Apparently the next big thing in the digital book world is this thing called Copia. You can check out the website here, but I'd advise you to skip the promotional video. It doesn't actually tell you what Copia does, how it works, what it looks like, or how it could be tailored to your unique reading habits. It tells you 'we're in it together,' and features a lot of smiling people. My favorite is the blonde girl reading Vonnegut and laughing like the book is a shopping mall buddy. Maybe Vonnegut's funny, but he's just not that kind of funny. For all I know, Copia could be the next best thing. You just really can't tell from the video.
because you were all wondering what I'm writing my dissertation on, here's a brief synopsis of my 'research context': When James Macpherson published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760, he went to great lengths to make the Fragments appear to be authentic remains of an ancient, heroic oral tradition. His reasons for this were largely political, and as such, influenced the content of the epics themselves. As an attempt to establish a particularly Scottish identity, the poems were quite effective. However, to do so required both a simplification and a manipulation of traditional mythology. Stripped of anagogical significance, the Ossian epics more or less represented an Enlightenment version of history, tradition, and mythic heritage. The stories themselves were changed by their very purpose and in turn changed the manner of representing myth in future narratives. Moreover, the emphasis on the Ossian epics as authentic tales from the past, as ‘fragments,’ served...
I never thought Vonnegut was particularly hilarious, either.
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