Excitement for bookworms never ends – key
Multimedia in the Book World
| two decadesJ twenty years | seeminglyL apparently | with deep tiesG well-rooted in / well-established in | hype1 exaggerated claims or predictions | raftF large but unspecified number |
| somewhatU slightly | overnightA suddenly | tailored toM specially adapted for | strip4 rob | a start-upP a new organization or business venture |
| in droves – plural noun – W large number | bookworms2 people who enjoy reading | fledg(e)ling – modifying adj – C emerging, new, untested | invitingO tempting, attractive | are under wayT have started, are making progress |
| digitalI electronic | outlandishV bizarre, strange | beleagured formal –S plagued / beset by trouble or difficulties | a click awayZ only involving pressing a button on a computer mouse | unleashY trigger |
| deridedB mocked as ridiculous or of no value | emergenceK appearance | prototypeQ early or original object, sample or model created as a basis for a concept or process | with short attention spansR who can only concentrate briefly on a topic without becoming distracted | maintainsH insists |
| blossomed3 prospered, flourished | afreshX in a new or different way | namelyD that is to say | compellingE very exciting and interesting and making you want to watch or listen | traditionalN conventional |
The last two decadesJ have seen digital media change the nature of news, music, video and personal communication. The newspaper, magazine and bookpublishing industries have suffered somewhatU from the advent of the internet, seeing their readers move in drovesW to digitalI multimedia. There was a time when people deridedB the idea that people might actually read novels on digital screens but since Amazon, Samsung and Fujitsu brought new electronic reading devices onto the market and mobile phones such as iPhones from Apple have blossomed3 seeminglyL overnightA into acceptable reading devices for many bookworms2, such an idea seems suddenly not so much outlandishV as obvious. The emergenceK of e-books has led various entrepreneurs and technologists to consider afreshX what kind of experience books might one day deliver.
The American entrepreneur Bradley Inman is one of those feeling there is a real urgency in publishing to innovate with new kinds of content when re-imagining the printed page. A man with deep tiesG in the publishing world of New York, he plans to create great fiction, dramatic online video and compelling Twitter stream all presented together in a multimedia hybrid that is tailored toM the rapidly growing number of reading devices. Mr Inman thinks his fledglingC company vook-tv represents the future for the beleaguredS book industry and various publishers and established authors have been shown Inman’s Vook prototypeQ as a way of interesting them in the idea.
Vook.tv tries to address the problem book publishers have as they expand onto digital formats – namelyD, that for all their hype1 and initial success, they strip4 traditional books of much of their portable appeal. Images on the jacket cover, invitingO fonts and the satisfying feel of quality paper are all largely absent, replaced by humdrum pixels on a virtual page. Even worse, on multipurpose reading devices such as iPhone, more immediately gratifying pastimes such as video games are a click awayZ for readers with short attention spansR. This challenges publishers to ensure the words on the page are compellingE enough to hold readers’ attention, and turning one-dimensional online books into multi-dimensional entities by combining text with music, video and social networking might be part of creating this appeal. A whole raftF of similar experiments are under wayP, one of them being WEBook, a start-upT in New York which allows people to collaborate on writing books and aims to let readers give writers real-time feedback on their work.
This type of experimentation is sure to unleashY serious debate in literary circles, but Mr Inman maintainsH he has no desire whatsoever to compromise the written word. People will continue to read, both in traditionalN and new ways.