Hyperlinked Infinite Jest: This is What iPads are For

When ebooks were in their infancy, Infinite Jest was the first book I thought of. Not only is it the size of a small dog, but it is also has end notes. (And no, you can’t skip them. I mean, no one is going to show up at your house and make you read them, but you miss out on a whole level of the story if you skip them.) This means, that you are constantly flipping back and forth between two bookmarks in a book that wouldn’t look ridiculous in a stroller.

But, now, the Google editions .epub version, at least read in the IndieBound Reader on a touch screen is hyperlinked. Just touch the annotation in the text and you are taken to the note. At the end of the note is another link that says “Back to Text” which takes you, well, back to the text. You can also search in the text, which for a book with as complex a structure as Infinite Jest, gives you another tool for keeping all the characters, ideas, and events straight in your head. And you can add linked bookmarks, like to the page that shows the chronological order of the sponsored years, that can take you back and forth between events. And you can add your own notes. And it's $9.99.

To me, this is what makes ebooks important; they can allow for a deeper reading experience than print books because of how they allow the reader to interact with the text itself. And, this means are there no longer any excuses for not reading Infinite Jest.

Most Anticipated Addendum

A couple of books have crossed my path since the last post that I wanted to share with you. (And hope you remember them when they do come out.)

You & Me by Padgett Powell. Powell’s last novel The Interrogative Mood was a book composed entirely of questions. I had my doubts about it at first, but at some point, I realized that you would learn a lot about yourself if you actually bothered to answer the questions themselves. Even without that element, it is still a strange and mysterious, yet compelling book. Powell’s new book, You & Me, is coming out in August, and is described as a Southern send-up of Waiting for Godot. Any other author I would be very suspicious of reinterpreting such a precisely surreal and truthful work, but I’m excited to see Powell’s take on it. In some ways, The Interrogative Mood is about living without answers. Since Waiting for Godot is, in many ways, also about living without answers, I can’t way to see Powell tackle it.

Amsterdam Stories by Nescio. You are probably going to get sick of hearing me talk about this book. Beautiful. Truthful. Artistic. Vibrant. Did I mention beautiful? For me at least, reading these stories has been akin to watching Casablanca; you try to open your eyes and ears as wide as you can to take everything in, knowing that something staggering and beautiful is just out of sight and just out of earshot, and even though you can’t say specifically what made that shot work or that line stunning, you know that whatever it is, is perfect. Amsterdam Stories is scheduled for release on March 20.

My Most Anticipated Books of 2012

The literary website The Millions has put together an extremely thorough list of most anticipated books of 2012. If you love books and especially love staying on the cutting edge of literature it is a fantastic resource. But to be thorough it has to be long and detailed and your eyes can go a little cross-eyed scanning through the whole thing. So I’ve pulled out three books on the list that are, for whatever that’s worth, Josh’s Most Anticipated books of 2012.

Varamo by Cesar Aira: In some ways you could say Cesar Aira does the same thing over and over; he writes short, strange, beautiful, intelligent, mysterious, philosophical novels. But each novel is different. They have different tones, different themes, even different prose styles, and they are all fantastic. I’ve read three of them; Ghosts, set in an apartment complex still under construction on New Year’s Eve, The Literary Conference, which involves pirate treasure, cloning, and works in translation, and How I Became a Nun, which starts with an accidental poisoning by cyanide-laced ice cream and goes, well...elsewhere. Whatever Varamo is, it’s sure to challenging, interesting, and exciting. Varamo is scheduled to be released in February.

A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava was originally self-published and is now being brought out by the University of Chicago Press. It’s gathering comparisons to some really big, really amazing, really ambitious books, such as Infinite Jest, Underworld, and even Moby-Dick. Following a New York City public defender who has never lost a case, De La Pava explores the underpinnings of our understanding of justice and order. What excites me about the book is the praise from critic Steven Moore, author of The Novel: An Alternative History (volume 2 please!). If he’s excited about this book then so am I. A Naked Singularity is scheduled to be published in May.

Your Name Here by Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff: I’ve read much of this book as a PDF on my computer so I am thrilled to see it come out as a printed book. Playing with language, translation, narrativity, and the construction of words into books, and featuring a pretty great running joke about If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler (can there be any other kind of joke about If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler?). Your Name Here will (I hope) finally earn Helen DeWitt the attention and acclaim she deserves as one of our most innovative writers of fiction. It follows her daring, scathing, satirical novel Lightning Rods (which was a staff pick here) and picks up with the innovation and exploration that made The Last Samurai such a compelling book. Your Name Here is scheduled for publication some time this fall.

