| DC launched its new DC2 line of digital comics this week with the first issue of Batman ’66, an all-ages Batman comic based on the 1960s TV series. That show was known for its high camp, and the comic is actually a bit subdued, but it does feature one of the best supervillains, The Riddler. Writer Jeff Parker and artist Jonathan Case eschew the dark side of Batman in this all-ages comic and present a cheery, over-the-top little story with no brooding or mutilations. The story is simple: Commissioner Gordon is being awarded a valuable golden statuette in recognition of his department’s good work, and in the middle of the ceremony, The Riddler zooms through in an advertising plane with a riddle on the banner, steals the statuette, and releases laughing-gas bombs that slow everyone down so his confederates can steal their wallets and jewels. Batman gives chase, hooking his batarang on the tail of the plane, and a struggle ensues. I won’t give away the ending, but suffice it to say, the way is paved for the next issue. The DC2 comics take advantage of a number of digital techniques, such as having a new word balloon or a massive sound effect appear when the reader swipes the page. Thus, while 95 “pages” for 99 cents seems like a good deal, many of those pages are the same with one added element. DC isn’t breaking new ground here; Mark Waid has been using similar techniques on his Thrillbent digital comics site for a while now, and he and Stuart Immonen put them to good use in Marvel’s Avengers Vs. X-Men Infinite comics as well. The story is a bit thin, with a prolonged action scene (Batman and the plane) taking up a lot of the screens, but it’s a fun read nonetheless. That’s largely due to Case’s Warholesque art, which uses Ben Day dots, neon colors, and massive sound effects in a mix that perfectly evokes the era and the show. The inking is done in a heavy line that looks like it was put down with a brush, and then doubled with a line of brilliant blue that electrifies and energizes the scene. DC does plan to produce print editions of these comics, so the story can’t be carried by digital tricks alone. And in fact, that’s not what’s happening here. While it’s cool to see the word balloons drop in one at a time (not as cool as it was two years ago, admittedly), it’s easy to see that the print version will simply show all the balloons at once on a single page, and that will be fine. In other words, it’s hard to see what digital is adding to this particular comic. Still, you could do a lot worse for 99 cents, and it’s always fun to see The Riddler back in action again. Digital Comic Review: Batman ’66 #1 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Digital Comic Review: Batman ’66 #1
American Pi Hackspace Tour, part the second
| Rob Bishop, our developer-evangelist, spent some of last summer visiting US hackspaces, giving Raspberry Pi talks and demonstrations. Because there was only a short time we could spare him for, there were large parts of the country that he wasn’t able to visit – and you let us know you weren’t happy about that. So this summer, Rob is going to be visiting the parts of the USA that you shouted most loudly from: namely the Midwest and the Pacific Northwest. He’s put together a preliminary map, showing a proposed route (not yet set in stone) and the locations of hackspaces across the country. Click this image to visit the interactive map. The green line is Rob’s route, and green pins are proposed stops: blue blobs are hackspaces.  Click the map to visit a larger version Rob will be in-country from around 5th-25th August; we’ll confirm dates later when we’ve drilled the route down a bit more. If you live somewhere on or close to this proposed route, and you’d like a visit at your hackspace or makespace, please leave a comment and we’ll see what we can do. Rob will not be able to visit grade schools, but he may decide to fit in some university visits. Once he’s got feedback from you in the comments, he’ll confirm dates with the individual venues. Like last year’s Raspberry Roadtrip, these events will consist of a talk, Q&A, live demos and (hopefully) some kind of competition for best Raspberry Pi hack. And if you’re somewhere we haven’t covered yet, don’t despair: Eben and I are also planning a smaller hackspace tour, after last year’s romp through NYC, DC, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. It’ll take in some more of the southern states and send us up through Texas in September, after Linuxcon in New Orleans (where Eben is keynoting). We’ll have more details nearer the time. |
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
HP Slate 7 Android Tablet Review
