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‘Downloading Dickens: Inevitable, or a Fantasy?’
February 24, 2006 | 4:23 am
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By David Rothman
Does the above headline, from Richard Brookhiser’s elegant article in the New York Observer, strike you the same way it does me? I’m thinking: So is Project Gutenberg a fantasy? Blackmask? Manybooks.net? Like Jeffrey Young’s guest post in a ZDnet blog, the Brookhiser piece reflects the vast gap between us hardcore e-bookers and the rest of the cosmos. We’ll know that e-books have turned a corner when people focus less on the basics and more on issues such as the quality of the typography and the extent of interactivity within e-books. Alas, in LISNews, the reader comments on the Brookhiser article are yet more indications of all the work ahead for e-book proselytizers.
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Comments:
After reading the good article, I do not think the author meant to imply that it is currently impossible to download Dickens; but rather, that downloading Dickens may be the norm one day. Hardly a courageous stand to take, but one that is natural in world that is not quite ready to believe that print may be supplanted by eprint.
Well, Branko, you’re very welcome to interpret the article that way. I myself would have felt better about it if Richard Brookheiser had included links to Gutenberg and the like. Thanks. David
Well, I sent him an e-mail about it, perhaps the author can shed some light himself.
Great. I hope he discovers and has some nice things to say about PG and DP.
Good grief, I’ve just finished Bleak House (on an iPaq) as downloaded from Project Gutenberg, and it’s the eighth book in my re-reading of Dickens project that I’ve read via PG and either the iPaq or the eBookWise 1150. So yes, I agree with David that the article should have dropped in a note about Gutenberg, etc.