Good e-Reader – E-Reader News and Reviews
Pocketbook InkPad Color 2 Review
Philips 3000 E INK Monitor
Xiaomi Moaan Air Review
By Navkiran Dhaliwal Leave a Comment
Digital note-taking is one of the most efficient ways for students and learners to emphasize and organize all the information in their lectures/classes. It uses technology to recall the relevant key ideas of the topic and prevents the hustle of disorganized content. While digital note-taking has its own benefits, the device that you use for digital note-taking has a direct … [Read more…] about Digital Note-taking is Good But With the Right Device
By Navkiran Dhaliwal Leave a Comment
Good news for writers! Well-known online story-telling platform Wattpad is all set to renovate its creators’ programs. It seems like the new approach will make things more accessible for the writers. The company made the announcement on June 1.The Wattpad Creators program is currently in its second year. The program that was launched a year back assures diverse advantages, … [Read more…] about Wattpad Has Revamped its Creator Program for Writers
By Navkiran Dhaliwal Leave a Comment
Image credit: WeyoA new app called Weyo: Kids Reading & Learning has been launched for kids to help them kickstart their early learning adventure. The app, said to be created by “play and education experts for optimal learning and well-being,” as described on their official website, uses artificial intelligence to personalize a child’s learning journey. Weyo ensures … [Read more…] about Weyo AR App for Pre-K Education Reading and Learning
By Sovan Mandal 1 Comment
With Prime Day just around the corner, early deals are already here, including some exciting offers for Kindle devices.
Among the discounted products, the standout deal is the Kindle Paperwhite Kids Edition, now available for $104.99 shipped, which makes for a 38 percent discount from its regular price of $170.The Kindle Paperwhite Kids Edition comes with the same 6.8-inch … [Read more…] about Early Prime Day Deals: Kindle Paperwhite Kids Edition, Kindle Scribe, Fire HD 8 discounted
By Navkiran Dhaliwal Leave a Comment
Kids can’t seem to get enough of their summer breaks. It’s the time of the year when they can relax and take a break from the hustle and bustle of the schools. While initially, that’s a fun way to spend summers; kids must also utilize the period to boost their skills and do something productive like reading. As it’s a fun yet dynamic activity, they can benefit from it.Here … [Read more…] about Summer is Here! Here’s How to Make Your Kids Read Books
By Navkiran Dhaliwal Leave a Comment
Despite the rising trend of book banning in the USA, it seems like readers can’t get enough of these controversial books.
This year in March, ALA released data that indicated how book challenges nearly doubled in 2022 from 2021. About 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship in 2022 from 1858 back in 2021 (resulting in a 38% increase). In this list, a large number of … [Read more…] about Book Banning Increases Curiosity Among Readers Resulting in High Sales
By Navkiran Dhaliwal 3 Comments
Amazon has updated the functionalities of Kindle Scribe that it lacked earlier, and now it has become people’s favorite. The outstanding e-reader that is ideal for seamless reading, writing, and journaling delivers an experience that actually seems better than traditional pen and paper. However, it did lack some variety earlier, which Amazon took care of with updates.
Pen … [Read more…] about New Updates to Amazon Kindle Scribe Make It People’s Favorite
By Sovan Mandal Leave a Comment
Prime Day is approaching, and Amazon has a helpful payment option called Amazon Layaway that allows customers to reserve their desired items by paying a portion upfront and the rest through a payment plan.
It enables customers to make partial payments towards a purchase and reserve the item until it’s fully paid off. It offers a convenient solution for those looking to make … [Read more…] about Amazon Layaway can be a convenient payment option for Prime Day
By Angela Waterfield 2 Comments
Amazon has been accused of using deceptive practices by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). On June 21st, the FTC alleged that the e-commerce whale had purposely tricked millions of consumers by forcing them to sign up for Prime subscriptions through deceptive user interface designs.Over the last few years there have been mounting complaints against Amazon Prime’s sign up … [Read more…] about Lawsuit filed against Amazon for ‘Tricking’ Users Into Prime Subscriptions
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When it comes to audiobooks, most people find Amazon’s Audible to be one of the most trustworthy and diverse platforms of all.
