I’ve been a fan of Stephen Colbert’s show, The Colbert Report for about a year now, watching a reasonable number of episodes on Hulu when I have the time. Around the time of last year’s election, his coverage was phenomenal, and his commentary certainly helped me stay sane through the numerous batshit crazy things that were happening.
Last week I found a copy of Stephen’s book, I Am America (and So Can You!) available as an ebook from my local library, and I got through it in a short few days. Certain sections were straight up hilarious and very much in the same style as his show, though in others the style was a bit too much and I feel it didn’t translate quite as well in the text. Colbert is a very dynamic personality on screen, and while his style is consistent there’s a certain freshness which is hard to keep up via style in written passages. His voice comes out quite well on the whole, though I feel that some sections could have been condensed, or, perhaps, the style could be varied a slight bit more. That’s getting pretty critical, though, and all in all there are a number of gems held within these pages.
In terms of the eBook format, the version I got was in a PDF format provided by Grand Central Publishing, and for the most part it worked really well. There are a number of wild typesetting tricks going on in this book, with boxed asides, some handwritten notes (which appear only as images), and various tables and flow charts. There were some passages which did not translate very well at all on my Sony Reader, though in the end it was more a problem with the content than the implementation. I did get a very good impression of how the book was laid out, and I was mostly able to read through the pages re-flowed at a larger font size quite easily.
SO . . . what book is next on the agenda? I haven’t read Stephen’s book (yes, we ARE on a first name basis), but The Daily Show put out a History of the US textbook awhile back and though hilarious at times, there were parts that just didn’t work in textbook format. Though it did have one of those places to write your name and year on the inside cover like all textbooks from elementary – high school, and that was awesome. Though i suppose you probably wouldn’t be able to do that with a kindle . . or maybe you could . . but it still wouldn’t be the same thing. It wouldn’t quite evoke the same painful memories of youth as the wear and tear of the name page, documentation of the many unhappy teenagers that proceeded you and blank spaces for the many that shall soon follow in your footsteps. SO . . what book is next on the agenda? “Never Let Me Go” was a great novel in the “drama” genre . . just a suggestion. I don’t think you’ve read “Hey Nostradamus” yet either. Was this comment too long?
If you are interested in The Daily Show textbook, I think it’s on our bookshelf in the other room.
Hah, very true on many accounts. I also remember making the book covers out of paper bags. Not exactly the most fun shit in the world.
I guess, on technical grounds, you can put your name and year in a note, on the Reader. People have also advertised putting their name and phone number on these devices, in case they get lost and the person who finds it feels like being nice rather than a pawn shop visitant.
Maybe, though, what we should do is make electronic book reader covers out of paper bags, purely out of nostalgia and torment.
I’m currently on the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, which I figure I’ll write at thing or two about once I finish take the second book in the series. Those two sound interesting, though, will have to grab them from the bookshelf at some point :)