Burning the Page: The eBook Revolution and the Future of Reading
In this collection of 22 essays, Merkoski, former senior Kindle program manager at Amazon, shares his version of the history of e-books and his thoughts on the future of reading. Each section concludes with a “Bookmark,” a short piece that takes a look at a particular aspect of the print world (such as covers, indexing, bookstores, and browsing) and how it has evolved in the world of e-books. These pieces each feature a distinct URL directing the user to Facebook or Twitter to continue the “conversation,” offering bonus essays and more. More of a personal narrative than a history or a manifesto, this offering won’t supply readers with salacious details about the inner workings and trade secrets of Amazon. Librarians will enjoy his waxing poetic about how lovely books are and how valuable reading is to our culture, but they will likely be disappointed in the fact that the brief essay “Libraries” spends more time talking about print books than it does e-books. That aside, there’s no question that e-books are certainly a hot topic and readers will be interested to know what an industry insider has to say about them. --Rebecca Vnuk