Its popularity has helped it to get a 63.4% of the U.S. market share in the audiobook publishing category as of 2022. Not just that, Audible was responsible for $1.01 billion of the $1.6 billion figure generated by the U.S. Audiobook publishing as of … [Read more…] about Audible: A Platform That Brought Back Storytelling
e-Reader News – Good e-Reader
By Angela Waterfield 2 Comments
Amazon has been accused of using deceptive practices by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). On June 21st, the FTC alleged that the e-commerce whale had purposely tricked millions of consumers by forcing them to sign up for Prime subscriptions through deceptive user interface designs.Over the last few years there have been mounting complaints against Amazon Prime’s sign up … [Read more…] about Lawsuit filed against Amazon for ‘Tricking’ Users Into Prime Subscriptions
By Markus Reily Leave a Comment
Do e-readers spy on you? Does anyone know you keep re-reading the juicy bits in your new erotic thriller? The answer is yes.
“Someone” knows. And they’ve added that piece of information to your digital profile so they can show you targeted advertisements every time you go online.If you open an ebook, someone can see you’re reading it. That sounds rather creepy, but giving … [Read more…] about Are You Being Watched? Understanding Data Privacy in the World of E-Reading
By Michael Kozlowski Leave a Comment
Summer is here and living is easy, certainly if you have a new e-reader in your hands. Whether you are on vacation, a long road trip, flight, or just chilling at the beach or cabin, a new e-reader will pass the time. There are plenty of new devices that have some out this year. Some feature new colour e-paper technology ideal for reading comics, magazines, or Webtoons. The vast … [Read more…] about The Best e-Readers for the summer of 2023
By Angela Waterfield 4 Comments
In April, The New York Times wrote a piece tracking the progress of a baby AI which learned from “reading” only Jane Austin Novels.
The article states, “(AI’s) are trained by going through mountains of internet text. In just an hour of training on a laptop, a language model can go from generating random characters to a very crude approximation of language.” The article goes on … [Read more…] about Authors sign open letter to AI CEOs
By Sovan Mandal 3 Comments
Amazon announced Friday it is finally discontinuing its Kindle online services in China. This move marked the end of an era for Amazon’s pursuit of the vast Chinese consumer market and left avid readers scrambling to stock up on e-books before the platform’s closure. While the decision did not come as a surprise, as Amazon had previously announced its intention to cease … [Read more…] about Its the end of the road for the Amazon Kindle e-reader and e-books in China
By Sovan Mandal Leave a Comment
HyRead has introduced two new e-reader devices, namely the Gaze Note Plus CC and the Gaze Mini the website TechBang reported.
The Gaze CC boasts a 7.8-inch E Ink Kaleido 3 color e-paper display, offering 30 percent improved color saturation. With a color resolution of 150 ppi and a black-and-white resolution of 300 ppi, this display enhances visual vibrancy, making it ideal for … [Read more…] about HyRead Gaze Note Plus CC and Gaze Mini e-reader launched
By Navkiran Dhaliwal Leave a Comment
Image credit: thebooksellerThe Women’s Prize for Fiction has announced its new winner for the year 2023. This year the award has been won by Barbara Kingsolver for her incredible book Demon Copperhead which was released last year. The award made Kingsolver the only writer to win the Women’s Prize for Fiction twice. Earlier, she won the award for “The Lacuna,” which received … [Read more…] about Barbara Kingsolver Wins Women’s Prize for Fiction Again
By Angela Waterfield 2 Comments
First published on June, 25th 1953, The Freedom to Read Statement begans with a forthright declaration: “The freedom to read is essential to our democracy.
It is continuously under attack.”Seventy years later, the freedom to read continues to be an issue. In the past year, more than 60 states have brought forth bills that would restrict what Americans can read. According to … [Read more…] about Call to Reaffirm 70-year-old ‘Freedom to Read’ Pledge Amidst Increased Censorship
By Navkiran Dhaliwal Leave a Comment
The Netherlands has witnessed a surge in its book buyers lately. Residents have bought about 43.2 million books in 2022, which is a 0.4% increase from 2021. Several reasons contributed to the growth, including the spike of audiobooks (as per the reports of CPNB) and the reclaimed edge of traditional bookstores after the ghastly pandemic. There was also an uptick in … [Read more…] about Netherlands Sees a Rise in Foreign Language Books
By Angela Waterfield 1 Comment
Summertime is all about kicking back, relaxing and escaping from the bump and grind of everyday life.
When it comes to summer entertainment there are lots of options, from outdoor concerts to eating out on a patio. However, with many people watching their spending at the moment, more of us are choosing accessible and affordable ways to unplug and unwind, such as relaxing with a … [Read more…] about Survey: ‘Reading’ a top choice as an affordable way to relax this summer
Good reader: elisaveta_neru — LiveJournal
Found something interesting in Vladimir Nabokov’s book Lectures on Foreign Literature. In essence, the writer has his own requirements for a potential reader.
