Category digital media:

Book clubs are pretty amazing things. I don’t belong to one at the moment, but I would say 80 percent of my friends are members of book groups. I really believe there is a book group for everyone. There are highly structured book groups, very laidback ones, clubs that read only classics, I could go on and on. Well, I just learned of a public book club in Minneapolis called Books & Bars. The group meets once a month at Bryant Lake Bowl, a theater that is adjoined by a pub and bowling alley.

Books & Bars has a moderator, comedian Jeff Kamin, and each session boasts about 70 attendees. Among the book club’s sponsors are independent bookseller Magers & Quinn and satirical newspaper The Onion. Participants are encouraged to purchase the selected books from Magers & Quinn and to enjoy food and drink at Bryant Lake Bowl during the gatherings. And even though it’s a book club, reading the book selection is not a requirement.

Upcoming book selections include The Magicians by Lev Grossman, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, and illustrated novel Blankets by Craig Thompson.

Hey, did you know that June is Audiobook Month? Well, it is, so let the festivities begin! The whole point of Audiobook Month is to promote audiobooks and to increase listenership. Get Caught Listening, part of Audiobook Community, an online network of audiobook enthusiasts and professionals, is making available six audiobook excerpts every Tuesday for the month of June. The segments can be streamed or downloaded as MP3 files.

The Audio Publishers Association (APA) has solicited a number of authors and narrators to help celebrate Audiobook Month. The participants will blog, tweet, and otherwise promote their way through June to generate interest in audiobooks. Among the authors lending a hand is David Sedaris. Sedaris has a distinct and, to many, instantly recognizable voice. He recorded some promos for National Audiobook Month. Other author advocates include Jennifer Egan, Deepak Chopra, James Patterson, Chelsea Cain, and Cory Doctorow.

Thanks to Megan Halpern over at Melville House (MobyLives) for her recent post challenging the idea that digital media is a necessarily “greener” alternative to paper. Halpern points to an important article by Don Carli at PBS MediaShift, which calls the choice between paper and e-media a “false dilemma.”

As Carli explains, “going paperless” (with our bills, with our books) may feel like a great leap toward reducing our carbon footprint because the evidence of our consumption disappears, but the environmental benefits of digital media are as-of-yet largely illusive:

Just because we cannot see something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. While paper mills emit visible plumes of steam and waste paper can pile up visibly in our homes and businesses, the invisible embodied energy or “grey energy” used to manufacture digital technologies and the toxic e-waste associated with electronics are largely out of sight and out of mind, but their impacts can be profound.

Read the rest of this entry »

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•