| The HP Slate 7 is the company’s first tablet offering since the ill-fated HP TouchPad. This is a mid-range device that has hit the market for $180.00 in the US and Canada. The hyping factors about this tablet include the fact it comes with Beats Audio, though it is largely average with most of its specs. How does it stack up against the competition and is it a worthy investment? Hardware The HP Slate 7 features a gunmetal aluminum body on the sides and back of the tablet. The front is done all in black, which certainly doesn’t make it stand out in the crowd. It features a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a resolution of 1024×600. It certainly won’t win any awards with the quality of the screen, but average users probably won’t mind. Underneath the hood is a ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz, paired with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. You can enhance the memory further via the Micro SD card, up to 32 GB. There are only a few physical buttons, such as a volume and power button. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top that is used for your Beats Audio. HP is really marketing this device as an official Beats device, but it is relegated to headphones via the internal audio. It does not give you the same type of Beats experience as you would find on the HTC One. This warrants you purchasing $300-$400 headphones to get the most out of your tablet. One of the redeeming factors is the side facing stereo speakers, which give you fairly good sound quality. We tested it side by side with the Kindle Fire HD 7 with Dolby Surround Sound and the iPad Mini, and the Slate 7 fell by the wayside. Software The HP Slate 7 ships with Android 4.1.1 and there is no word if it will receive any further upgrades as time goes on. Google has given HP its blessing, so this device is fully certified and comes bundled with Chrome, Gmail, Google+, and all of your other apps. Currently there are a few hundred thousand apps in the Google Play market place, so you should have no shortage of content. This is about as vanilla as you can get with an Android tablet. The only bloatware that ships on it is an HP E-Print app. Everything else is an official Google app or stock Android. This will appeal to people who love to mess with their device or don’t want to deal with proprietary user-interfaces, such as Samsung. Most of your common apps and games should load fairly quickly with the 1.6 GHZ dual-core processor, but the resolution is punishing. Over the course of this review we put the Nook HD+, Kindle Fire HD 7, and iPad Mini alongside it to see if we can spot any differences. Apps tended to load the slowest on the Slate 7 and the graphics quality also lacked. Reading Experience The HP Slate 7 is priced fairly reasonably, which makes it a Good e-Reader! During our review we loaded in Marvel Comics, PressReader, Zinio, and the Amazon Kindle app. The overall reading experience was fairly lackluster when it came to image heavy content, such as magazines. Colors tended to be more washed out and there was a bunch of negative space on the top and bottom of the screen. Most Android tablets have ceased making physical navigation buttons and decided to go with software driven experience. When you are within most reading applications you still have a blank space where the Back, Home, and Settings buttons would be, even though there is nothing there. There is also blank space at the top of the screen, where it meets the bezel. This may not seem like a big deal, but if you put this side by side with most other 7 inch tablets, it becomes one. The HP Slate 7 is best suited for newspapers, comic books, and normal ebooks. Most comic books are suited for print and their digital editions look perfectly fine. I loaded in a few Marvel Comics and one of the downsides is the lack of effective screen real-estate. It has the same issues with negative space as everything else does. You won’t really get an awesome comic book reading experience unless you have a Retina iPad, where special HD editions are made available. eBooks tend to shine the most on the HP Slate 7! We had a few apps we loaded in our labs and found the overall experience to be average. You can make notes, annotations, and look words up in the dictionary. It certainly won’t give you the same type of e-reading experience as you would find in a dedicated tablet that is geared towards it. Devices such as the Kindle Fire, Nook, and Kobo Arc all have discovery features built right into it, which makes finding new books quick and simple. Wrap Up In the end, this is a woefully average tablet with nothing of note to write home about. Most people might say, Beats Audio, sign me up! Unfortunately, it is relegated to only being available for super expensive headphones, which defeats the purchase of buying a cheap tablet. I would not recommend this device, as it lacks any compelling factors to make it stand out in a crowded marketplace. Sure, it has a vanilla Android experience, but so does half of them currently available. The only people that might be satisfied with the Slate 7 are first time tablet owners, who don’t know any better. CONS Rating 4/10 HP Slate 7 Android Tablet Review is a post from: E-Reader News |