“… The reader must notice the details and admire them. The cold light of generalization is good, but only after all the little things have been carefully collected in the sunlight.
To begin with a ready-made generalization means to start at the wrong end, to move away from the book without even beginning to understand it. What could be more boring and unfair to the author than, say, taking on Madame Bovary, knowing in advance that the bourgeoisie is denounced in this book.
We must always remember that in every work of art a new world is recreated, and our main task is to get to know this world in as much detail as possible, which is revealed to us for the first time and is in no way directly connected with those worlds that we knew before. This world needs to be studied in detail – then and only then start thinking about its connections with other worlds, other areas of knowledge.
Now another question: is it possible to extract information about countries and their history from novels? Does anyone else naively believe that one can learn something about the past from those plump bestsellers that book clubs peddle us at every turn under the guise of historical novels?
Can Jane Austen’s picture of landed England with baronets and garden architecture be trusted if all her knowledge of life was limited to the priest’s drawing room? Or Bleak House, fantastic scenes against the backdrop of fantastic London – can it be considered a sketch of the life of London a hundred years ago? Of course not.
The same applies to other novels. The truth is that great novels are the greatest fairy tales. Time and space, colors of the seasons, muscle movements and thoughts – all this (as far as one can judge, and it seems to me there is no mistake) for a writer endowed with a high gift, not traditional concepts extracted from a public library of common truths, but a series of unique discoveries for which the ingenious master managed to find a unique way of expression.
The job of the average writer is to paint clichés: he doesn’t try to reinvent the world, he only tries to get the best out of the routine, out of the patterns of fiction tried by others. The various combinations that the average writer is able to arrange within predetermined limits are not without a kind of fleeting charm, because the average reader likes to have their own thoughts presented to them in an attractive shell.
But a true writer, who makes the planets turn, sculpts a man and, while he sleeps, ruthlessly crushes his rib, such a writer does not have ready-made values: he must create them himself.
The art of writing is a worthless thing if it does not presuppose the ability to see the world primarily as a pantry of fiction.
If the matter of this world is real (as far as reality is possible at all), then it is by no means an integral given: it is chaos to which the author says: “Start!” – and the world begins to flash and melt. It has changed in its very atomic composition, and not just in its superficial, visible parts.
The writer first maps its outlines, gives names to its elements. Here are the berries, they are edible. Over there, in front, someone spotted darted away – you need to tame him. But I will call that lake behind the trees “Pearl” or – even more refined – “Sewage”. This fog will be a mountain – and it must be conquered. The master climbs up the untrodden slope, and there, on the windy peak, he meets – who would you think? – a happy and breathless reader, and they throw themselves into each other’s arms, so as not to be parted forever – if the book remains forever.
In a provincial college, where I was brought during a long lecture tour, I made a small survey. I have offered ten definitions of the reader; the students had to choose four which they thought would make a good reader.
Select four answers to the question of what a good reader should be and do:
1. Be a member of a book club.
2. Identify with the hero/heroine of the book.
3. Be interested, first of all, in the socio-economic aspect.
4. Prefer books that have more action and dialogue.
5. Don’t start reading without watching the screen version.
6. Be an aspiring writer.
7. Have imagination.
8. Have a good memory.
9. Have a dictionary.
10. Have some artistic taste.
Students unanimously leaned on responsive identification, action, socio-economic and historical aspects. As you no doubt have already guessed, a good reader is one who has imagination, memory, vocabulary and some artistic taste, the latter I intend to develop in myself and in others whenever possible.
I must say that I use the word “reader” quite loosely. It may seem strange, but the book cannot be read at all – it can only be re-read. A good reader, a selective reader who participates and creates, is a rereader.
Vladimir Nabokov. Good reader and good writer
Vladimir NABOKOV
GOOD READER AND GOOD WRITER
K 90 057 how to be a good reader”, or “On benevolence towards authors” – this is how the genre could be roughly designated these different discussions of different authors, because, admiring and lovingly lingering on the details, I propose to analyze several masterpieces of European literature. A hundred years ago, Flaubert, in a letter to his beloved, remarked: “What learning could be achieved by knowing well only five six books.”
While reading, one should notice and cherish the details. There is nothing wrong with the moonlight of generalizations, if it shines after after the sunny trifles of the book are lovingly collected.
To start with a ready-made generalization means to start at the wrong end and move away from the book without beginning to understand it. There is nothing more boring or more unfair to the author than to start reading, say, Madame Bovary with the notorious certainty that the novel condemns the bourgeoisie. We must always remember that a work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, and the first thing we should do is to study the creation as carefully as possible, approaching it as something completely new, having no obvious connections with the worlds, already known to us. When this new world is carefully studied by us, then and only then let’s explore its relationship with other worlds, other areas of knowledge.
