E-Reads™ is
...a trail-blazing reprinter of out-of-print genre and general fiction and nonfiction by leading authors. Our books are available in all e-book formats and paperback. Read the latest publishing news and provocative blogs by top commentators in the traditional and digital publishing fields.
Empress of Light
James C. Glass
In this sequel to SHANJI, Kati has used the light of creation to win a war bringing her to the throne as Empress of her planet, and she has forged new alliances with former enemies. Her daughter Yesui is born w...
Hôtel Transylvania
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Since 1978, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has produced about two dozen novels and numerous short stories detailing the life of a character first introduced to the reading world as Le Comte de Saint-Germain. We first mee...
Mother's Choice
Elizabeth Mansfield
It's a Mother's Duty To Protect Her Daughter
Cassandra Beringer would never allow her daughter Cicely to repeat her mistake and marry a man twenty years her senior--even if he is the handsome Viscount Inge...
Pock's World
Dave Duncan
In this thrilling story of adventure and suspense by master storyteller Dave Duncan, five flawed individuals must decide the fate of an entire world.
On the outskirts of the Ayne Sector sits Pock’s Worl...
Time Slave
John Norman
Dr. Brenda Hamilton--a Ph.D. mathematician from Cal Tech--is beautiful, though she does not know her true beauty. She is a woman, though she does not know her true womanhood. Deep within herself she is sensu...
Sunday in Hell: Pearl Harbor Minute by Minute
Bill McWilliams
Using long established historical records and contemporary journals as well as recently-released war-time documents, Bill McWilliams has created a brand-new minute-by-minute narrative of the Day that Will ...
Lord of the Fire Lands
Dave Duncan
Raider and Wasp have spent five years at Ironhall studying to become Blades, expert swordsmen whose talents stand unmatched. Magic both enhances the Blades' fighting skills and binds them in lifelong duty....
Miscalculations
Elizabeth Mansfield
His Woman Of Affairs
Jane Douglas had a sharp wit, a brilliant mind, and an extraordinary knack for numbers. As financial advisor to Lady Martha Kettering, she was able to provide for herself, her sister ...
The Girl With the Persian Shawl
Elizabeth Mansfield
An Arrogant Spinster, a Dashing Rake, and an Unsigned Painting
The Girl With Persian Shawl was a strangely bewitching masterpiece that had hung in the Rendell household for generations. Kate Rendell graci...
A Thousand Deaths
George Alec Effinger
While George Alec Effinger’s Budayeen novel WHEN GRAVITY FAILS is perhaps his most famous work, his lesser known novel THE WOLVES OF MEMORY remained his favorite. In it, he introduced readers to Sandor Couran...
FEATURED TITLES
Ratha's Courage
Clare Bell
"Screeching in pain and terror, the rogues backed off, but they didn't flee like the Un-Named raiders did. Something seemed to force them back into the fray, making them ignore their fright and their agony...
Talking Back to Prozac
Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
Talking Back to Prozac: What Doctors Aren’t Telling You about today’s Most Controversial Drug With an Information Packed New Introduction
Peter R. Breggin, M.D., Bestselling Author of Medication Ma...
Explorers of Gor
John Norman
This enchanting escapade is the most important quest of Tarl Cabot's career. He must retrieve a potent shield ring from a strange explorer. It is imperative that the omnipotent Priest Kings obtain this ring...
The Face in the Frost
John Bellairs
THE FACE IN THE FROST is a fantasy classic, defying categorization with its richly imaginative story of two separate kingdoms of wizards, stymied by a power that is beyond their control. A tall, skinny misf...
The Harder They Fall
Jill Shalvis
The good doctor Hunter Adams’ steady life is suddenly wracked by a whirlwind. Trisha Malloy, vixen, lingerie saleswoman and magnet for disaster, has entered Hunter’s life and begun to destroy everything. H...
Eternity
Greg Bear
Multiple Nebula and Hugo Award-winner Greg Bear returns to the Earth of his acclaimed novel Eon—a world devastated by nuclear war. The crew of the asteroid-starship Thistledown has thwarted an attack by ...
Tales of the Village Rabbi
Rabbi Harvey M. Tattelbaum
In the late fifties and sixties, Greenwich Village was the quirkiest, most charming, jazzy, eccentric and urban of environments, the center of all that was both quaint and "cool": brownstones and beatniks, co...
The Listeners
James Gunn
After fifty-one long years of patient waiting, the message has finally arrived. They have dedicated their lives to trying to decipher the eerie silence that resounds from space and now there is finally a so...
