Thursday News: Hong Kong banned books, Kindle’s software improvements, superhero sex, and tomato juice at 37,000 feet
The Hong Kong Bookseller Who’s Keeping ‘Banned’ Books On His Shelves – Despite the disappearance (and in a couple of cases, reappearance in mainland police custody) of five bookseller/publishers, some Hong Kong booksellers, including People’s Bookstore owner Peter Tang, are keeping mainland-banned titles on their shelves. It appears to be publishers that are being targeted more directly, although Tang notes that if too many publishers are shut down, businesses like his may have to compensate by carrying other types of items. And while the disappearances have made an impression, they have not stopped banned books from being readily sold in Hong Kong.
“It’s really, really horrible for me to look at,” Tang says, sitting in his bookstore. At the same time, he adds, he’s not worried too much about his own safety or his business. That’s because the nascent crackdown appears geared more toward the publisher and the closely linked bookstore.
“For the government, we’re too small” to bother with, Tang says. He notes that the books in question remain widely available in Hong Kong, from curbside newspaper stands to convenience stores to the Hong Kong airport. – NPR
Amazon Kindle wants to ease your hunt for a good book – Among other things, Amazon’s announcement that it will open several hundred new brick and mortar stores across the US coincides logically with a new software update that will Kindle users personalize their library. With more readers migrating away from dedicated ebook reading devices, Amazon has got to do more to make Kindle appealing enough to keep readers invested in the device and the app. Will this do it? Who knows?
An Amazon page details the features and refinements coming to Kindle e-book readers. The update will enable you to personalize the home screen, for example, so your most recent books appear at the upper left of the screen. All of your books can be retrieved by clicking on My Library.
A new section dubbed “My Reading Lists” shows all the books on your wish list as well as any samples you’ve downloaded. The bottom of the home screen will change to show you recommendations, best-selling titles and books that your Goodreads friends are reading. Goodreads is a social book site in which friends share their book lists and rate books. – CNET
Why don’t we see superheroes having realistic sex lives? – An interesting piece that traces the asexuality and/or absence of sex in the lives of many comic superheroes back to the Comics Code Authority, which Charles Pulliam-Moore argues has had a powerful and lasting influence on the treatment of sex in comics. I wish he had pushed just a little more on the issues he touches on later in the essay, where he talks about the role sex plays in the Netflix series, Jessica Jones. But still an interesting read.
Fearing that the adventures of heroes like Superman and Batman might influence readers to become a generation of violent, depraved hoodlums, the Comics Magazine Association of America was created to craft a set of rules for comic books that would, in theory, minimize the damage that they might cause. (It’s worth pointing out that the studies that were used to fuel and justify the hysterical panic around comics were notoriously flawed.)
Under the Comics Code Authority, comic book publishers were prohibited from depicting adult themes like excessive violence, gore, and sexuality. While the CCA didn’t have any official authority over the big publishers of the day, the body’s influence was undeniable. – Fusion
Why Tomato Juice Tastes Better at 37,000 Feet – Hint: it’s not really the juice, but something is measurably different when you drink and eat on a flight. – Smithsonian
*follows kindle link* Well, that looks awful.
The first thing I did to my kindle was turn off recommendations, since 1)they weren’t good and 2)the screen is too small to lose half of it to advertising. I hope I can turn/keep that off. If I had a reliable way to sideload books, I’d be tempted to turn my WiFi off and skip the update entirely.
The Amazon bookstore stuff sounds like it’s being debunked.
Lostshadows: if you’ve already got recommendations turned off the update will ask you if you want to turn them on so that you get the new home page. Say no and there is little real change (though the font used in the listings has changed). And even if you do get the new home page with recently read, reading lists, etc. it is easily turned off.
As for superheroes’ sex lives, I suggest reading Larry Niven’s take on Superman. Summary: no woman wants irresistable kryptonite sperm swimming through her body, to say nothing of what happens if Superman loses control whem he climaxes.
@Mike: Oh good. It took me forever to figure how to get the collections back on my home page last time they did a major update. The idea of having to search through 700+ books, three at a time, because they decided to screw with the layout again was not a happy thought.
I’d be for it if it sounded like we were being given good features, rather than Buy! Buy! Buy! features.
@jane: Well, this is getting interesting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/02/04/amazon-bookstores-where-they-might-go-and-what-their-real-end-game-might-be/
@Mike: Niven is quoted and discussed in the Fusion piece. There’s even a link to his 1969 essay.
I just wish I could easily sort my Kindle library into books I’ve read, books I’ve partially read, and books I haven’t read.
@Liviania:
You can set up folders. I have a folder that I stick the books I’ve read into as soon as I’m done. You could also make a WIP folder and move them there when you start one.
I have resorted to making 3 collections on my kindle: TBR, Read and Free (which are TBR that were free so typically need a higher level of patience with story/editing). It’s a manual sort, nowhere near perfect but after 2 months, it is working for me.
@Liviania: I stick the finished ones in a collection called Read.
As for partially read, not sure how many kindles do this, but the Paperwhite has a little row of little dots under the cover pictures which turn bold as you progress through the file. Not a perfect system, especially with collections, but it helps remind me what I’m in the middle of. (I suffer from a bad case of “Oooo! Shiny” so I abandon books part way in a lot.)
@Mike:
Mike, so you can turn off the new layout? Good to know.
@Lostshadows – I never turn my wi-fi on and I still get update and stuff. They have a backdoor, I think. Remember the “1984” debacle?
@janet/robin: Sorry, I really should have clicked through to the Fusion article before commenting. I remembered Niven’s essay from a 1971 paperback – for some reason it stuck in my mind – but had no idea it was up on the net and thought that it had been forgotten by now.
@T: yes, you can turn it off (Cog wheel/all settings/ device options/personalise your kindle/advanced options) and thanks to Nate at Digital Reader who confirmed this before I dared to apply the update.
@Nancy: Collections will definitely work as suggested, especially if you split the TBRs by genre, but in my experience will work much better if you don’t start when you already have 500+ books on the Kindle (which is, of course, when I decided I had to do something). My “Free” though is called “Bookbub”, and I actually paid for a few of them…
I pass through Hong Kong Airport a number of times a year. Now I’m going to have to go looking for these books. We always get some (too much) local currency for stopovers. Now I know where to spend it!
By the way, maybe it’s just my crappy computer, but all the comments on this site are a distorted mess at the moment…