Another question: can we hope to draw information about time and place from the novel? Can anyone, in their naivety, believe that he or she learns anything about the past from the plump best-sellers that book clubs sell in every wushu, calling them historical novels? What about masterpieces? Can we trust Jane Austen’s picture of landed England with baronets and landscaped parks, when all she knew was the priest’s drawing room? And Bleak House, that fantasy novel of adventure in a fantasy London, can we call it an exploration of London a hundred years ago? Of course not.
The same goes for the other novels in this series. The fact is that great novels are great fairy tales, and novels in this series are the greatest fairy tales.
Time and space, colors of winter and summer, movements of muscles and thoughts, all this for brilliant writers (as far as we can guess, and we guess, we must assume correctly) are not traditional concepts that are issued in the library of common truths, but many unique surprises, and they have learned to express them in a unique way. The share of mediocre writers is left to embellish commonplaces: they do not bother to reinvent the world, but simply try to squeeze as much as possible out of the established order of things, out of traditional literary patterns. Within these established limits, ordinary writers manage to produce a variety of combinations, not without a certain amusing ethereal quality, because ordinary readers like to recognize their own thoughts in pleasant attire. But a real writer, one who sets the planets in motion, presents us with a sleeping man and greedily molds something from his rib, such an author does not have ready-made values at his disposal: he must create them himself.
The art of writing is a completely empty exercise if it does not primarily involve the art of seeing the world as a literary possibility. The material of this world can be quite real (as long as there is reality), but as a generally accepted given it does not exist at all: it is chaos, the writer says to this chaos: “march!”, And the world begins to flicker and melt. Everything now connects differently in its very atoms, and not just in its visible and superficial parts. The writer puts it on the map first. Those berries over there are edible. The spotted creature that rushed in front of me can be tamed. The lake between those trees over there will be called Opal, or, more poetically, Dishwasher. This fog is a mountain, and the mountain must be conquered. An artist-master climbs up the untrodden slope, and whom do you think he meets at the top, on the wind-blown ridge? A breathless and happy reader, from impetuous embrace and now bound forever if the book lasts forever.
One evening at a distant provincial college through which I happened to pass during an extended lecture tour, I proposed a small survey of ten definitions of a reader, and from these ten the students were to choose four that together would make a good reader.
I lost the list, but the definitions, as far as I remember, were approximately the same. Choose four answers to the question, what should a reader be like to be a good reader:
A reader must be a member of a book club.
The reader must identify with the hero or heroine of the book.
The reader should be dominated by a socio-economic approach.
The reader should prefer books with action and dialogue , to books without them.
The reader had to watch the film based on the book.
The reader must be a promising author.
readers must have imagination.
The reader must have a memory.
The reader must have a dictionary.
The reader must have some artistic flair.
The students leaned strongly towards emotional identification, action, and a socio-economic or historical approach. Of course, as you may have guessed, a good reader is one who has imagination, memory, vocabulary and some artistic flair – which I propose to develop in myself and in others whenever possible.
By the way, I use the word reader rather conditionally. Strange as it may seem, the book cannot be read, it can only be re-read. A good reader, a master reader, an active and creative reader, is a rereader. And that’s why. When we read a book for the first time, the very process of shifting the gaze from left to right from line to line, from page to page, this complex physical work with the book, the very process of comprehending the content of the book in terms of space and time stands between us and artistic perception. When we look at a painting, we do not need to purposely move our eyes, even if, like a book, the painting has elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter into the first communication with the picture. When we read a book, we need time to get to know it. We do not have such a physical organ (as the eye in the case of a picture) that absorbs the whole picture, and then can enjoy the details. But at the second, third, fourth reading, we behave in relation to the book in a sense in the same way as in relation to the picture.
Let us not, however, confuse the physical eye, this monstrous crown of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, whether it be a work of art or a scientific work (the border between them is not at all as clear-cut as it is commonly believed), a work of art is addressed primarily to the mind. The mind, the brain, the end of the quivering spine—this is the only tool that can and must be used in reading a book.
If so, now let’s think about how the mind works when an overcast reader encounters a sunny book. First, the gloomy mood passes, and, for better or worse, the reader gets into the spirit of the game. The effort to start reading, especially if the book is praised by people whom the young reader considers to himself as too outdated or too serious, such an effort is often given to us with difficulty, but when made, it is rewarded in many ways and generously. Since the master artist used his imagination to create the book, it would be fair and natural for the consumer of the book to use his imagination as well.
