I am sure you have already heard about this but if not, just weighing in about it all. Stephanie Duncan of Bloomsbury in charge of the project says: "I’m delighted to be reconnecting this extraordinary selection of authors and books with their original fans, and bringing them into the lives of a new generation of readers. This is a significant time for digital publishing, and the Bloomsbury Reader initiative introduces a new dimension to its development.”
If you click on this link below you will see more information and further details of the authors they are planning on republishing www.bloomsburyreader.com
As you know I am the proud owner of a Kindle. It is already out of date as the new super, sleeker model has just been unveiled – cheaper too – on Amazon, but technology moves so fast nowadays this was inevitable and I am certainly not going to rush out and get the new one. Mark you at £89 it has got to be remarkable value for money. I gather they are also bringing out a Kindle Pad to rival Mr Apple (hooray they need the competition) but this is only available in the US at the moment. As with the Kindle, if I was thinking of purchasing this, then I will hold off until Kindle Pad4 or whatever is produced and the bugs and gremlins ironed out. It always happens.
In my ravings when I first had my Kindle, posted here, I said I would be using it as a library and had stockpiled books I thought I might like to read one day by authors who had impinged on my literary sensibilities but whose books I did not necessarily want to buy right now. This means, of course, that I probably would never get round to reading them. We are not talking about the heavyweights here, Dickens, Tolstoy et al but, and I suppose I should not call them in the second tier, writers such as Arnold Bennett, GK Chesterton, Anthony Hope and many more. I have managed to download a whole plethora of unknown titles and nearly all of them for free which is even better.
Simon of Stuck in a Book, Karen of Cornflower and myself met Stephanie, who we all knew by email and blog conversation, at the Bloomsbury Birthday party in the summer and she said she really wanted to republish out of print books such as those by EM Delafield or Richmal Crompton which are incredibly difficult to track down, and when you do are very expensive. Between us, Simon and I have a large collection of the Richmal Crompton titles and we were more than happy to lend them to Bloomers for digitising. We soon rescinded our offer, in fact we took it back pretty sharpish, when we were told that the books were literally ripped to pieces so that the entire book could be transferred page by page. Shock horror, but yes that is the price that will have to be paid if such books are to be available again. I would love everyone to read my collection of Crompton and Delafield but sorry, I don't love you all as much as that…….
However, they have obviously managed to lay their hands on some Delafield as here are the titles by this author now available from them:
http://www.bloomsbury.com/books/search/Delafield
I have all these titles in hardback on my shelves, discovered and hunted out over the last fifteen years or so, but if you do not have them, May I recommend that you download all of these. You will not regret it.
This project from Bloomsbury, and the increase in e-books from other sources, is a perfect use of the new technology. Authors can be saved from obscurity, in some cases of course, obscurity is probably where they belong but there are many that have simply gone out of fashion and deserve to be rediscovered. Persephone Books is the leader in this field, republishing women's fiction (and a few men as well) of the time between the two World Wars and, surely, must be credited with starting off the revival and discovery of authors who deserve to be remembered. Capuchin Press have also published unknown works by authors such as A A Milne and Hugh Walpole, all to great effect.
I think this is all rather exciting and I wish it every success. I can think of loads more authors I would love Bloomsbury to reprint, some of the more unknown titles by Elizabeth von Arnim spring to mind, but much though I love this idea I think my books will be staying firmly on my shelves. The thought of anybody ripping pages out of a book almost brings on a spasm and I am not that philanthropic.
So if anybody is thinking of purchasing an e-reader for themselves, or for a friend or a loved one, this addition to the e-book canon from Bloomsbury must surely help tip the balance. I don't think the 'real' book is dead or even near dying, nothing will replace the feeling of a book in one's hand and turning the pages, but I see no reason why the new and the old technology should not exist side by side.
Has anybody out there bought any of these new titles yet? What do you think of the whole e-reader thingy? I freely admit I am a convert after initially swearing that an e-reader would never cross my threshold, but what do Random Readers think – do let me know.
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