Most of the talk about e-readers centers on full-length books. But The Atlantic has recently worked out a deal to publish a series of Kindle-only short stories, each retailing for $3.99. It’s the literary equivalent of a pop single.
Six stories have been published so far, by authors such as Jennifer Haigh, Curtis Sittenfeld, [...]

Last week, New York magazine polled 100 pedestrians in SoHo about where they got their information and entertainment and found some encouraging news–at least about books.
Of those polled, 67% spent $50 or more on books in the past year; 19% had spent over $250. (By way of comparison, well under half of those [...]

It was cold and white and looked not unlike a refrigerator for guinea pigs. It had far too many buttons. It stalled for an annoying millisecond when flipping between pages. There was no way I would ever be able to suspend my disbelief and fully enter the world of a book.

And then, somewhere over Georgia, I changed my mind.

The rise of the Kindle, and the recent advent of competitor e-readers the QUE, the Nook, and the Alex, have sparked much discussion about the future of paper books, publishing, and the universe. But there’s been little discussion about whether e-books are really a good substitute for, you know, book books. The [...]

Some books ARE more equal than others.
When a publisher changes its mind about publishing a Kindle edition, what happens to the e-book you downloaded? It disappears.

To answer the personal question “Do I love books, or do I love reading?” — and the larger question “In which format(s) is the book most likely to endure?” — author Ann Kirschner (Sala’s Gift) tried Dickens’s Little Dorrit in four formats: paperback, audio, iPhone, and Kindle. She discusses her impressions of each in this [...]

A. O. Scott, from this weekend’s NY Times:

“And just as the iPod has killed the album, so the Kindle might, in time, spur a revival of the short story. If you can buy a single song for a dollar, why wouldn’t you spend that much on a handy, compact package of character, incident and linguistic [...]

Slate’s review: “Digital readers will save writers and publishing, even if they destroy the book business.”
Thanks for the link, Celeste, and for the word “Kindling.”

In the latest The Quarterly Conversation, William Patrick Wend’s “Intro to E-Lit: How Electronic Literature Makes Printed Literature Richer” discusses N. Katherine Hayles’ book Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary and defends e-publishing.
Slate’s Farhad Manjoo loves the Kindle but fears it’s bad news for the current publishing industry.
Booksquare argues that the text-to-speech verdict, supposedly [...]

Can Twitter help publishers and stores sell books? Check out Ann Kingman’s findings on the Booksellers Blog.
David Pogue hearts the new Kindle and answers concerns about the end of print publishing with three words: “Don’t be silly.”
But Tim O’Reilly offers this “bold prediction”: “Unless Amazon embraces open e-book standards like epub, which allow readers to [...]