A Tale of Two Apps

Odds are, this holiday season some of you got some fancy gadget on which ebooks can be read. If you got a Kindle Fire or a Nook Tablet, please see our post from last week about how to read our ebooks on those devices. Regardless of what device you’ve got (or are going to get), there are two apps for reading our ebooks on both Android and iOS devices. Both apps have their strong points, so which one you use depends on what you want out of reading ebooks.


IndieBound Reader App: If you use an Android device, this is the app for you. It allows you to shop with Porter Square Books (or the indie bookstore of your choice) directly through the app and since we added stored credit card information, you can buy and read PSB ebooks in mere moments. The app also supports highlighting and annotation and has a whole range of display settings, from font size to brightness. It also plays well with other ebooks sites like Project Gutenberg and NetGalley. (And probably any site that uses .epub ebooks, but I haven’t tried any of those yet.) With Project Gutenberg and NetGalley, at least, when I chose to download the ebooks I was given the option of importing them directly to my IndieBound Reader app library. I got the five-volume complete works of Edgar Allen Poe in about a minute. It also supports PDFs so you can download PDFs directly to your library and read, bookmark, and annotate them, making it a useful tool for readers and writers.

If you’ve got an iPad or iPhone or other iOS device, you still have to purchase ebooks through your browser and then download them into your app. Once you’ve purchased the ebook click on “download” and the ebook will download to your IndieBound Reader app library.

IndieBound Reader App for Android and iOS

Google eBooks: The Google Books app is really handy if you plan on reading ebooks on multiple devices. Because the books are stored in the cloud, if you start reading something on your iPhone on the train, you’ll be able to pick up where you left off on your iPad at home. It’s also a good choice if you want to conserve memory space on your device. You still have to use your browser to purchase the ebooks, but once purchased, you can instantly access them on every device with the app.

Google Reader App for Android and iOS

Both apps have their strong points and both apps give you the freedom to get ebooks from many different sources. Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from using both of them for different books or situations. Also, because our ebooks are .epub, you can read them on all kinds of other software like Adobe Digital Editions and Calibre.

Someone Gave You a Kindle Fire

Whatever your opinion of Amazon might be, they have done a great job making sure people think of Kindles first when they think of ereaders. And the reviews of their various devices all pretty much say the same thing; for the price, Amazon makes decent devices. This means that a lot of readers over the last year have gotten Kindles, either as gifts or for themselves, without knowing how the device can limit where you shop for ebooks. If the reports that we’re hearing are accurate, a lot of you will be unwrapping Kindle Fires this year, whether or not you asked for them.

The good news is that you can use the IndieBound Reader app on the Kindle Fire, so even on your Amazon device, you’ll have the option to shop at independent bookstores for your ebooks. Though the IndieBound Reader app wasn’t designed to be used on the Kindle Fire, the staff at the American Booksellers Association have tested it and the results are good. Here is how you put the IndieBound Reader app on your Kindle Fire.

• First, configure your Kindle to allow sideloaded apps. Tap the Settings gear at the top right of the home screen, and then tap the “More” button.

• From the Settings menu, select “Device”

• Toward the bottom of this screen is a toggle that says “Allow Installation of Applications From Unknown Sources.” Switch this toggle from Off to On.

• A nasty security warning appears. Tap OK. You can now install sideloaded apps.

• Point your browser to http://www.indiebound.org/reader

• Tap the green button that reads “Download IndieBound Reader for Android”

• When the download is complete, a banner notification will appear at the top of the screen saying, “Download Complete” and a new notification will appear. Tap this notification at the top of the screen, and then tap on the successful download message to begin installation.

• You now have the IndieBound Reader app on your Kindle Fire! It will appear with your other apps on the “Apps” screen.

• (Optional) If you would like to disable sideloaded apps again, simply follow the first few steps and change the “Allow Installation of Applications From Unknown Sources” toggle back to Off again.

Check back next week for a post with a lot more details about using the IndieBound Reader app.

Or maybe you got a Nook Tablet. If so, you can use Adobe Digital Editions to move PSB ebooks onto your Nook Tablet just like with the older versions of the Nook.

Sideloading the IndieBound Reader app is, unfortunately, not as easy on the Nook Tablet as it is on the Kindle Fire, but once installed the app runs great thanks to the Nook Tablet’s superior hardware. Please note that a microSD card is required to run IndieBound Reader. However, if you still want to use the app, here’s how.