Embrace and Conquer
Jennifer Blake
Young and beautiful Felicite is the toast of New Orleans, her kindness and virtue an example to other young women. Daughter of an outlaw merchant, sister to the dangerously handsome swash-buckler Valcour Murat...
The Bird of Time
George Alec Effinger
Far into the future, Hartstein's graduation present from his grandparents was a wonderful trip…into the past. He had a long future in the doughnut industry to look forward to but this trip was the icing ...
The Battle of Anzio
T.R. Fehrenbach
The Battle of Anzio was among the most bloody of the World War II conflicts. T.R. Fehrenbach's accurate account stunningly depicts the reality of the Allied forces' fight for survival on an Italian beach as t...
The Magicians
James Gunn
Unseen by an apathetic society, a stupendous battle is being waged between good and evil. In the center of an unassuming town, gathered in a nondescript hotel, are the most powerful forces of time eternal: t...
Damiano
R.A. MacAvoy
Set against the turbulent backdrop of the Italian Renaissance this alternate history takes place in a world where real faith-based magic exists. Our hero is Damiano Dalstrego. He is a wizard's son, an alchem...
Royal Seduction
Jennifer Blake
Angeline’s virtue was intact before she met the prince of Ruthenia...before he mistook her for her cousin, his brother’s mistress and the only witness to his murder...before he exacted his punishment for k...
Fellowship of Fear
Aaron Elkins
When anthropology professor Gideon Oliver is offered a teaching fellowship at U.S. military bases in Germany, Sicily, Spain, and Holland, he wastes no time accepting. Stimulating courses to teach, a decen...
(Pictured right: The Intel Classmate prototype)
Speculation on the next generation of Kindle (my wife refers to them in Yiddish as Kindeleh) is reaching fever pitch, such as this piece on cnet news by Adam Richardson and another on engadget by Thomas Ricker.
The prognostications seem to be focusing on student applications, and though Kindle 2.0 will probably be a bit bigger for collegiate use, my own opinion is that that is not where e-book readers have to go to win the premio gordo of universal college adoption.
At the dawn of the E-Book Era, circa 2000, I recognized that pocket-portable e-books would never succeed for student use. The reason is size. Textbooks and other illustrated books simply cannot be crammed into anything smaller than a screen close to the size of a laptop. That’s why I advocated the tablet concept and design. Tablets have all the virtues of laptops PLUS touchscreen functionality. For students, reading books on an e-reading device is highly desirable but not as imperative as the ability to handwrite notes on their device’s screen. Resistance to widespread adoption of e-textbooks is explored in an excellent article by Andy Guess in Inside Higher Ed, Next Step for E-Texts. “Whether — or when — e-textbooks become as ubiquitous as laptops or smartphones on campuses depends on several factors that continue to hinder widespread adoption. Observers of the nascent market point variously to available hardware, consumer demand and the dearth of content made specifically for digital formats,” writes Guess.
Manufacturers are not unaware of these issues and have been developing a variety of readers, variously called netbooks, ultraportables, and mini-notebooks such as the Intel Classmate, that appeal to the specific needs of the student. No one has hit a home run yet, but there’s a fortune waiting for the manufacturer that does.
– Richard Curtis
(Pictured right: The Intel Classmate prototype)
A few recent guesses by pundits are saying that the Kindle 2.0 will be thinner all around, so that the additional bulk away from the screen is further minimized, such as the prognostication today at Wired.com. I imagine that the Kindle project’s master design reference is to approximate the comfort of something easily handheld and portable like paperback, so that would limit the screen size from approaching laptop proportions right off the bat. Unless it’s flexible and foldable, I don’t think there is going to be an A4 sized Kindle for quite some time.
Netbooks already have screen proportions that are small and similar to Sony/Kindle’s e-ink screen, but with the added bonus of a responsive operating system, keyboard, and great multifunction ability. So why didn’t Amazon design a netbook like device? Well, two years ago, the manufacturing costs were still really high and e-ink devices are far less complicated. Another reason is that netbooks require more sophistocated operating systems as underpinnings. As Apple and Microsoft know, the ability to run additional 3rd party applications makes the project much more complicated to contain and support. The Kindle is only meant to be a vector for encouraging book sales through Amazon. Finally, netbooks still have short battery life, and the necessary powering-up habits that go along with that, which discourages long reading. But if the iPhone and iPod have taught us anything, it’s that when a device can go a full work day without charging (so that the power cycle is when we sleep), it’s something we’re keener to adopt, and that’s why e-ink devices and iPhone’s still hold their own against tablets for reading.
Eventually, by the time Amazon and Sony have figured out better ways to protect their sales channels for ebooks, the future netbooks and tablets will get to the battery life they deserve and the Kindle may not be necessary anymore.