Sam Harris has posted a rather provocative entry to his blog discussing the problem faced by writers in an era when audiences “increasingly expect digital content to be free” and have such short attention spans that increasingly full-length books are seeming just too long. It’s a topsy-turvy world, Harris posits, when people with popular blogs get so many hits that publishing it in even a famous and well-regarded magazine like Vanity Fair is “tantamount to burying their work” by comparison. He cites as example an article by his friend Christopher Hitchens, whose numbers of Facebook likes and Twitter...

My to-be-read pile of ebooks keeps growing. Unfortunately for publishers, however, it keeps growing with free offerings from both publishers and self-publishers. I admit that a lot of the free self-published books should never have seen fingers on a keyboard, but I also have to admit that I am finding a lot of good reads among the free self-published books. Some are very high quality, many are just good reads. But “just good reads” is more than enough. These are books that aren’t of the caliber that one would choose for a book club discussion, but they are decently written and...

You'll need to register but that's all you need to do. Once complete, you'll have access to the entire list of Cambridge Journals via the Cambridge Journals Online platform. Here's a List of Titles (More than 270) Free access is available through August 30, 2011. More info along with a link to register can be found here. Read on the go via Cambridge Journals Online Mobile Note: If you're a pop music fan many interesting articles in Popular Music. Via INFOdocket...

Update, July 6th: It appears Hamster's guts are actually the Calibre ebook conversion engine. To save yourself the trouble of dealing with unnecessary/untested programs, you can just download Calibre, which is cross-platform. (Thanks, Peter!) (Windows platform only.) From Lifehacker: "Hamster Free eBook Converter allows you to convert eBook files in proprietary formats for Sony, iRiver, Amazon, Kobo, and other eBook readers into a version that can be read on any other reader, or on all of them as a simple PDF or file format they all understand." Free from HamsterSoft, or you can check out a demo video below.  HAMSTER Free eBook...

The 2011 edition of this annual anthology of essays and reports on (U.S.) government libraries is now available from LexisNexis' Government Info Pro website. It's described on the site as "a collaborative document... put out annually on a specific topic of interest to government libraries." The second section may be of particular interest to the Teleread audience. Titled "Adapting to New and Evolving Technologies", it contains reports from librarians and consultants over topics like the Kindle Lending Program, e-accessibility issues, and SLA 2010. Via Resource Shelf...

On Monday July 4th, the World Public Library's annual World eBook Fair launches, which will combine works from Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and other public collections to create a massive 6.5 million title catalog. The collection will include not just ebooks but other media like music and movies, as well as sheet music and dance choreography. EBookNewser points out that there don't seem to be any events scheduled during the fair to increase visibility, which seems too bad. At any rate it runs until August 4th....

Most ebook promotions today involve either steep discounting or bundling multiple formats, but Seth Godin's The Domino Project is trying something different with its new title "Anything You Want" by Derek Sivers. The ebook will cost you about $8 on the Amazon Kindle Store, which is less than many new releases but not by much. However, it comes with a code good for 200 free songs from indie musicians, hand selected by Sivers, who founded CD Baby and has a deeply personal connection with the indie music scene. Could this sort of cross-promotional bundling be a viable marketing strategy for other...

If you'd like to spend this weekend reading a whodunit set in 7th century China, try "The Chinese Maze Murders" by Robert van Gulik, this month's free ebook from the University of Chicago Press. It was first published in the 1950s and is the first in a series of novels featuring Judge Dee, who must both solve the crimes and sentence the guilty. It sells for about $10 elsewhere. From the description: "Poisoned plums, a cryptic scroll picture, passionate love letters, and a hidden murderer with a penchant for torturing and killing women lead Judge Dee to the heart of the...

From the Open Knowledge Foundation Blog yesterday: "We're very pleased to announce an alpha version of datacatalogs.org, a website to help keep track of open data catalogues from around the world. [...] This is just the beginning of what we hope will become an invaluable resource for anyone interested in finding, using or having an overview of data catalogues from around the world." Via INFOdocket...

ONGOING FREE PLUS DISCOUNTED KINDLE BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY FORUM MEMBERSUPDATESThis blog entry regularly changes the forum-topic-links below to update to the most recent forum recommendations, especially since the message threads are often difficult to find.  The dates will be in Red to make them easier to see.NOTABLE DISCOUNTED BOOKSAm regularly pointing you, with this changing blog entry, to the latest messages on Kindle-customer recommendations for newly-found discounted Kindle books, discounted Kindle books, 6/15-6/18 and 6/19-6/21 Those who didn't read the earlier, larger batch of recommendations can start from June 13 instead (which is from a week ago). That'll give you a starting point...

From the iTunes store: This application provides access to titles from the British Library’s 19th century book collection. It includes classic novels, works of philosophy, history and science. Browse, search and read these historic books on a platform that enhances the reading experience. These digital book images have been captured in color to preserve the look of the original book. Marbled papers, embossed covers, engraved illustrations maps, and beautifully colored plates are intact and help create a unique reading environment. Features: • Search the collection • Browse titles by subject • Read commentary on selected titles • View images of original maps • See author inscriptions and...

From The Chronicle of Higher Education: Today the National Academies Press announced it would offer its entire PDF catalog of books for free, as files that can be downloaded by anyone. The press is the publishing arm of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, and publishes books and reports that scientists, educators, and policy makers rely on. Barbara Kline Pope, executive director for the press, said it had previously offered 65 percent of its titles—ones that were narrow in scope—for free. “The 35 percent that we are adding today will reach a wider audience,...