Ebooks, Ebooks, and More Ebooks

Lots of buzz with the possible unveiling of the Google Editions reader within the month.  This would provide independent booksellers with a way to finally sell e-books to everyone but Kindle owners.  300,000 titles in the cloud for customers.  As a librarian, I am coming to really dislike that Kindle, since we can't loan anything on it.  Soon: the iPad, etc.  But never Kindle?  Read about it here.

Also, good quote from a book typsetter on what e-bookers are missing: "In fact, Mr Carter doesn't own an iPad, Kindle, or other reading device, as he is waiting for them to mature. (He does own an iPhone.) He frets that, as things stand, reading devices and programs homogenise all the tangible aspects of a book, like size or shape, as well as font. They are also poor at hyphenation and justification: breaking words at lexically appropriate locations, and varying the spacing between letters and between words. This may sound recondite but it is a visual imprint of principles established over the entire written history of a language. "Maybe people who grow up reading online, where every book is identical, don't know what they're missing."  Full article in The Economist