Zinio Will Soon Offer Back Issues of Magazines to Libraries
| Zinio is one of the leading digital magazine resellers in the entire world. It has dedicated apps for Android, Blackberry, iOS, and Windows 8. The company currently offers 6,000 magazines in thirty-three languages and twenty-nine currencies. One of the its least promoted services is hooking libraries up with digital magazines as an alternative to print. The company will soon be launching a back issue feature, allowing libraries to collect and offer previous digital editions. Zinio, in conjunction with Recorded Books, will soon offer libraries a chance to allow readers to read previous magazine issues. This will provide libraries with the incentive they need to migrate their magazine collection over to digital. Normally, old magazines have a fairly short shelf life, with normal wear and tear. In the past, if you bought magazines from Zinio as a library, you could not access old content. This will soon change in the next few months and any magazine you buy will stay in your permanent collection. Recorded Books is Zinio’s main library distributor, and it works on Zinio’s behalf to market the digital magazine service. This company has been around since 1979 and has a storied history in dealing with libraries. You might say, Recorded Books has a lot of connections. Zinio Will Soon Offer Back Issues of Magazines to Libraries is a post from: E-Reader News |
B&N Slashes Nook Tablet Prices in the UK to Promote Reading Festival
| Barnes & Noble has further slashed the prices of its NOOK tablet range, just weeks after announcing the company is departing from the tablet business. The latest round of price cuts are only relevant in the UK, however, and are promoted in celebration of the Reading Festival to encourage literacy in the UK. The NOOK range starts at £99, which will fetch you the 7 inch Nook HD with 8 GB of storage. The same with 16 GB will now cost £129. Similarly, the bigger NOOK HD+ offering a 9 inch display will now cost £149, and £179 for the 16 and 32 GB versions of the tablet. “To celebrate the free Get Reading festival and to help make digital reading more affordable across the UK, we have reduced prices on our award-winning NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ tablets for a limited time,” said Jim Hilt, Managing Director, Barnes & Noble in a company press release before also adding, “We are committed to promoting the cause of literacy and we hope that families from all over the UK come to the Get Reading festival on 13th of July for a fantastic day of events featuring some top authors and celebrities.” The Get Reading campaign is the result of a partnership between London Evening Standard and NOOK to ensure readers get all the opportunities they need to get along with their reading. Towards this, B&N is also doling out a thousand of its NOOK Simple Touch e-Readers to the Beanstalk literacy charity. The latter in turn trains reading helpers who go to schools to help kids take up reading. The current offer is open only until the 13th July, which is when the Get Reading festival comes to an end, marked by a reading festival to be held at the Trafalgar Square in London. However, while B&N’s commitment at promoting reading remains commendable, what also can be stated is that the company is using the above event as means to clear existing stocks. It’s a fire sale all right and reminds us of the $99 TouchPad. It remains to be seen if the NOOK tablet can match the TouchPad with the response they get. B&N Slashes Nook Tablet Prices in the UK to Promote Reading Festival is a post from: E-Reader News |
Born on the 4th of July
| The creation of anything unique and beautiful is never simple. Each year, on the 4th of July Americans celebrate the flawed perfection that is our country. On this national holiday, our minds are filled with visions of battle victories, flags flying, and young soldiers coming home, but we must also acknowledge the toil, strife and sadness that often accompany the creation of a nation. So when you join family, friends and neighbors on this 4th of July, imagine those who came before you who united in the cause for country, a place of their own and believed in something revolutionary.
