the company's... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2013-08-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In France, the government will add €5 million in funding to help indie bookstores in the form of tax breaks, interest-free loans and stronger enforcement of fixed price laws. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-03-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pilot program to lend out electronic readers, pre-loaded with best-sellersThe City That Reads will soon be a leader in bringing new technology to library patrons electronically. Two branches of the Enoch Pratt Free Library will begin lending 28 Nook e-readers preloaded with almost two dozen... Continue reading at Baltimore Sun
[ Baltimore Sun | 2011-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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