Okay, I lied. I said I wasn’t going to post anything today, being Thanksgiving, but I just can’t help myself!

With the holiday season now upon us, 2009 is just around the corner. While I can’t believe how fast 2008 sped by, I always look forward to a new year and see it as a time for new beginnings and more progress.

Amazon apparently has that same philosophy, and according to this TechCrunch post, will be unveiling the new Kindle 2.0 sometime in the first quarter of 2009. The changes being reported are mostly cosmetic, with the new Kindle being thinner than the original. But it’s also said that the new Kindle will resolve some pesky button issues that users currently suffer from (ie. turning the page accidently).

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Because of my book addiction, there are some in my family who suggest that I check out books from the library rather than buying them at the bookstore. Makes sense, right? Especially in the crumbling economy we find ourselves in where jobs are being lost, prices are increasing and no one knows how long this recession will last.

Unfortunately, the decision to go to the library instead of the bookstore isn’t as simple as it might appear. So I’m going to talk about both and give the pros and cons of each.

The Library

Libraries are great public resources that benefit their respective communities in so many different ways, especially in promoting literacy among its citizens. Here are a few thoughts to ponder about the library, both good and bad:

- Checking out books from the library is free. Unless you’re like me and live in an unincorporated part of town, then you have to pay a fee based on property taxes to get a card.

- Most libraries have a good selection of books that will keep most bibliophiles happy for years to come.

- Books must be returned to the library. And you cannot mark in the books (ie. highlight or underline).

- Some books are very old and some are of questionable cleanliness. For germophobes, this might be a big problem.

- Libraries don’t keep the more liberal hours that bookstores do.

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I have been using eReader on my iPhone since August now and have read a handful of books. All the books I have read are from the Fictionwise website. Thus, I decided to write this post that will give you a few of my impressions about reading ebooks. This will mostly apply to reading on the iPhone specifically, but I have also used Sony’s Reader device as well, so I’ll make some general observations.

I love reading ebooks on my iPhone! It’s easy, convenient and I think I actually read them faster than I would a regular print book (if anyone has any theories about why this is, please enlighten me). With that said, here are a few general impressions I have about ebooks:

- There is still a "novelty" factor. This means I still am thinking "Hey! I’m reading a book on my iPhone" while I’m reading, rather than being totally engrossed in the story as I would be with a print book. As ebooks become more common and I read more of them, I’m sure this will go away.

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Yes, romance is a mystery to me, but not in the sense you might think. I’m not talking about romance as in candle light dinners, long walks on the beach, or even spending a few hours on make-out mountain on a Saturday night.

I’m talking about the genre of romance in fiction. I was browsing through my local bookstore recently and came across the romance section. Normally, I’ll walk right past on my way to the self-help section without giving it a second thought. But on this particular visit, I became intrigued.

So, being the stealthy guy that I am, I managed to browse the romance department without garnering much attention. Most of the titles I saw looked pretty sappy, and the covers of these books were filled with hunky guys holding helpless women in skimpy clothing in various erotic poses. However, some of the books did look interesting – as in the type of books I wouldn’t feel too self-conscious reading.

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Brad’s Note: One new feature I’ll be implementing on this site, starting with this post, is posting reviews of books I have recently read. While some books I review may have been out for a while, I will also try to review some new releases as well.

Before I start, I have to admit something: I was reluctant to read this book. Why? Probably because it was released when I was in my last year of college and I was completely engrossed in my classes at the time. Not much of an excuse, I know, but better late than never, right?

Also, I should point out that this post probably does not qualify as a review. It’s more of a few general thoughts about the book I had. I just don’t want to be too misleading in the title of this post.

The Road (aff link) written by Cormac McCarthy, is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a post-apocalyptic world where a man and his son are trying to get to the coast because the man thinks they have a better chance for survival there.

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Do you read a lot of books? If you’re like me, you probably do. While I love reading more than most things in life, sometimes all those books start to blur together. Characters and plot lines become indistinguishable from each other and when trying to recall the details of a particular novel long after finishing it, I find myself struggling to remember basic information about what I had read. This can prove to be very embarrassing during pretentious literary conversations at parties.

Thus I started a reading journal! Can I be any more of a dork? Seriously though, here’s how it works: The reading journal is like any other journal and is very flexible in how it’s organized and what you decide to write. For example, you might want to just stick with the basics and write down the plot line, main characters, supporting characters, setting, and maybe your thoughts about particular events in the novel.