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis was a national bestseller and the 1997 National Book Award Winner. "In American Sphinx, Ellis sifts the facts shrewdly from the legends and the rumors, treading a path between vilification and hero worship in order to formulate a plausible portrait of the man who still today hovers over the political scene today.”- Publisher Summary
The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story by Lily Koppel is a current bestseller and has been in the spotlight for six weeks. "The Astronaut Wives Club tells the real story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest heroes in American history. Together with the other wives they formed the Astronaut Wives Club, meeting regularly to provide support, friendship, and entertainment while their husbands raced to the moon."- Publisher Summary
The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflections by Tom Brokaw is a follow up to his bestseller, The Greatest Generation. Brokaw shares the letters, stories and positive responses he received after the publication of his book by the same name. "I first began to appreciate fully all we owed the World War II generation while I was covering the fortieth and fiftieth anniversaries of D-Day for NBC News. When I wrote in The Greatest Generation about the men and women who came out of the Depression, who won great victories and made lasting sacrifices in World War II and then returned home to begin building the world we have today–the people I called the Greatest Generation–it was my way of saying thank you. I felt that this tribute was long overdue, but I was not prepared for the avalanche of letters and responses touched off by that book."- Tom Brokaw, news anchor Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic is a personal memoir of his experience in the Vietnam War and his role as an anti-Vietnam War advocate in the years that followed. Kovic's story inspired the 1989 film adaptation by the same name. The film was directed by Oliver Stone, a Vietnam Veteran himself, and starred Tom Cruise as the wheelchair bound soldier. "As relevant as ever, this book is an education. Ron is a true American, and his great heart and hard-won wisdom shine through these pages." —Oliver Stone, filmmaker
Renee Lienhard is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive  |
Digital Magazines From Zinio Now Available for Free Through Public Libraries
| I’ve got some good news for anyone who enjoys reading digital magazines. Borrowing ebooks for free from public libraries using OverDrive has always been a great way to legally read ebooks for free, and now thanks to a new partnership between Zinio and Recorded Books you can get digital copies of dozens of magazines for [...] |
Bend Gordon’s ear
| Gordon Hollingworth, our Director of Software, is saddened that I called him out for being camera-shy the other day. So he’s offered to star in a new feature, which we’ll make a regular happening here if readers (that’s you!) like the idea. If you have a question about the Pi you’d like Gordon and his whiteboard to answer (we’ve hung it up properly and bought in pens of many colours just for the occasion), please leave a comment below. We’ll select a few of the most interesting ones and film Gordon’s responses next week. |
Sites That Save You Money
Need to tighten the belt a little? Here are a few sites that may help you meet your monthly budget |
Smashwords, Publisher’s Weekly Team Up on Monthly Bestseller List
| As ebook discovery draws more focus and more readers and authors speak out about the need for guidance in finding new great reads, several companies are making a concerted effort to highlight some books that are doing well in terms of sales and overall traffic. Ebook distribution platform Smashwords and publishing industry news mainstay Publisher’s Weekly have collaborated on a new bestseller list project that will spread the word about titles on a monthly basis. Today, Publisher’s Weekly printed the first monthly bestseller list aggregated from sales that were distributed by Smashwords, and will continue to publish the list in an on-going format. Today’s list highlights the books who were top sellers through Smashwords in May 2013. The list includes titles by authors J. S. Scott, Abbi Glines, Kirsty Moseley, Katy Evans, J.M. Stone, Melody Grace, Shayne Parkinson, Pamela Ann, Mia Dymond, Katie Ashley, Quinn Loftis, Madeline Sheehan, Meek Mill, Colleen Hoover, Jon Acuff, and Chanda Hahn. According to a post by Smashwords’ CEO Mark Coker, “This will be an ongoing feature. I’m excited by where we and PW can take this list in the future, and how it will help shine a bright and deserving light on the 60,000+ amazingly talented writers who publish and distribute with Smashwords. Stay tuned for the our bestseller lists for June, July and beyond!” While the monthly Smashwords bestseller list will include the top twenty-five ranked books from across its distribution network, Publisher’s Weekly will print the top ten titles in its publication. The post this morning went on to include some helpful hints for authors whose work may not be enjoying the discovery that they had originally hoped.
