Postscripts
By Clay Smith, Fri., Nov. 6, 1998
Nuvo Book
The argument, and it's not an unfounded one, goes like this: The reason electronic books will never take off is because they don't re-create the tactile experience of reading a bound book. You can't curl up with them or make notes in the margins or form an emotional attachment to them. After all, what we display on bookshelves and stuff into backpacks or briefcases with the hope of stealing a moment here or there to spend time with informs others of our identity; the books we choose to read broadcast to the world things about us we don't readily articulate. NuvoMedia, the makers of the Rocket eBook, one of three different digital books being introduced this fall, are fully aware of our six millenias' worth of exclusivity with the paper-based book. Marcus Colombano, NuvoMedia's director of marketing, is taking the Rocket eBook on a "book tour" across the country that began in Austin on November 4 at Barnes & Noble Arboretum and will travel to other technology towns recommended by BarnesandNoble.com, which has invested $2 million in the venture (as has media giant Bertelsmann AG). "I don't think that you're going to see books disappear," Colombano said. "There's going to be a set of circumstances in which you use the Rocket eBook," namely when readers need a stack of books to be more mobile than they are (like on an airplane) and when they need "access to a wealth of content."
A launch party was held at Barnes & Noble's flagship store off Union Square in Manhattan on October 23, with, of all people, U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. "I wanted to present to the public an individual who speaks for literacy," Colombano said about his decision to ask Pinsky to endorse the product.
Marion's Moving
Marion Winik says she is moving. To an emu farm in rural Pennsylvania. And she's engaged to the owner of that emu farm and will marry him next June, after which she and her two children intend to move to the emu farm. His name is Crispin Sartwell, a professor of communications and philosophy at Penn State Harrisburg and the author of Obscenity Anarchy Reality and most recently, Act Like You Know: African-American Autobiography and White Identity. Like Winik, he has two children. He's also a regular op-ed writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Events
Students at UT's Michener Center for Writers have orchestrated another reading series and the first reading happens tonight, Thursday, November 5, 7pm on the lawn behind the Dobie House (702 E. Dean Keeton)...
The Austin Jewish Community Center Book Fair takes place with a variety of events until November 15; call 331-1144 for more info...
SWT brings novelist Francisco Goldman to campus November 10, 2pm in room 341 of Flowers Hall...
Book People hosts acclaimed illustrator, author, and filmmaker Peter Sis on Wednesday, November 11, 7pm with his book Tibet: Through the Red Box...
Same night, same time, Barnes & Noble Guadalupe hosts Leonard Shlain, whose new book The Alphabet Versus the Goddess charts the link between literacy and monotheism, but it's much more fascinating than that typification makes it seem...
Also on November 11, 7pm, Austin's Santa Claus clone Carl Anderson reads from All I Want for Christmas Is ... Letters From Santa's Mailbag at Barnes & Noble Westlake. Jeremy, one Santa seeker quoted in the book, requests a Nintendo 64 by leveling the following charge: "Bring it to me or we'll have Prancer burgers tonight! I'm not kidding."
