July 01, 2003

Recent Reading

I’ve been tearing through a stack of contemporary fiction these last few months. Here’s what I’ve read:

  • William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (2003). I never really bought the two central conceits of the novel—Cayce’s brand allergy and the Footage—but was still grateful for three hundred more pages of Gibson’s prose.
  • Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions (2002). Lives, representations, and brilliant disguises.
  • George Pelecanos, Right as Rain (2001). Thought Pelecanos was a bit off his game in this one, but how I found it is a tale in the telling.
  • Don Delillo, Cosmopolis (2003). Well, it’s no Underworld. (ebr and Nick both have smarter things to say.)
  • Ellen Ullman, The Bug (2003). A first novel that’s not without its flaws but it’s by far the best fictional treatment of software engineering we have. A book I’ll teach.
  • Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (2003). All too graphic, and of course not fiction. Are there really people who still think these are just “comic books”?
  • Nicholson Baker, A Box of Matches (2003). Like a warm ember.

Next up: Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (2001).

Incidentally, the above list represents something on the order of $125-$150 worth of books. Reading is an expensive little habit. I’m all for authors getting their due, but perhaps peer-to-peer swapping of contemporary fiction is what will finally break eBooks into the mainstream?

Posted by mgk at July 1, 2003 09:31 AM
Comments

I *still* haven't gotten my hands on _Persepolis_. I tried to special order it at my local comic book shop, you know, to give them some business, be a good citizen. They'd never heard of it and claimed that "it's sold out" when they called their distributor. ("Sold out" is something that can happen to the latest issue of a comic book, where the publisher may or may not issue a second printing, but it's not typically something we say about novels.) By contrast, when I was in MD back in May, the folks at Closet of Comics there in College Park not only knew what I was talking about, they had had some copies in stock and were trying to get more.

I think you're right on: combining peer-to-peer sharing with some kind of payment system that allows artists/authors to make a living is what's needed. Or some sort of electronic version of a library (which many libraries already have enacted, of course).

The Gemstar ebook (which was always tied to proprietary content) has just gone under, though, as perhaps you've seen. We're back to square one, device-wise.

Posted by: George at July 1, 2003 10:02 AM | Link to Comment

Actually, square two - my most effective (if not efficient) method of peer-to-peer is to ask Matt to loan a book to me. Saved me $25 with Pattern Recognition (although I guess it didn't help *him* much) ;)

I thought Cosmopolis was ok; Book of Illusions is on my desk waiting to be read (did you like it?).

Posted by: Jason at July 1, 2003 10:33 AM | Link to Comment

Oh yeah. (And let me know if you want to borrow any of the above.)

George, can you not get _Persepolis_ online?

Incidentally, my lending a book to Jason (or anyone else) seems like the most natural thing in the world--quaint, even. From a legal standpoint, after I pay for a book I am free to pass it along to someone else. This is known as the first sale doctrine, and it's what makes public lending libraries possible. First sale is, however, not a concept widely upheld by current rights management practices in the eBook (or elsewhere in the electronic) world, and under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act my lending an eBook to Jason might well constitute a felony.

Posted by: MGK at July 1, 2003 12:20 PM | Link to Comment

Oh, sure, I can get it online, but I was trying to do the right thing by my local comics shop.

Isn't part of the problem with coming to terms with the legality of lending an ebook the challenge of deciding whether you're making a copy or lending the original? To extend your comparison, you couldn't legally photocopy a book and give that copy to Jason to read ... could you?

Posted by: George at July 1, 2003 12:29 PM | Link to Comment

Nope, but under the DCMA it's questionable whether I could even loan out the "original" eBook. Basically, DMCA cedes all legal authority to the terms of the individual product license, and if the product license forbids a loan--well, that's it.

For more on all this, see Cliff Lynch's excellent article:

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_6/lynch/

Posted by: MGK at July 1, 2003 12:37 PM | Link to Comment

A good book costs about as much as a good restaurant meal. This was true in 1650, and it's roughly true today. (Books, right now, are a little bit underpriced)

$150, for such a huge shelf of entertainment and inspiration. Hell of a bargain.

Posted by: Mark Bernstein at July 5, 2003 02:20 PM | Link to Comment
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