Trillium E-Books

Narwhals

2009-08-21T13:26:00.008-04:00

A day or so ago I heard about a PACNW biologist studying Narwhals off the coast of Greenland. This is the second mention of Narwhals that I have witnessed in the news since we published Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (purchase here). Truly, before NPR reported this, I didn't believe in Narwhals. Just check out this picture:

That picture doesn't even look real. Those horns look photo-shopped on.

But it's true, the Unicorn of the Sea Lives! And you can read about this and other difficult-to-believe-in monsters such as the giant squid and the deep-sea submarine in Trillium Classics' Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

With keyword searching, anyone can find the elusive Narwhal(e).

It's all Greek to Me!

2009-08-12T10:52:00.013-04:00

Today we published Plato's Crito (purchase here). This text tells the story of Socrates and his wealthy friend Crito. Crito offers to finance Socrates release from prison. But Socrates will have none of it. He believes that one injustice cannot be answered with another. In telling this story, Plato lays out an argument for the idea we commonly refer to as the social contract.

In releasing this title singly, for the low price of $0.99, we hope to attract lovers of Plato who aren't ready to commit to his entire works, which is how many sellers are packaging this title in the Kindle store. This work is often released alongside two other Platonic works, The Apology (purchase here) and Phaedo (purchase here). At .99 each, these works will be less expensive purchased individually than all together.

Review: Persuasion (1995)

2009-08-10T14:08:00.005-04:00

I think the reason that Persuasion is not oftener adapted for film and television (unlike Austen's other works, which have all been made into tv mini-series, films, even choose-your-own-adventure books, and a zombie parody) is because the main character is old (27). Because of her advanced years, it is believed that Anne Elliot is matronly, disinterested in romance, and predisposed to take care of every person around her, as if caring for her friends and relatives could replace the man-shaped whole in her heart.

Anne Elliot is actually required to take care of her friends and relatives because generally they are socially stunted, inconsiderate boobs. Her father for instance, is enmired in debt and doesn't have any plans to get out, her hypochondriac younger sister doesn't know how to manage the hellions she's birthed, and her friends are social meddlers and try to persuade her to do things that aren't in her best interest.

Concerning the above, the movie is very faithful to the book. The sets and costumes are more suited to the regency and less to the romance of the story, ie they are historically accurate rather than sanitized with bright lighting and lavish sets. The characters are not all beautiful, and the lesser characters do not exist to make the lovers more loveable. Another really strong feature of this film is the delicacy of Amanda Root's expressions. The visual cues in this movie clarify the Georgian manners that often confuse modern readers of Austen's books.

Characterization is less developed in the movie, and so, I would recommend reading the book (purchase here) to get the full drama of it. You may want to see the movie just so you can imagine a beturbaned Lady Russell played by a committed Susan Fleetwood as you read.

Wait isn't that Don Quixote?

2009-08-06T16:55:00.004-04:00

Hey Mel,

Don Quixote called...

he wants his FACE HAIRS
BACK.

F451 is Mel's favorite book. I don't know if any celebrities call Don Quixote their favorite book, but they might after they read our exquisitely formatted edition! (purchase here)

Heart of Darkness

2009-08-05T14:38:00.005-04:00

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is required reading. Seriously if you don't read it in highschool, there's no way you'll graduate college without being asked to read it. If you graduate college without reading it, it's highly likely that you'll be at a mixer some day, and some really attractive and sweet person will be like, 'remember that part in Heart of Darkness?' And you'll be all, 'I never read that one.' And they'll be all, I think there's someone I know over by those pigs-in-a-blanket, excuse me please...' Don't get caught looking illiterate! Luckily, it's short, interesting, and provokes spirited debate about colonialism, race, good vs evil, the works! Check it out here.

What's her Secret?

2009-08-05T14:02:00.009-04:00

Today we published a genre fiction favorite, Lady Audley's Secret. What is the secret behind this sensation novel? Well, for starters, a foxy Victorian ingenue, with golden ringlets, delicate features, and *gasp* a secret past! I don't want to give away all of the JUICY, TITILLATING details, but you'll definately want to check it out.

Fall of the House of Usher

2009-08-04T11:36:00.002-04:00

We just published this short story by Edgar Allan Poe, all by its lonesome. It is widely available on the Kindle store in an omnibus Poe package. But we thought it might be nice to do it by itself since the story is perfect. You can read it instantly, without a pesky table of contents, or other stories to hide it in between.