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Social networking just won’t go away! Today, as I was browsing through my morning Publishers Weekly email, I came across this article, describing retail giant Barnes & Noble (B&N) launch of their own social networking site.

Much like other book social networking sites, My B&N has features that let users showcase the books they’ve read and what they’re currently reading (the site also lets them feature music and movies).

The site, called Goodreads also allows users to create different lists and share them via other social networking sites (cross-social networking?).

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There is a lot of pleasure in reading a good novel. For me, one of those pleasures is immersing myself in the into the world of the character/s. A well-written character can start to appear like a real person, and I often find myself feeling their pain when something goes wrong, or celebrating their joy at even the smallest of victories.

But what happens when you finish reading the novel? I often find myself thinking about the future of the character, or how they would react to hypothetical situations that my imagination plunges them into. One book that stands out in my mind is Forty Signs of Rain (aff link) by Kim Stanley Robinson. The book is the first in a trilogy and introduces us to a character named Frank. Frank is an awkward loner type who eventually makes his home in a tree house he built in one of the Washington D.C. parks. He’s one of those characters I obsess about long after finishing the book (or in this case, the series of books).

Creating a virtual world for characters

I was highly intrigued when I came across this article from The Guardian website. It talks about a character named Steffi McBride, who is the lead in a novel called The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride by Andrew Crofts. And what makes her so interesting is not so much the novel (although that plays a large part) but Steffi’s "life" outside the novel:

But what, arguably, makes Steffi more interesting than your average airhead celeb is that she’s the figment of an author’s imagination and these tantalising – or annoying – insights into her star-studded existence come courtesy of her updates on Twitter the social media "microblogging" site, and her Facebook page.

Yes, Steffi has a Twitter account and a page on Facebook. On the one hand, it’s not that surprising. A popular character can probably do pretty well on such social networking sites, and it can only boast the novel’s popularity among fans. On the other hand, however, I’m inclined to think many people will see this as over-the-top. Part of the magic of certain characters is their lives within the framework of the novel. If they set a metaphorical foot outside of that, things can start to appear wishy-washy.

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I’m trying to avoid getting too political in this blog, because that’s not what this blog is about. Although the subject of literature and free expression tend to easily get pulled into the political arena, so I’m forced to confront these issues head on.

Many have rightly pointed out that the alleged book list I linked to in this post is probably not the list of books Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin wanted to ban from her small-town public library. In that post I expressed my doubts, as I could not find a reliable source to back the list up. For all we know, the only true list of books Sarah Palin wanted to ban from the library only exists on a lipstick-smeared napkin tucked between her bible and the corpse of the latest moose she killed.

All this attention given to Palin’s attempt to have certain books pulled from the library is finally catching the attention of the McCain Campaign, and they’re fighting back. Nothing surprising there. I did find this article on the Huffington Post blog about the issue and thought it raised some interesting points – despite there being no official list:

Certainly, there was no official list drawn up. However, in a fact the McCain email leaves out, Palin approached the librarian three times to ask about the possibility, which could legitimately appear to some as something of a pressure campaign (especially considering that Palin attempted to have the librarian removed afterward).

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There’s no question that technology is changing the way we consume all types of media, including literature. But what happens when you want to turn the novel into something akin to a movie or television show?

One person is trying to do just that, and he calls it the "digi novel". Who is he? It’s Anthony Zuiker, the man behind the popular CSI series (which, I must confess, I have never seen a complete episode). I came across this blog post from the UK site Guardian Unlimited. Here is Zuiker’s idea:

With the modesty of one of the most important men in the American media, Zuiker thinks the digi-novel "offers publishing a chance to catch up with the YouTube generation that has lost passion for reading". That chance comes at a price; Penguin imprint Dutton are paying Zuiker a seven-figure sum.

Zuiker continues:

"I want to give traditional crime novel readers a more immersive experience," Zuiker explains of what’s been labelled "storytelling 2.0".

That immersive experience involves short video clips every few chapters of a novel. Certainly not something your run-of-the-mill paperback offers. Zuiker justifies this idea by saying that he wants "To be rewarded every couple of chapters by seeing something visual…" I think he’s missing the point of reading a novel to begin with.

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