Smashwords, Publisher’s Weekly Team Up on Monthly Bestseller List is a post from: E-Reader News |
Podcast: New and Featured Content for July
| Did you know that we're constantly expanding the OverDrive Marketplace catalog by adding high-quality publishers to our ranks? You can keep on top of these new additions by following our collection highlights podcasts on OverDrive's Learning Center. Tune in monthly to hear all about content from newly added publishers, as well as some hidden gems you may have missed—it's the perfect way to window-shop for your collection and stay on top of Marketplace developments, all in 15 minutes or less.
Our July podcast is chock-full of this summer's new and featured publishers, with content that includes graphic novels, test prep aids, exquisite picture books, teen fantasy reads, comedy videos, and popular eBooks about spirituality and religion. Access July's podcast from our Learning Center to see what's new in OverDrive Marketplace, and to get a sneak peek at what's coming soon.
Carrie Smith is a Technical Writer at OverDrive.  |
Chess. Bare metal assembly language chess.
| Pootling around the Raspberry Pi forums late last night, I found something that rightfully shouldn’t exist. It’s a two-player chess game for the Pi – nothing so unusual there – written in assembly language, with no OS. Which is highly unusual. Xu Ji, one of the three Imperial College students who wrote this piece of…bravura showing-off, had this to say in the forums:
It really does, too. Here are Xu Ji, Bora Mollamustafaoglu and Gun Pinyo, giving a storming demo. We hope you got top marks for this, guys: you totally deserve it. If you’d like to learn more about assembly language, we highly recommend that you get your Pi out and start working through Baking Pi, a course developed last year by Alex Chadwick at the University of Cambridge, which will take you from knowing nothing at all to being able to build a simple operating system on the Pi. You can read more about Baking Pi here. |
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Image Comics Now Offers DRM-Free Downloads
| How cool is Image Comics? So cool they have their own comics convention, the Image Expo, which happened today in San Francisco. And the big digital-comic news to come out of that event is that Image is now selling digital comics straight to consumers from their website as direct downloads. The comics are available in several formats—PDF, ePub, and the comics-specific CBR and CBZ. Both comiXology and Comics Plus carry Image comics, but readers who buy from those services can only read their comics if they are logged in to an enabled device. Many readers feel they don’t really own the comics under those circumstances. Many comics benefit from the exposure of being on a multi-publisher app or storefront, but Image has built an impressive audience with titles like The Walking Dead and Saga and may be gambling that those readers will take the time to seek them out on the new platform. And while direct downloads offer readers the advantage of DRM-free files they can share or move from one device to another, they also offer the publisher a way to sell comics without sharing part of the price with a third party. Kiel Phegley of Comic Book Resources got some more details from Image director of business development Ron Richards. Image will start with newer comics and gradually fill in the backlist. As on comiXology, the comics will be priced at full cover price for the first month of their release and then the price will drop. Richards feels that digital comics sales complement sales of print comics, and that many digital customers simply don’t live near a comics shop, so there is no danger that digital sales will cannibalize print. He also said that many fans, especially less tech-savvy readers, will most likely stay with comiXology and Comics Plus, and that’s fine. “I think there are people who are loyal comiXology users who have built up a collection there, and they can continue to do that,” he said. “We’re not ceasing any agreements or partnerships with comiXology or iVerse or Apple or Amazon.” What about the very thing that DRM was created to prevent—piracy? Richards isn’t worried, “Our thought on piracy is that the only content hurt by piracy is bad content. Look at the example of ‘Game of Thrones’ on HBO. That is the most torrented television show on the internet right now, and it’s also HBO’s highest-selling DVD set. Clearly, people are pirating it, sampling it and going, ‘I want that for my DVD collection now.’ If that’s happening, it’s happening. You’re never going to fight it. You’re never going to stop it all. But if people pirate a bad comic book, they’re going to stop pirating it — and they’re going to stop buying it, too.” While Image doesn’t have a dedicated digital-first program like DC, this week does see the launch of their first digital-first comic, Warren Ellis and Jason Howard’s Scatterlands, which was originally published as a webcomic. “It’s clear that the stuff DC and Marvel have been experimenting with are successful, but for us it’s less about ‘Okay, we need to have a digital-first product. What can we do?’ and more about the fact that we want to have compelling content from good creators,” said Richards. Image Comics Now Offers DRM-Free Downloads is a post from: E-Reader News |
Down Under: Winter in Australia
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While here in Northeast Ohio we are enjoying summer with barbecues, graduation parties and baseball games, we can't forget that our partners in the Southern Hemisphere are in their winter season. Since many of our Southern Hemisphere partners come from Australia, and since I have never been there myself, I felt the need to do a bit of research (by the way, Australia's official tourism website, www.australia.com, is fantastic).
