Published: May 1, 2013
We have the social network. Is it time for the social book?
That question was raised on CBC’s Ideas recently in a provocative show called What Is a Book?
Electronic books change the static nature of the book in many ways.
We’ve already seen some of the innovations, with books that contain video or music or links to other information.
Now we can have the social book–a book you read with friends and exchange comments as you go along. At the New York–based Institute for the Future of the Book, Bob Stein says authors of the future will assume readers are reading together: Readers will be “inside a book together.” It opens up some exciting possibilities: You could read A Tale of Two Cities with annotations from a historian.
It’s a different way to read.
