Directions for Allen

Everything Allen Needed to Know About Windows 95, All on One Page

A long-lost 1990s instruction sheet neatly sums up computing and the Internet in a long-ago era.

Thoreau’s Walden: The Video Game

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Get ready for some edge-of-your-seat 19th century transcendentalist action!

Justice Department Threatens Apple, Publishers over E-Book Pricing

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Did you notice that e-books became a little more expensive after Apple entered the game with iBooks? So did the U.S. Department of Justice, which may be threatening to sue Apple and e-book publishers for allegedly colluding to raise prices.

Amazon Pulls 5,000 Books from Kindle Store

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In a move that signifies Amazon’s determination to tighten its reign over the high stakes e-book market, the retailer removed a staggering 5,000 titles from its Kindle store because a Chicago distributor would not agree to new terms.

Beyond Good and Awful: Literary Value in the Age of the Amazon Review

It’s a basic but still weird fact about books that two people’s experiences of the same book can be radically different but equally valid.

Today in Least Necessary Purchases: ‘Spotify For Dummies’

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Spotify! It’s so complicated! You sign in, see songs on the screen…but then what?

Amazon Unveils $199 ‘Kindle Fire’ Android Tablet, $99 ‘Kindle Touch’

Amazon fired its first serious shots across Apple and iOS’s bow this morning as it unveiled multiple new Kindle slates at surprisingly low prices, including new no-keyboard touch models as well as the not-so-secret headliner, dubbed “Kindle Fire” and built around Google’s Android operating system.

How to Borrow Library Books on Your Kindle

Great news for Amazon Kindle owners. E-book downloads are now available from over 11,000 libraries around the country. Borrowed books sport many of the same features that come along with books purchased from Amazon—synching, notes, highlights—but the books must be found via your local library’s website, not through Amazon’s e-book store.

Finally, Goodreads Launches Book Recommendations Service

Goodreads is now the Netflix of book recommendations, or at least the company thinks so, seeing as its CEO Otis Chandler said exactly that in a press release announcing Goodreads’ new recommendation engine yesterday.

Amazon May Be Considering a ‘Netflix for Books’

Imagine a Netflix… for books. Wait – isn’t my Netflix subscription ending soon? What will I do without it? Is it time to stop watching the boob tube and start reading? Luckily for me, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon, Lord of the Kindles, may be in talks with book publishers to launch [...]

The End of Paper? How to Save a Copy of Every Book Ever Published

You know it’s coming. At some point, we’ll finally bid adieu to our beloved stacks and shelves of tree-ware. Borders, as you know, is well along in process of liquidating its company assets. I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan—basically Borders ground zero, where a stupefying three company bookstores are shuttering.