Curling Up With Hybrid Books, Videos Included

[groovedaddy]

For more than 500 years the book has been a remarkably stable entity: a coherent string of connected words, printed on paper and bound between covers.

But in the age of the iPhone, Kindle and YouTube, the notion of the book is becoming increasingly elastic as publishers mash together text, video and Web features in a scramble to keep readers interested in an archaic form of entertainment.

On Thursday, for instance, Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Ernest Hemingway and Stephen King, is working with a multimedia partner to release four “vooks,” which intersperse videos throughout electronic text that can be read — and viewed — online or on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

And in early September Anthony E. Zuiker, creator of the television series “CSI,” released “Level 26: Dark Origins,” a novel — published on paper, as an e-book and in an audio version — in which readers are invited to log on to a Web site to watch brief videos that flesh out the plot.

Some publishers say this kind of multimedia hybrid is necessary to lure modern readers who crave something different. But reading experts question whether fiddling with the parameters of books ultimately degrades the act of reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/books/01book.html?th&emc=th

[Bonhomme Richard]

1. I have taken to new technology with gusto but there...............

is something about sitting with a book in your hands, the feel of the page as you turn it, the smell gently brushing your senses that will keep me from replacing my books with electronic devices. There I have drawn the line.

[scubadude]

2. The fact that you can buy a book from a used bookstore,

enjoy it, and sell it back or give it to a friend. I am reading one right now a buddy loaned me. I have several out on loan. One of them a signed copy.

Let's see an author sign a Vook....

Scuba

[enlightenment]

3. ick.

Electronic comic books to 'lure' readers with the attention spans of gnats. A whole new generation of 'writers' who need do nothing more than write an outline to be 'fleshed out' with video.

I like audio books, on occasion, when the reader has a good voice and the version is unabridged. I especially like that my mother, a life-long reader who lost her sight several years ago to macular degeneration, can still 'read' thanks to audio books.

I like seeing occasional pictures in books, particularly non-fiction books and especially when the pictures help clarify a difficult written explanation.

I like going to plays and enjoy films, also . . . but I would never consider that reading.

This is what happens when imagination dies. Unable to envision a story in their own minds, these 'readers' need to have it performed for them.

[juno jones]

4. I could see the application

especially in non-fiction, where instead of written footnotes one might get the actual video of the sppech, event, etc.

But for the most part, make mine paperback because I'm gonna take it into the bathtub with me.

[madrchsod]

5. no thanks...i`ll take the printed word

i have books from the 1800`s that i can pick up and turn the pages. will e-books be around in a 150yrs? or will they go the way of the wire recorder?

[abluelady]

6. This Old Lady Won't Go for it at All

But I watch my grandson playing video games, watching videos, wearing an ipod, etc., and wonder if the hybrid will become his way of reading. I don't think it matters how one takes in a book. I believe I get as much, and sometimes more, listening to an audio book as I do from reading. The only criticism I would give to the hybrid or the audio book is if/when they are abridged. I do believe a book is degraded when the words are changed or left out to make it shorter.

[hippywife]

7. An archaic form of entertainment?

Sounds like they are trying to influence the future of reading just by writing this article.

Like others have mentioned, I love the feel and smell of a book. I love the smell of libraries and used book stores (not so much the new ones.) I love finding a wonderful read to cuddle up with on a rainy day or a sleepless night.

I do like audio books sometimes, too. If I have a desire to read when I really need to be doing housework, for example. If my hands need to be doing something else, an audio book is a great alternative. Otherwise, gimme the paper version.

:hi: