Wednesday News: Macmillan joins Scribd, the “Great American Novel,” 3-d print prosthetics, and “cult books”

JanetPublishing Newsbest of list / classics / cult books / digital technology / Literary fiction / Macmillan / Scribd / subscription service12 Comments

We’ve added more than a thousand new titles from Macmillan – For $8.99 a month, you can have access to more than 500k eBooks and 30k audiobooks from three of the big 5 publishers. The newest publisher to join the Scribd service is Macmillan, and below you can read some language from the official announcement. The link to this story will take you to the Scribd subscription page, where you can sign up for a free month of service.

MACMILLAN JOINS SCRIBD
Today’s a great day at Scribd (to be fair, most days at Scribd are great, but this one especially so), because we’re partnering with Macmillan to bring more than a thousand of their books to Scribd. Macmillan is home to some of the greatest and most beloved writers around—from Sci-Fi and Fantasy luminaries Ursula K. LeGuin, Elizabeth Bear, and Orson Scott Card to Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa to celebrated social critics Greil Marcus, Louis Menand, and Michel Foucault—and they’re all available to read right now on Scribd.

“We’ve had a great relationship with Macmillan for more than a year,” says our very own Trip Adler, “and we’re really excited to welcome them to our subscription service.” –Scribd

Why Are We Obsessed With the Great American Novel? – Perhaps the most interesting thing about this discussion between Cheryl Strayed and Adam Kirsch is the way approaches to the Great American Novel (if there is such a thing) seem to break down by gender. For example, Kirsch seems to take the concept more seriously, while Strayed mentions the likes of Franzen whose work has arguably aspired to the title, without apparent irony. Is the difference as simple as male (often white) privilege? Probably not, but it definitely seems to play a role in how some male novelists might believe they can capture the essence of Americanness in a single work of fiction. As Strayed argues:

But art isn’t a footrace. No one comes in first place. Greatness is not a universally agreed-upon value (hence there’s no need to email me to disagree with my admiration of Franzen, or to offer advice about whether I should include Luke Skywalker in my next novel). America isn’t one story. It’s a layered and diverse array of identities, individual and collective, forged on contradictory realities that are imbued with and denied privilege and power. Our obsession with the Great American Novel is perhaps evidence of the even greater truth that it’s impossible for one to exist. As Americans, we keep looking anyway. –New York Times

WATCH: Kid gets new 3D-printed prosthetic StormTrooper arm – Super cool video of a seven-year-old boy who, thanks to 3-d print technology, is fitted with a prosthetic storm trooper arm. I always wonder how this kind of technology might partner with digital reading technologies. –Boingboing

50 best cult books – From The Fountainhead to Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, here are the top 50 so-called “cult books.” What’s a cult book, you may ask? Supposedly, you’ll know one when you see one…

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)
Satan live and in person, a mansized black cat, a magician and his helpmeet, Pontius Pilate… Classic text of dissident magic realism, banned for years under Stalin: now you’ll struggle to find a Russian who hasn’t read it. Essential stuff, and with the finest description of a headache yet committed to paper. –The Telegraph

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

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