Also, we had some fun with the cover for this one. It's gothic enough, maybe a little more Southern gothic, but I liked the balcony, it looks lonely and wistful and romantic. You have to imagine the vaporous beloved and the wistful lover, locked in some ghostly seduction like an even darker Romeo and Juliet.

Castle of Otranto

2009-07-30T16:05:00.005-04:00

Today we are publishing The Castle of Otranto. It was the first gothic novel EVER written. That we know of. Without it, how would we have Frankenstein, Dracula, Northanger Abbey, or some of the more stylized Holmes stories? So check it out!

Tongue-Tied

2009-07-29T16:52:00.011-04:00

I think I may have mentioned in a previous post that Huck Finn was my favorite book for a while. Also Twain's essay on what specifically is wrong with The Deerslayer series by the much-loved James Fenimore Cooper put to words the incredible pain I experienced while trying to process The Last of the Mohicans for an American literature class.

Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in "Deerslayer," and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record. (Mark Twain's Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses)

The more I read, the more I love Twain. So of course since I began work on Joan of Arc for the Kindle, I feel as though I'm carrying around this secret: the best book ever; and I can't wait to get to some long-lost elementary school sense of hiding--as you would in a closet with a flashlight--to read this book in perfect solitude. Just me and Mark Twain and the best book ever.

But reader, I can't hide how good this book is. I have to shout about it. My epiphany struck me down as I read PRoJA last night on the Kindle:

For he told them how, at the funeral of our old King, the French King-at-Arms had broken his staff of office over the coffin of "Charles VI and his dynasty," at the same time saying, in a loud voice, "God grant long life to Henry, King of France and England, our sovereign lord!" and then he asked them to join him in a hearty Amen to that! The people were white with wrath, and it tied their tongues for the moment, and they could not speak.

I think it's incredible that Twain can ensure that the reader has the same sympathies as the royalists, and so subtly. The first sentence is an invitation for the reader to empathize; it rambles, gathering emotional intensity. The second sentence does not invite empathy--it demands unequivocally. The quadruple alliteration of 'were white with wrath' ties the tongue; the reader is forced to have the same physical response while reading aloud as the royalists left nonplussed. And if you try to read that phrase silently, it momentarily trips the brain--each 'w' in that phrase makes a slightly different sound. This 'form is function' snippet left me speechless.

The Adventures of the Missing Text!!!!

2009-07-29T14:34:00.009-04:00

One morning, I was working on a little project with my dear friend, Sherlock Holmes, in his velvet upholstered study, the walls lined with leather-bound volumes full of illustrations, ancient tongues, and dust, when all of a sudden the door was flung wide and in stumbled a lady with close set eyes, peering dazedly from behind thick black frames.

"Oh my! I do hope this is the office of the infamous Sherlock Holmes," exclaimed the lady.
"Verily, madame. Do you have a mystery needs solving?" I asked after recovering my composure.
"Yes, I'm afraid I am quite lost." whimpered the lady.

I was left somewhat breathless that someone should think 221 Baker Street somehow akin to a Constabulary, as if you could walk in and get directions or report a lost dog. But Holmes patiently listened as the lady went on to explain that she had lost about five pages of extremely important letters, or perhaps they had been stolen, but in any case, the missing pages could result in a world-wide (web) catastrophe: the un-publish-ability of The Return of Sherlock Holmes!

Holmes paced momentarily before one of his cherry bookshelves. In a dust-covered tome titled, Unix for Dummies he hurriedly scanned, flipping the pages swiftly, as only someone who's fingers were delicately calloused by violin virtuosity could.
"Ah-ha! Just as I suspected, Watson! Have you ever heard of a rascal named Bram Moolenaar? These missing pages sound just like the sort of pesky tricks he would pull. It is very much like what I heard from the case, The Adventure in the Vim Editor!" said Holmes, his eyes flickering with the acquisition of another case.

* * *

So the lesson of today is that you have to be really careful not to press d /search term in VI. We use Vi at Trillium Classics because it allows us to manipulate a manuscript relatively easily. But if you're unfamiliar with Vi or any other number of extremely geeky devices for editing (like me!!) then it's not easy, it's a sink or swim type deal. Luckily for you, dear reader, you don't have to do any sort of manipulation to your e-books. At Trillium Classics, we do it for you!! Where other sellers expect you to just deal with ugly formatting (perhaps because they are afraid of geeky devices!) we boldly go out like Holmes and Watson, cracking the cases of code, stocking the files with Great Literature.

War of the Worlds

2009-07-26T16:32:00.003-04:00

The War of the Worlds is probably the best known of the Invasion Fiction genre, prevalent in the years leading up to the Great War when tensions in Imperial Europe ran high. Most people are familiar with this work because of a certain mischievous radio broadcast by Orson Welles in 1938.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUBisKB5l98

Now I Know How Joan of Arc Feels!

2009-07-24T15:18:00.002-04:00

Couldn't resist that title, but really, the Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc as told to her page and secretary ought to give you an intimate look at what it might have been like to be a 17 year old savior. This is a long book, nearly 500 pages, so there was a lot to proofread. It demanded extra attention because there is an awful lot of French in the book (not too much in the way of phrases, but a lot of names of people and places), so there were a lot of accent marks to insert, some italicization. But also, this book is Mark Twain's favorite of his own works, so we had to reproduce it perfectly. He researched the rebel-saint's life for over ten years, and the somewhat indignant and somewhat infatuated account of her life reveals a sort of love that exists, however exhaustively, only imaginatively. It's pretty much the most beautiful book ever. You'll laugh; you'll cry. But you won't regret that you read an Exquisitely Formatted edition, since you'll find a great many errors in most Kindle editions.
<<>> If you can believe it, these sell for nearly the same price.

Here you'll find an essay by Mark Twain on the subject of Joan of Arc
http://www.maidofheaven.com/joanofarc_mark_twain.asp

On Walden

2009-07-20T09:54:00.001-04:00

Today we are publishing Walden by Henry David Thoreau. This classic of American ecological thought focuses on the pursuit of nature. The text is a tapestry of philosophical musings and a record of how Thoreau "made his living" in the woods. Within this book, the constitution of "nature" is nebulous; just how "natural" his living is often in question. And in truth, history tells us that Thoreau's time in the "wild" was punctuated by parties with New England intellectuals, Transcendentalists, and visits into town for a taste of his mother's cookies as she did his laundry.

Perhaps because Thoreau was no Grizzly Man, no Bear Grylls, he is the perfect model for the everyday American concerned with building a relationship with the natural. Most people are uninterested in secluding themselves from "civilization" in order to discover a natural "meanness" or a brush with the "sublime."

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived....

In the current push to be green, from buying bio-degradable laundry detergent, to mastering your miles per gallon, the emphasis is on making small choices each day. Thoreau's mission is not so different: make the choice to simplify and therefore in better harmony with your environment.

You'll also find "On Civil Disobedience" in our edition of Walden. This seminal text notably influenced Dr. ML King Jr, and Gandhi, among others. It promulgates that individual conscience is more important than governmental conscience. It's not a long or a hard read. Check it out:

The Case of the Missing JPGs

2009-07-13T16:25:00.003-04:00

Today we are sending The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes out the cyber door. As much as I love Holmes and Watson, they overstayed their welcome on our drafting board. One of the challenges that this text presented is that the original drawings by Sidney Paget are surprisingly difficult to find in high quality on the internet. Sure the drawings abound in poor resolution on thousands of sites. And high quality ones aren't hard to come by either, if you're ready to pay. But we aren't trying to decorate the office with a framed litho of the drawings, we're trying to put them into an electronic book so that they look like a real book.

Ultimately, the pictures came out looking terrific, check out some shady dealings:

Swiftly delivered Satire

2009-07-10T15:33:00.004-04:00

Today we are working on two of Jonathan Swift's most famous works, Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal. Although the former has come to be recognized as a children's story through television and movie adaptations depicting visits among giants and other fantastical encounters, make no mistake that it is social commentary and satire of the most biting and funny sort. Check out Book IV, wherein Swift challenges his society to see the case of the civil Houyhnhnms, and the brutish Yahoos whom they enslave, as analogous to the economic exploitation of the Irish by the British.

Swift's pre-occupation with the liberty of the Irish is the focus of A Modest Proposal, and you might want to make it yours too for a quick read on a lazy afternoon.

"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie or ragoust."

Leaves of Grass is being published today!

2009-07-08T15:30:00.000-04:00

One very exciting feature of our edition of Leaves of Grass (the 1902 version, said to be the definitive by W.W.), is that we've managed to number the lines. "I thought you said exciting," you're thinking, scratching your chin. And how! If you are familiar with Walt Whitman, Pioneer of Free Verse, and Father of American Poetry, you are certainly familiar with his often exceptionally long lines. If you are reading on a Kindle DX, you may have no problem figuring out which lines have been enjambed, and which are being wrapped by the device. But let's say you lost your reading glasses, and you've set the font to the maximum size. In our edition, we've paid close attention to denoting wrapped lines with indentation, no matter what size font you are reading. And, for added clarity, the line numbers will help you to keep track of the length of stanzas, whether you need to reference them for a research paper on Walt Whitman's treatment of gender or class, or if you are simply reading for the sheer joy of his musical prose-poems. Exquisite formatting is our gift to you!

To a Certain Cantatrice
Here, take this gift,
I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,
One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the progress and freedom of the race,
Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel;
But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any.

Today we are learning about Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish with Herman Melville!

2009-07-07T15:28:00.000-04:00

Today marks the second week of work on Herman Melville's leviathan (he-he!) classic about sperm whale hunting: Moby-Dick. This story is about more than Man vs Nature, or Adventure on the High Seas or Avenging a Lost Leg. It's also about freedom. It's about the Law: of God, Nature, and Man. Even in International Waters, Ishmael and the gang of the Pequod are bound by the invisible (velvet) manacles of the social contract.

In Chapter 89, Melville tells one of those jokes that an old man probably once told you; There are two kinds of fish in this world: Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish. A Fast-Fish is bound to a vessel somehow--"a mast, an oar, a nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same." It becomes the property of that which binds it. A Loose-Fish, on the other hand, is free--as much free to roam the waters as free to be pursued and caught by a band of swarthy sea-fellows.

"What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family from starvation; what is the ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the Archbishop of Savesoul's income of £100,000 seized from the scant bread and cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of heaven without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular £100,000 but a Fast-Fish?"

...

"What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish."

Melville's words remind us that ties as seemingly insignificant or delicate as a strand of cobweb make all the difference in the construction of possession, property, and right. So close to America's Birthday, it's fascinating to be reminded that as Fast-Fish, citizens are bound to written law as well as social contract in ways that are both liberating and obfuscating. What are the Loose-Fish in your life, your city, your world? Are you gonna catch 'em? Are you gonna use them for oil lamps, so to speak?

Return of the Native

2009-06-23T15:54:00.003-04:00

Is about a reddleman. A reddleman is an 18th century dude who paints sheep red so everyone knows to whom they belong. But the red dye, made from red ochre, spreads across the skin of the reddleman, marking him head to foot. He looks like a devil!! Sounds like some symbolism to me. You'll have to read Return of the Native to get the full details.

I chose this image of peasants cutting furze because another character in this book is a furze cutter. Furze, another name for Gorse, has the following uses:

Gorse flowers are edible and can be used in salads, tea and to make a non-grape-based "wine".

Gorse is high in protein^{[citation needed]} and may be used as feed for livestock, particularly in winter when other greenstuff is not available. Traditionally it was used as fodder for cattle, being made palatable by being "bruised" (crushed) by hand using mallets, being ground to a moss-like consistency using hand- or water-driven mills, or finely chopped and mixed with straw chaff.^{[citation needed]} Gorse is also eaten as forage by some livestock, such as feral ponies, who may eat little else in winter. Ponies may also eat the thinner stems of burnt gorse.
Gorse bushes are highly flammable, and in many areas bundles of gorse were used to fire traditional bread ovens. (wikipedia: Gorse)

It's real spiny though, which makes it hard to cut, and easy to make real heavy metaphors with!

Goblin Market out today

2009-06-23T15:20:00.005-04:00

Christina Rossetti is maybe the most gifted poet of the Victorian (editor's own opinion), but she's often overlooked. Born to an Italian political refugee and poet, drama and romance were her birthright. Her brother was the founding Pre-Raphaelite painter and opium fiend, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She had heartaches of her own too: a crippling depression, Graves disease, poverty and only her fervent religiosity to palliate. Although her poetry has been criticized for being too sermony, her devotional works flirt with illicit sexuality, female agency, and the temptations of the material world.

Our cover for this collection is the same that her brother painted for its original publication. I think it's quite fetching.

Huck Finn

2009-06-23T11:09:00.000-04:00

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the best book we read in eleventh grade. My favorite part is the bit where Jim and Huck encounter a Shakespearian acting troupe.

"The third night the house was crammed again--and they warn't new-comers this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights. I stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in had his pockets bulging, or something muffled up under his coat--an I see it warn't no perfumery, neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in."

Have you ever sat in a theater and lamented you didn't bring a dead cat to throw?

Orphans

2009-06-21T16:50:00.004-04:00

What is the 17th century's obsession with orphans all about?

I have some theories. But Mansfield Park is another 17th Cent. Romance about an orphan girl who is sassier than her peers, rides a horse, grows up and falls in luuuurv, and doesn't die poor!

Adopting Metaphor

2009-06-19T15:30:00.002-04:00

Sometimes Silas Marner is not taken seriously as literature, so much as a trite, happy-endinged little tract about faith and being a good person. But I'm here to say that that attitude is really uppity. This book has some really good things to say about clinging to something metaphoric, like money, Protestantisms, and notions of dignity, paternity and maternity, and how these are reductive and dumb. Marner clings to his gold and his Lantern Yard asceticism, and look where that gets him: lonely and miserable and a miser. When Eppie, the stock gold-ringleted orphan of Victoriana, waddles into his hovel, he begins to cling to something more real. He has a daughter; he has love. He even adopts the Raveloe faith, because you know what, material can be effortlessly interchangeable if the metaphor stays the same.

Emmas

2009-06-18T12:19:00.002-04:00

Emma has some great qualities: she's charming, beautiful, witty, and romantically adventuresome. But even with all of this to recommend her, she's such a terrible matchmaker that she may fumble the most important match of all: her own!

If you loved the movie Clueless (1995) as much as I did (as if!) or if you enjoy the neo-grecian dresses and absurdly curly hair dressings of the eponymous Gwyneth Paltrow feature (1996), then you'll go crazy about this book.

This book also has my all time favorite book cover.

Tom Sawyer

2009-06-17T15:14:00.004-04:00

The best part of Tom Sawyer (purchase here) is the bit where the muddy-britched best friends watch their own funeral. Check out this selection, with exquisite formatting standard on all models:

Wuthering Heights

2009-06-16T16:57:00.007-04:00

In 2007 Wuthering Heights (purchase here) was voted the best-loved romance in the UK (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/aug/10/books.booksnews). Here are some things you are going to love about Wuthering Heights:

A Byronic hero-Heathcliff, the wild-haired, unruly, brooding devil of the estate.
Cathy Earnshaw- The little-sweet, little-sour heroine, ripped from her love and from this life all too early.
Practically-brother-and-sister characters in love. (the opposite of brother and sister characters practically in love, as in Mill on the Floss)
Moors (what moor can I say)
You can play Kate Bush as you read! The lyrics are mostly directly from the book.
There are about 15 movie adaptations of this classic. The 1992 version stars Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche (yow!)

Persuasion

2009-06-16T13:34:00.000-04:00

Does this exquisite formatting persuade you to read our new title, Persuasion (purchase here)?

The last of Austen's novels, Persuasion has a little bit of social criticism, a little bit of heartbreak, and a whole lotta romance!!!

Always in the Attic

2009-06-15T15:30:00.000-04:00

Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (purchase here) is set in the resort community of Bath, where Austen lived for a period. The ancient spas, aqueducts, and stonework shape the perfect background for the dark and creepy. But it also has a great sense of humor. The piece plays with the genre conventions of the gothic romance novel, reflecting the main character's love for these books, thought by most to be trivial and even trashy. Austen challenges the idea of high-brow vs. low-brow literature, arguing for the value of "trashy" gothic romances. But I think it's pretty safe to say that Northanger Abbey has penetrated the fortress of the Canon, far from the literature that she playfully imitates. It's good, and it features mad ladies, and can't we all relate to some mad ladies? Oh no? That's funny because you'll find them in Jane Eyre, Alice, Lady Audley's Secret, Holmes, and those are just the ones I can think of from our collection...sorry about the mad ladies rant, hope I didn't come off as too hysterical.