5 Things I Learned About Winter in Australia
To read about hiking trails in Australia, check out Walks in Nature: Sydney and Walks in Nature: Melbourne—the maps are color-coded according to season! For additional information about whale-watching and holiday festivals (and to learn more about traveling in Australia) consider purchasing Lonely Planet's Australia or Discover Australia.
If you're in Australia and looking to engage your users this winter, why not start a Digital Book Club, or encourage your users to explore a new language, catch up on the classics, and read (or re-read!) the Harry Potter series? Our newly updated Marketing Kit has a plethora of resources for any of these winter-reading initiatives.
Do you live in Australia? What are you doing this winter to promote your digital library? In my opinion, winter in Australia sounds great—what other note-worthy winter events did my internet sleuthing not uncover?
Karen Jakubczak is an Account Specialist at OverDrive  |
Mike-roscopy
| Element14 recently held a competition for the best picture taken with the Raspberry Pi camera board. As it happens, we’d already featured the picture that won on Facebook and Google+: Dave Akerman, up to his usual very-high-jinks with more spacefaring balloons, managed to capture a pretty astonishing picture of Devon and Cornwall from the stratosphere. Today’s post is not about Dave’s picture, but here it is again for the historical record.  Click the picture to visit Dave’s blog post, explaining how a polystyrene raspberry ended up hovering in space over Devon.  The same picture, superimposed on Google Earth. But enough about Dave; there’s lots about his flights here, and if you want to learn more you can go and have a look at his website, or check out our previous posts about his extraterrestrial Pis. Element14′s competition could only have one winner. Which hurts my very soul, because we thought Mike Cook’s microscopy project was incredibly exciting. Emma, our office manager, who holds a PhD in entomology, has been all a-quiver with excitement about some of Mike’s pictures; I had never see the stuff that’s just behind the mouth of a blowfly before, but thanks to Mike I shall be having nightmares for decades to come. (Thanks also to Emma for the nightmares; my conversations with her about brain-altering parasites, prompted by this and by The Last of Us have been both fascinating and…lingering.) Watch this video before you go any further. I asked Mike to tell me a bit more about his setup. He says:
 Mike’s home-made CNC milling machine. He’s that sort of guy.
Some of what you’re seeing is a couple of creatures Mike found in a pond near Wordsworth’s house in Grasmere (he named them Frank and Herbert). Other images you’re seeing are from the birdseed from his shed: Mike tells me that he thought what he was looking at was just dust, and he nearly jumped out of his skin on seeing it at 1080p on a 24-inch screen. If you’re finding Mike’s name strangely familiar, it’s because he’s one of my childhood heros, and the author of Body Building with Mike Cook from Micro User Magazine back in the 80s. Of more relevance to people working with Pis today, he’s also co-author of Raspberry Pi for Dummies – you can read our review of the book, which we think is rather excellent, here. If you’re at the London Maker Faire in Elephant and Castle this weekend, we’ll be there (Rob Bishop and Rachel, who you’ll read more about later this week will, at any rate); Mike will also be in attendance, so please go and say hi to him for me. |
3 Exciting titles coming in July!
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As our first month of summer comes to an end, we welcome in July: a month of barbeques, fireworks, blockbusters, and exciting new books to enjoy by the pool. Look for these hot new titles to be added to OverDrive Marketplace this summer:
This Man Confessed by Jodi Ellen Malpas
The stunning conclusion to the This Man Trilogy!