• You must have an SD card in order for the IndieBound Reader app to run. Because of the Nook’s unique file permissions sytem, it cannot write to your Nook directly. Make sure that a microSD card has been inserted before beginning this procedure.

• Unlike the Kindle Fire, the “Allow Installation of Applications From Unknown Sources” toggle is not available in the Nook’s settings menu. Instead, you must first try to sideload an APK in order to access this screen. So, point your Nook’s browser to http://www.indiebound.org/reader.

• Tap the green button that reads “Download IndieBound Reader for Android”

• “Starting Download” appears. Nothing further seems to happen!

• Tap the three-arrow icon in the lower left corner. This pulls up a notifications dialog.
Tap on the IBReader-x.x.apk download.

• Complete action using… choose Package Installer

• A security dialog appears. Choose “Settings.”

• You are taken to a hidden settings page on your Nook where you can enable the
installation of sideloaded apps. Check the box next to “Unknown sources.”

• A scary security warning appears. Click OK.

• Tap the Back button next to the Application Settings page title. You will be returned to your web browser.

• Tap the arrow icon in the bottom right again. Tap on the downloaded IBReader apk
again.

• Complete action using… choose Package Installer

• Install the application.

Running the application subsequently

Unfortunately, the Nook does not display sideloaded apps together with other apps on the system. There are two means of accessing sideloaded apps on your Nook Tablet.
1) The Search
Use the search to look up your app. You will need to search for “IB Reader” (with caps) to find it.
2) Sideload an app manager
This is a great solution if you plan to add more sideloaded apps in the future.

Sideloading the IndieBound Reader app on these devices can be a bit of a hassle, but it means you’ll have the freedom to chose where you want to shop for ebooks. Furthermore, I think it’s a really good reading app in general. It supports annotation and plenty of formatting options and makes buying ebooks really easy. More on the app next week.

The Perfect Book Part 3

Part 3 of The Perfect Book. Check out Part 2 and Part1.

Hockey’s Original 6: Breathtaking, vivid photos make this perfect for book for the hockey fan.

Hard Way Around and Atlantic: For the seafarer, whether actual or would-be.

The Art of Medicine: For that doctor or medical student in the family:

One Writer’s Garden: For Eudora Welty fans, horticulturalists, and lovers of American literature. A beautiful gift book, the perfect companion to One Writer’s Beginnings.

The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick: For the delusion paranoid member of the family in search of the universal order and/or the hardcore Phillip K. Dick fan.

A History of the World in 100 Objects: For the perpetually curious interested in history.

The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise by Georges Perec: For the office worker in search of a new perspective on his/her toil.

ABA Open Letter

Like many independent booksellers we are a proud and active member of the American Booksellers Association. The CEO of our organization, Oren Teicher, has written an open letter in response to a new app promotion just announced by Amazon. I thought it important enough to share.

This week Amazon.com announced that customers who go into bricks-and-mortar stores on Saturday, December 10, use the company’s smartphone price check app on select products, and then purchase that product from Amazon will receive a discount of up to $5.

While books were not included in the promotion, indie bookstores, like other Main Street retailers, were outraged by the online giant’s latest move.

Dear Jeff Bezos,

We’re not shocked, just disappointed.

Despite your company’s recent pledge to be a better corporate citizen and to obey the law and collect sales tax, you created a price-check app that allows shoppers to browse Main Street stores that do collect sales tax, scan a product, ask for expertise, and walk out empty-handed in order to buy on Amazon. We suppose we should be flattered that an online sales behemoth needs a Main Street retail showroom.

Forgive us if we’re not.

We could call your $5 bounty to app-users a cheesy marketing move and leave it at that. In fact, it is the latest in a series of steps to expand your market at the expense of cities and towns nationwide, stripping them of their unique character and the financial wherewithal to pay for essential needs like schools, fire and police departments, and libraries.

But maybe we’ve misunderstood.

Even though you’ve spent millions on lobbyists, fired affiliates in seven states, and threatened to shut warehouses to avoid collecting sales tax, maybe you really mean it now when you say you support a level playing field.

It’s up to you to show us.

In the meantime, indie retailers remain the heart of countless communities — offering discovery, energy, support, and unique experiences. See you on Main Street.

Sincerely,

Oren Teicher, CEO
American Booksellers Association