The Mayor of Casterbridge

2009-06-15T13:16:00.003-04:00

Look what we did! (purchase here). The cover makes you think maybe that Thomas Hardy was the mayor of Casterbridge, but don't be fooled. Hardy didn't sell his daughter and wife in a fit of alcohol-fueled sociopathy one cold night.

The Mill on the Floss

2009-06-15T11:16:00.001-04:00

This novel (purchase here) is about a lady whom you can't tell what to do! It was also criticized for not telling a tale of clear moral right and wrong!

The Sense of the Chapter

2009-06-14T16:31:00.003-04:00

One thing that makes Trillium Classic stand out from the crowd is our Exquisitely Formatted Table of Contents. The Kindle provides the opportunity to make it interactive (by clicking on the title, you are taken to the chapter). But TC provides the sense of the chapter, by displaying the first sentence--not enough to give away what's going to happen (Notable exception being Jane Eyre's promulgation at the end of the novel: Reader, I married him...) but just enough to remind you of where you were before you let your mom borrow it and she lost your place, or just enough to get you excited about Chapter 5 when you're still on Chapter 2. Austen's Sense and Sensibility, like a lot of her works, have lengthy sentences. In S&S we have shortened these to the first complete clause. They came out looking great!

Fresh Eyre

2009-06-12T15:38:00.001-04:00

Jane Eyre is delightful. She's a pretty hardcore heroine in a sea of wishy-washy, over pious, curl-headed bores. Here she is talking to the Evil Headmaster of the Lowood School:

"No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"
"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.
"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"
"A pit full of fire."
"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"
"No, sir."
"What must you do to avoid it?"
I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: "I must keep in good health, and not die."

There you have it.

Treasure Island

2009-06-08T23:00:00.002-04:00

Was written by a Scot, so you know it has to be good! Here is the link to check it out.

Here's RLS looking as smarmy as a pirate! Yar, baby, yar!

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

2009-06-08T10:54:00.004-04:00

We learned something new today with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Verse comes in all shapes, and in paper books, moveable type makes representing shapely poetry easy. But in ebooks it's not so simple. The Kindle offers 6 different type-sizes, and obviously as type expands, the space around that type gets smaller. The first problem is to make poetry format within the Kindle as different from prose, and in line with the author's intention. But when the poetry does weird things, how are we supposed to make sure lines work out ok, enjamb instead of jam into each other? A magician never reveals her tricks, but here is the proverbial rabbit out of the hat:
large font.............................................................small font

....................................

Frankenstein

2009-06-02T12:55:00.000-04:00

Second book out today!!! Mary Shelly's classic, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. It's scary how at Trillium Classics we've almost created a monster: beauty and clarity in a ---dundundun---e-book!!!!! Yes, a very scary attempt to play God by breathing life in the sterile environment of the Kindle reader! To dissect the rotten bits from the near-corpse of the Publishing Industry and sew only the best bits (the exquisitely formatted ones) to the bionic plastic and glass limbs of the Kindle! Then, in a darkened dungeon, in the middle of a thunderstorm, we shock this grisly amalgam with a jolt from a USB cable and "IT'S ALIVE!"

Except ours isn't a monster, it's awesome.

Pride and Prejudice

2009-06-01T11:56:00.001-04:00

Trillium Classics just published our first book, Pride and Prejudice! It's my favorite book, and I think it's the favorite book of a lot of readers, around the world. It's a great place to start developing what we call "Exquisitely Formatted" texts. In the Kindle Store, there are millions of public domain texts available, some for free, some for pennies, and some, curiously, costing a great deal more. As consumers demand everything in digital form (and really, why shouldn't we) book makers are struggling to make that digital form reflect the simultaneous demand for a pleasant, clear, familiar reading experience. That's why Trillium Classics focuses on some key features of normal books and integrates them into our e-books. These are, in no particular order:

Smart quotes instead of straight quotes
Table of Contents with preview of chapter
Seemless paragraphing, with indentation instead of blank lines in between blocks of text
First word of a chapter emboldened
Title page
Proper formatting for verse
Special characters that display correctly, such as é, à, ç, £, etc.