The Manor, the very place where their passionate love affair began, fills with guests on what should be the happiest day of Ava and Jesse’s lives. She has accepted that she’ll never tame the fierceness in Jesse-and she doesn’t want to. Their love is profound, their connection powerful, but just when she thinks that she’s finally gotten beneath his guarded exterior, more questions arise, leading Ava to believe that Jesse Ward may not be the man she thinks he is. He knows too well how to take her to a place beyond ecstasy . . . but will he also drive her to the brink of despair? It’s time for this man to confess.
Before Harry took on the neo-Nazi gangs of Oslo, before he met Rakel, before The Snowman tried to take everything he held dear, he went to Australia. Harry Hole is sent to Sydney to investigate the murder of Inger Holter, a young Norwegian girl, who was working in a bar. Initially sidelined as an outsider, Harry becomes central to the Australian police investigation when they start to notice a number of unsolved rape and murder cases around the country. The victims were usually young blondes. Then a circus performer is brutally murdered followed by yet another young woman. Harry is in a race against time to stop highly intelligent killer, who is bent on total destruction.
"Like Larsson’s, his novels are maddeningly addictive: be prepared for more whirlwind rides through those unpronounceable Scandinavian street names.”
"A first-rate whodunit…. A twisty, fast-paced concoction stocked with ample red herrings…. This origin tale is both a groundbreaking operation and a sumptuous, satisfying meal." —Winnipeg Free Press
Unseen: A Novel by Karin Slaughter
Will Trent is a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent whose latest case has him posing as Bill Black, a scary ex-con who rides a motorcycle around Macon, Georgia, and trails an air of violence wherever he goes. But undercover and cut off from the support of the woman he loves, Sara Linton, Will finds his demons catching up with him. Although she has no idea where Will has gone, or why, Sara herself has come to Macon because of a cop shooting: Her stepson, Jared, has been gunned down in his own home. Furious, Sara finds herself involved in the same case that Will is working without even knowing it, and soon danger is swirling around both of them.
In a novel of fierce intensity, shifting allegiances, and shocking twists, two investigations collide with a conspiracy straddling both sides of the law. Karin Slaughter's latest is both an electrifying thriller and a piercing study of human nature: what happens when good people face the unseen evils in their lives.
"Karin Slaughter is one of the best crime novelists in America."—The Washington Post
"Crime fiction at its finest."—Michael Connelly
"An absolute master."—Chicago Tribune
"Slaughter will have you on the edge of your seat."—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Stay tuned for more new titles added later this month!
*Titles may vary by geographic location
Rob Mooney is a Collection Development Specialist at OverDrive  |
Monday, July 1, 2013
Tough Topics for Teens: titles to help get them through
| So often we see reports in the news that are difficult to fathom. Sometimes we hear about, and even experience, these stories from being all too familiar with bullying, teen suicide, eating disorders, and many others. Being a former instructor of writing, I will never forget the stories my students were brave enough to share and the issues they were strong enough to overcome.
We hear stories about topics like these every day and at one point or another, most of us have come into contact with something that is so mind blowing, so heart wrenching, we can never forget it. Moreover, these topics aren't exclusive to schools, suburban communities, or inner city districts – they're universal, HUMAN issues. Often teens and children are reluctant to talk about their problems – or feel like discussion and intervention will only lead to more trouble. In my opinion, the important thing is to in whatever way possible, let the person suffering know that he or she is not alone.
OverDrive has created a list of titles all dealing with these tough subjects. The topics range from teen pregnancy, drug abuse, addiction, coming out, bullying, suicide, and so many others.
Titles in this collection include:
Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher
"Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice explains that there are thirteen reasons she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why."
"A lonely 423-pound boy everyone calls “Butter” is about to make history. He’s going to eat himself to death live on the Internet – and everyone will watch. When he makes this announcement online, he expects pity, insults, or possibly sheer indifference. Instead, his classmates become morbid cheerleaders for his deadly plan. But as their dark encouragement grows, a few voices begin to offer genuine support and Butter starts to have doubts."