However, there are at least two kinds of imagination in the reader. Let’s see which one to use when reading a book. First, there is imagination of a relatively low rank: it seeks support in simple emotions and is of a distinctly personal character. (There are many variations here in this first section of emotional reading.) The situation in the book is poignant because it reminds us of something that has happened to us, or of someone we know or have known. Or, again, the reader appreciates the book because it evokes thoughts about the country, the landscape, the way of life, which he nostalgically remembers as an episode of his own past. This is the lowest kind – I would like readers to use a different kind of imagination.
What, then, should be the true instrument of the reader? It is impersonal imagination and aesthetic intoxication. Between the mind of the reader and the mind of the writer, I think a harmonious aesthetic balance must be established. We should step aside a little and enjoy this removal, while we piercingly enjoy – enjoy passionately, enjoy with tears and shudders the inner fabric of this or that masterpiece.
It is, of course, impossible to be completely objective in these matters. Everything worthy of attention is to some extent subjective. For example, the fact that you are sitting here may just be my dream, and I am your nightmare. But I mean that the reader must know where and when to curb his imagination, and he curbs it, trying in all concreteness to feel the world put at his disposal by the author. We must see and hear, we must imagine the rooms, the clothes, the mannerisms of the characters. What matters is the color of Fanny Price’s eyes in Mansfield Park, the decor of her cold little room.
We all have different temperaments, and I can say right away that the best temperament for a reader, natural or acquired, is a combination of artistic and scientific temperament. Only an enthusiastic artist is prone to excessive subjectivity in his attitude to the book, and so the scientific coldness of judgments will moderate intuitive fervor. If, however, the future reader is completely devoid of passion and patience – the passion of an artist and the patience of a scientist, then he will hardly enjoy great literature.
Literature was not born on the day when a boy shouting “wolf!” “wolf!” ran out of the Neanderthal valley, and a big gray wolf was chasing him, literature was born on the day when the boy ran out shouting “wolf!” And there was no wolf behind. That the real beast ended up eating the poor thing because he lied too often is of no importance. Here’s what’s important. Between the wolf under the spreading tree and the wolf in the spreading cranberry there is a flickering intermediary. This medium, this prism, is the art of literature.
Literature is fiction. Writing is writing. To call history a true story is an insult to both art and truth. Every great writer is a great deceiver, but such is the nature of the arch-cheater. Nature always deceives. From the simplest breeding trick to the fantastically complex illusion of protective colors in butterflies and birds, there is an amazing system of tricks and charms in nature. The writer only goes on about nature.
Returning for a minute to our shouting “wolf!” to a little woolly forest Friend, we can say this: the magic of art was in the ghost of a wolf, which he purposely invented, in the fact that he dreamed of a wolf: so the story of his tricks is a good story.
When he finally died, in the darkness around the common fire, a good lesson was learned from the story told about him. But he was a little wizard. Invented – he.
There are three points of view on the writer: the writer as a storyteller, as a teacher and as a magician. A great writer combines all three – the storyteller, the teacher, the magician – but it is the magician that predominates, which is why the writer becomes a great writer.
From the narrator we want entertainment, intellectual excitement of the most primitive kind, emotional participation, the pleasure of being transported to some remote area in time and space. The mind of a somewhat different, but not necessarily more elevated warehouse is looking for a teacher in the writer. A propagandist, a moralist, a prophet – this is, on the rise, this series. We can turn to a teacher not only for moral education, but also for direct knowledge, for pure facts. Alas, I have known people who read French and Russian novelists in order to learn something about life in cheerful Paris or dull Russia.
In the end and above all, a great writer is always a great sorcerer, and now, when we try to comprehend the originality of his magical gift, to study the style, images, structure of his novels or poems, we have reached the most interesting part.
The three facets of a great writer – magic, story, lesson – will merge in a single impression of uniform and unique light, because the magic of art can be present in the blood of history, in the flesh of thought. There are masterpieces of dry, transparent, ordered thought that arouse in us artistic awe with no less force than a novel like Mansfield Park or some deep flood of sensuous Dickensian images. In my opinion, a good formula for testing the quality of a novel is, in the end, combining the accuracy of poetry with the intuition of science. To warm up in the rays of this magic, a wise reader reads a brilliant book not so much with his heart and not so much with his mind as with his spine. That’s where the alarm bell rings, even if we have to keep a little aloof, a little apart in reading.