Links of the moment:
—Sci-fi fans name best TV shows, movies and books, in a Wired blog. Top ten books are 1984 by George Orwell, The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, Dune by Frank Herbert, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, The Stand by Stephen King, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. All in all, a pretty conventional list.
—Book sales in decline as U.S. economy contracts, from Noel Griese, whose press release note that "Net sales of books in April fell 3.5 percent to $472.7 million, based on data from 79 publishers as reported to the Association of American Publishers." By contrast, e-book sales were "up 19.9 percent to $3.4 million." Keep in mind that for the year, total sales are stable, as reported directly by the association. But with low cost-tech and e-, could reading best-sellers become a more economical activity and thus more recession proof? $25 a pop for hard covers is not economical for the typical reader.
—Is a Kindle to books as iPod is to tunes?, from the San Francisco Chronicle. Buried in the story: "The nearly 2-year-old Sony Reader was the highest profile pre-Kindle electronic reading device, but publishers and analysts said it hasn’t attracted more than the early-adopter crowd." Actually the K-machine has helped Sony sales somewhat, especially among people who couldn’t get Kindles earlier this year because of shortages. One thing that could help the Kindle a little would be more reasonable prices for university press books in the K format. Meanwhile, on the iPhone/Touch front, my sister just got a Touch, and I’ll be working on her to try Mobipocket when it becomes available for the Touch. Such, at the personal level, will be indications that E is catching on.
—Are e-book challenging paperbacks?, in the U.K.-based Pocket-lint. Will this be the year when E finally reaches Great Britain in a big way via Amazon? And speaking of challenges, the Penguin UK blog tells of the difficulties that Borders is having moving £399 iLiads (via Booktwo.org). Even an entertainment millionaire declined to buy one when pitched. Hello, Astak? Might it be time to weed the extras out of your iLiad rival to bring the price down, in this recession?
—Simply Audiobooks to offer RH [Random House] book titles DRM-free, in Publishers Weekly.
I’d like to know the demographics of the sci-fi fans who contributed to that list. It sounds as if they surveyed my grandparents.