books – Ye Olde Blog Archive

Bobby Newman has a great post getting a lot of traffic today, titled Should Libraries Get Out of the eBook Business. I commented on her post, but wanted to include my thoughts here as well, with the idea of expanding upon them in the near future. My comment:

The problem is DMCA and what it stops us from doing in terms of fair use and the first sale doctrine. The solution is to get libraries and library organizations to use whatever muscle they can to get DMCA overturned or to get exceptions written in for fair use and first sale cases.

And while that was very easy and simple to write, I realize that it may well be impossible, or at least very difficult, to accomplish.

In the meantime, I agree to the extent that we should stop paying whatever publishers ask us to pay for the right to take it up the [censored]. Accepting rising costs and increased restrictions just encourages the publishers to punish us more, and we’re not creating a space from which we can negotiate.

I’m an ePatron, though. If my public library didn’t have eBooks, they’d never see my patronage. What I’d love to see happen is some sort of coordinated rebellion; MARC records loaded for ebooks from publishers who are being unreasonable that leads to a website explaining exactly how that publisher sucks and with concise, clear instructions on how to find and download their books illegally from torrent sites.

It’s not a perfect solution, clearly. But it would sure be nice to stick it to them, just a little bit.

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy One of my favorite things about the end of the year is the “best of” lists – best books of the year, best movies, best web sites and best services. So here are a couple lists of some of my favorite things that I read, watched, saw, or did in 2010.

Top Five Favorite Books of 2010
2010 was a pretty good reading year for me. I started listening to e-audiobooks, and found myself wishing that my commute was longer. On top of that, I read a number of books on, first, my iPod touch (a device I got for work) and then my iPhone 3G (my unlocked, jailbroken, personal device). The books I enjoyed were not necessarily books that came out in 2010, but books I read (or listened to) in 2010 that were outstanding.

1. Skulduggery Pleasant (series) by Derek Landy – Magic, mystery, and a dry sense of humor (these books had me laughing out loud more often than anything else I’ve read in memory). I listened to books 1-3 on audiobook, which I highly recommend as they are very nearly perfect. Book 4-5 aren’t out in the States, yet, so if you want them you’ll have to get them like I did – using questionable techniques to download them as e-books.

2. Bloody Jack (series) by L.A. Meyer – Adventure on the high seas as a London orphan cons herself onto a British Naval ship by masquerading as a boy. Again, the audiobooks are perfection – reading the books themselves is fine, but not the same experience.

3. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow – Again, an excellent audiobook – I listened to most of this and then got impatient and finished it off by reading it on my iPod touch. My first exposure to Cory Doctorow, which was thoroughly enjoyable. I tried to follow-up by reading “For the Win” which I didn’t care for half as much. Too scattered.

4. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley – Another fantastic audiobook that is also perfectly readable in print. Abby also really enjoyed this book, so it gets top marks from both of us as does its sequel, The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag. The audiobooks for both are absolutely delicious.

5. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest – This is kind of an honorable mention, because it’s set in a post-apocalyptic Seattle and is by a local author. Also, it has both airships, and zombies, so it’s hard to go wrong, really. A very readable book, and an enjoyable one, even if it didn’t wow me. Steampunk, as a book genre, made a big showing in 2010, and if you’re unfamiliar with it then this is a very accessible entry point.

Honorable mentions – these are some of my favorite books of all time, I just happened to read them prior to this year:

Most of my favorite books of 2010 were discovered thanks to other people recommending them. I hope that these, in turn, will serve as recommendations to some of you, and that you’ll enjoy them. In the meantime, let me know in the comments, what were some of your favorite books that you read in 2010?