Check It Out: What people are e-reading
Ever wonder what kinds of books all these technologically inclined readers are browsing through? Well, here's a sneak peek for the Kindle, Project Gutenberg and even the iPhone readers.
As for myself, I'm giving this Kindle business a test drive right now, and I downloaded Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible -- which so far is just absurdly good -- and Stephanie Meyer's Twilight. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It reminds me a lot of my L.J. Smith days, but it's not hitting me as hard. Possibly because I've moved past any semblence of angsty teen years...
My Kindle review will make its appearance later this week. I'm already deep into my pro-con list.
But I digress. Here are the Top 10 ebooks, as of this morning.
Kindle
1. Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer
2. The Shack, by William P. Young
3. The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch
4. Eclipse, by Stephanie Meyer
5. Smoke Screen: A Novel, by Sandra Brown
6. New Moon, by Stephanie Meyer
7. Breaking Dawn, by Stephanie Meyer
8. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations . . . One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson
9. sTORI Telling, by Tori Spelling
10. The 19th Wife: A Novel, by David Ebershoff
Project Gutenberg
1. Manual of Surgery Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. by Miles and Thomson
2. The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) by J. Arthur Thomson
3. Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob
4. Illustrated History of Furniture by Frederick Litchfield
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
6. The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English by Ray Vaughn Pierce
7. Searchlights on Health by B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
8. Sex by Henry Stanton
9. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
10. History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard
iPhone reader
1. Shadows Never Sleep
2. Security for People and Computers
3. A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
4. The Art of War, by Sun Tzu*
5. Tao Te Ching, by Lao-tzu
6. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
7. Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
8. Mobile Holy Quran
9. Manga/Yoshitoshi ABe/Pochiyama at the Pharmacy
10. Dracula, by Bram Stoker
* OK, technically, there are two books before The Art of War, but the titles are written in Japanese characters that I can't translate, and the reviews consist of a bunch of people saying "WTF" a lot. So I skipped them. But if you can tell me what they are, that would be really nice.
While she always preferred The Hardy Boys to Nancy Drew, 
Comments
Re: Project Guttenberg.
Surgeons are brushing up online? Or is the Health Insurance crisis as bad as it seems in this country and people are DIY?
On a lighter note, isn't Barbar Kingsolver the best? She used to play in Stephen King's band, The Rock Bottom Remainders. I read a book about it.
Posted by: Eve | August 20, 2008 2:37 PM
The Poisonwood Bible is a fantastic book - I've read it 2x and even made my book club read it (they loved it too).
And it seems like Dracula is popular everywhere now. I just reviewed it on my blog, then I heard that another book club is reading it, and it seems like it's on everyone's TBR list - not sure why, but it IS really good!
Posted by: Heather J. | August 20, 2008 2:40 PM
I'm hoping that the medical downloads are just med students who don't want to lug their books around, because the DIY option is just scary.
The worst part about the Gutenberg list for me is that "The History of Furniture" is somehow more popular than "Dracula."
And I am loving Poisonwood Bible. I don't understand why I waited so long to start it.
Posted by: Nancy | August 21, 2008 3:48 PM
I think the thing with Gutenberg is that they have a top ten list on their web page. So, people come along it, see "A History of Furniture", and ask themselves "What's that all about?" Then they download it.
It gets one more download tick on the weekly records, and ends up being on next week's top ten list.
Similarly, for a long time, on the Pratt catalog, the most popular subject searched was displayed, and it was, for a very long time, Dogs -- Fiction.
Posted by: Cheap Jim | August 21, 2008 4:04 PM