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Kindle | Evan Blaser | flickr[/caption]

Let’s face it: there’s a lot of information and discussion about the future of publishing, books and reading. It’s hard to keep up. Even though I write about the future of the book on this blog, it’s impossible for me to cover everything.

Today, I’d like to start what I hope will become a regular feature: Tuesday Books. This feature is a roundup of the best new books on digital publishing and the future of the book.

This week, I’ve collected seven books — ranging from interview collections to academic anthologies — that help contextualize the future of publishing. This is by no means a comprehensive list. Rather, it’s a good place to start if you are interested in the future of publishing or digital media.

Let’s go back to 1996: the idea of a future of the book was much different than it is today. This collection of academic papers predicts what will happen as digital publishing becomes the norm. This is a good starting point if you want an academic overview of the future of publishing, pre-Kindle.

Finding the Future of Digital Book Publishing is a collection of interviews from publishing experts collected by Jeremy Greenfield of DigitalBookWorld.com. This collection is best suited for readers interested in the business of book publishing and its future. Greenfield’s introduction provides insight into what is currently happening in digital publishing.

The argument in Cognitive Surplus is that our digital tools allow to become active contributors to the social good instead of passive consumers. The internet, for example, requires activity and participation. Unlike television, the internet encourages us to create, not consume.

I included this book because it gets us thinking about how authorship will change as the accessibility to publishing grows.

Hayles has written on technology subjects like posthumanism and digital publishing, and I’d consider her one of the top experts on how digital technology affects our humanity. Plus, she’s an adept reader and literature critic. In How We Think, Hayles explores how “hyper reading” is changing how academics, writers, and publishers write and produce. Her argument is that we must incorporate all types and forms of reading when we discuss scholarship and publishing.

I’ve written about Lanier’s book, You Are Not a Gadget, on this site before. The idea behind Lanier’s work is connecting the human with technology, and that’s the focus here, too. In Who Owns the Future?, Lanier points out the economic problems created by networked and digital technologies. He links these technologies, and the companies that own them, to the problems with our economy.

Convergence Culture is a wonderful study of how the internet has expanded and changed the way we talk about pop culture. The book is well-researched and brings several points of insight on the history and context of our culture in the digital age. It’s important, too, because it reminds us that the future isn’t that much different from the past, and in our current climate, “new” media isn’t a complete reinvention of past ways of thinking.

I’ve written about The Late American Novel before because this book is my go-to book for insight on the future of the book. In particular, the articles in this book go into depth on the future of narrative as the book changes form. Fiction, for example, has already started to take a different shape. This is a must-read for creative writers who want to skip the theory without overlooking the future of publishing.

That’s it for this week. If you like this feature, please let me know as I hope to continue it. Send me an email or leave a comment below.

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