TeleRead, the oldest English-language site devoted to general e-book news and views, is now owned by the Gadgetell subsidiary of North American Publishing Company (NAPCO). We closed the deal today. I’m leaving as editor-publisher, but Co-Editor Paul Biba (left photo) will remain---as full editor. What’s more, Senior Writer Chris Meadows (right), the second most frequent contributor, will stay. Both Paul and Chris have been e-book-lovers for eons, and publications ranging from the New York Times to the Guardian have quoted Paul over the years. Under Paul, who has supplied most of TeleRead’s posts since September 2008 and managed it...

I've got Skype, I've got Yahoo Messenger, I follow RSS feeds, various online aggregators, you name it. So Twitter wasn't that high on my list. Twitter, though, is very high on other people's, and maybe I can find time if I cut back a little on RSS feed-watching. So now you can follow me via twitter.com/davidrothman---or click on the "Follow David link" near the top of the second column of the TeleBlog home page. I'll be adding a photo when the Twitter gods permit. The system is currently too busy for that. My Twitter posts will be a...

Doc W. today reduced my cardio rehab sessions to once a week and said I might have another two or three decades left after my quad bypass. But if you're not as optimistic about your own prospects, here's some News You Can Use. The latest craze in funerals is to include an iPod in the casket, so that the e-hip dead can enjoy music or other entertainment in the afterlife. Does this mean that my family should bury me with my iPod Touch---and the Stanza program displaying The Great Gatsby in ePub? Nope. When you're done, you're done. I say, Just toss some of...

I was getting nervous because David hasn't posted in so long, so I called him at home and his wife told me that he had a heart attack last Thursday night at about 10pm.  Last Friday he had quadruple bypass surgery and is recovering.  Evidently all 4 arteries were 90% blocked.  David didn't smoke and was a vegitarian, but his wife said he has a family history of heart problems.  She is hoping that he will be released from the hospital this Thursday. According to his wife, when David comes home he will be very weak and not capable of doing...

Back in February, David Rothman wrote of the StyleTap Palm emulator under development for the iPhone, comparing it to the plot of John Scalzi's Old Man's War (PDF) (Mobipocket) in which an elderly man's brain was given a new younger body: "So why not apply the same idea to software? Let a sleek Nokia or iPhone run ancient Palm apps; why rely on a tired old company like Palm, which  lacks the imagination and guts to recycle the Palm TX as an e-book machine?" Unfortunately, according to a July 31 StyleTap press release, it looks like it will not...

The Solomon Scandals, the only Washington newspaper novel that ends with a talking Afghan Hound doing a Harry Truman send-up at the Cosmos Club, has made the popular GalleyCat blog. Hey, thanks, Cat. Thackeray II, unlike many canines, is a big feline fan. The "Get a dog" lowdown Now some more news, especially for writers of media-related novels. In Thackeray II's Truman act, my favorite line is, "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." The only problem is that Truman never said those words, if a book of quotes is right, despite a bunch of references in the press. I discovered the...

It's official now. This fall, Twilight Times Books, a small literary publisher, will publish The Solomon Scandals as both a nonDRMed e-book and a trade paperback. My Scandals might be the only Washington newspaper novel that ends with a talking Afghan Hound named Thackeray II doing a Harry Truman send-up at the Cosmos Club. I frame the main plot, set around the 1980s, with a foreword and epilogue written in the late 21st century. I'm just a time-warpy kind of guy---warped, too?---having started the novel back in the 1970s on an electric typewriter. Scandals blends Suspense with...

Even Borders & Noble faces its share of financial challenges these days. But across the Potomac River from me in Washington, D.C., an independent bookstore called Politics and Prose remains a thriving local institution, as you can see from this photo of a crowd gathered for Rabbi Arthur Blecher's talk on his book The New American Judaism. Click and pick up "We kept one step ahead of the competition," Carla Cohen, a cofounder, told a Wall Street Journal blogger. "We opened a coffeehouse before Starbucks was on the scene. The model for us was Kramerbooks. We’re a much better venue for  authors...

Should you date or marry someone whose reading list doesn't jibe closely with yours? What if your potential beloved hasn't even heard of this guy---Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin? Oh, the horrors related in a New York Times essay today, It's Not You, It's Your Books! I'll side with those who don't filter out possible mates by their reading tastes, however revealing they might be. "After all," Rachel Donadio points out, "a couple may love 'The Portrait of a Lady,' but if one half identifies with Gilbert Osmond and the other with Isabel Archer, they may have radically different...

Moderator’s note: Great timing, Jon. I’ve just posted The Triumph of social sites: Publishers, listen up! Annotation-style capabilities, of course, will make in-book communities possible. - D.R. David Rothman recently called on IDPF to develop an open standard, third-party annotation and linking format. I’ve previously written about the need for such a standard in two TeleRead articles [1, 2]. Hopefully the third time will be a charm! The need for such a standard is pretty obvious. Various companies are already implementing their own proprietary standards for third-party annotation of, and linking between, digital media such as books, music, video, etc. Annotation and...

Millions of elderly people suffer from fading vision. And large-print books are not always nirvana---not when many retirees also have arthritis, which makes it hard for them to hold the books and flip pages. With the above in mind, the TeleBlog will soon publish an important essay from Isabelle Fetherston, the reference librarian behind Senior Friendly Libraries, who shares my enthusiasm for e-books as potential life-enrichers for the elderly. May library-related sites and senior citizens' groups spread Isabelle's message! Read on, and you'll see that my own interest in these issues is personal, not just professional. [Update, Dec. 12,...

The Web site of Publishers Weekly, the powerful 135-year-old bible of book publishing, has started running news and views I adapt from the TeleBlog. I'll also write some PW-first items, online and offline, and will welcome suggestions from the e-book community. PW's home page will spotlight my E-Book Report blog at least 2-3 times a week, and I hope that TeleBlog regulars will drop by to enrich my posts with their own insights. Commenters don't have to work in publishing or agree with me. The only musts are civility and fairness. P-E bridges Also known as the TeleRead Web Log, we draw tens of...