See You at Harry's, Jo Knowles
"Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible. It seems as though everyone in her family has better things to do than pay attention to her: Mom (when she’s not meditating) helps Dad run the family restaurant; Sarah is taking a gap year after high school, and Holden pretends that Mom and Dad and everyone else doesn’t know he’s gay, even as he fends off bullies at school. If it wasn’t for Ran, Fern’s calm and positive best friend, there’d be nowhere to turn."
We hope that libraries and schools can use these titles to reach those who need help. We also encourage you to ask your account specialist to provide you with the preview function in Marketplace so that you can read and examine the different titles available. Stories unite us. They make the terrifying and awful seem a little less so. By reading about the experiences of others, we can attempt to make sense of our own feelings, and we learn that hopelessness can be overcome.
Kate Seivertson is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive  |
The MagPi issue 14, out today!
| Your free copy of The MagPi, the magazine created by the Raspberry Pi community, is available from today. This month’s cover star is the camera board; there’s an article from our very own JamesH, who has contributed a huge amount of work to the development of the board, and talks new users through the device. (He’s also extremely modest, and seems to have written the whole thing without mentioning that he worked on it, let alone that we simply wouldn’t have a camera board without him.) JamesH will continue with a second piece on the camera board next month, with more advanced users in mind; if you follow what he’s writing about this month you should be well-prepared for August’s article! I have promised James his choice of drinks for the evening later this week to thank him for all the work on this article – if you’ve got questions for him, leave them below and I’ll pass them on. There’s lots of hardware besides the camera board to talk about this month: you’ll find a beginner’s tutorial using Python on the Pi to control the famously inexpensive Maplin robot arm, which makes a great starter project for budding roboticists wanting to get their heads around some of the basic concepts of physical computing. For advanced users, there’s the first part of a new input/output processor project, and Derek Campbell walks you through building your own Guzunty, a DIY expansion board. If you built the Pi Matrix from an earlier issue, you’ll learn more about controlling the individual LEDs as well as columns and lines of lights. If you’re interested in setting up a Raspberry Pi event for families, there’s a article from Dr Mike Bartley and Caroline Higgins, who set up the Bristol Raspberry Pi Boot Camp. The Boot Camps are becoming very popular; there are events of all kinds popping up now, with Raspberry Jams, Raspberry Pint meetups, and much more, so you’re bound to be able to find a template that suits you if you fancy organising something yourself. On the software side, there’s a continuation of the Charm tutorials, a piece on Java for beginners, and more advanced Python. This is a packed issue; our huge thanks, as usual, to the MagPi team, who are all volunteers. Congratulations are also due to the MagPi folk for getting their binders full of the first year’s magazines out to their Kickstarter supporters; we’ve got a few of the binders in the office, and they’re really professional-looking bits of kit. And please check out the ad on page 20; when you buy swag from us, you’re donating directly to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and helping us to train teachers, and get Pis and learning materials into the hands of kids. |
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Ten Titles to Celebrate Canadian Literature
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In celebration of Canada Day (Today!), we wanted to spotlight some of the extraordinary literature being produced by our neighbors up north. Here are ten exceptional titles by Canadian authors—a very small sampling of all the CanLit available in OverDrive Marketplace—from some of Canada's best-known writers as well as a few up-and-coming literary stars.
The Antagonist by Lynn Coady
Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith by Andrew Preston
Journey with No Maps by Sandra Djwa
Time Lord by Clark Blaise
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
Dear Life by Alice Munro
Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler
The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary by Andrew Westoll
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Carrie Smith is a Technical Writer at OverDrive.
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Deal Alert: Kobo Glo for $99, Kindle Fire HD $169
| Kobo is running an unadvertised sale on the Kobo Glo through July 2nd at midnight. Instead of having to pay the usual $129, you can get it for $99 with promo code GL625 when ordered from Kobo.com. The catch is it is for US residents only (if you live in Canada you can still get [...] |