I never heard of this book, but apparently, given this announcement, I should
have. So I downloaded it and began reading it late this afternoon after
finishing Permanent Record by Edward Snowden, which I highly recommend. Reading
Novacene seems to require a lot of focus. I’m 82. The author is 100. But he’s
a very smart 100.
Miriam
From: Evan Reese
Sent: Saturday, October 05, 2019 2:35 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence
Hey Guys,
I’m still recovering from a bad cold, and trying to catch up on scans that I
owe people, so I’m late with this.
Shortly after I entered a formal request for James Lovelock’s new book, I got a
message saying that Bookshare would add my book to the collection. That was
great, but then I read the part where it said that it could take, not would
take, but could take, several months.
So I withdrew my request and bought the book. I am proud to say that it entered
the collection on Wednesday, exactly two weeks after it arrived in my mailbox.
https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/2851986
I want to thank Lori Castner for putting time aside to expedite prooffing of
this book.
The MIT Press does give books to Bookshare, but they didn’t donate this one. I
know little about the publishing business, so it’s just my speculation, but
this book appears to be a republication of a book that was published in
Britain. It’s possible that The MIT Press does not have the rights to do
whatever they want with it, including not having the right to donate it to
Bookshare.
I’m always happy to add books to the collection, but I am particularly happy to
add books like this. It is the reason I continue to volunteer scanning.
Bookshare is like no other library of accessible books. Sure, it gets most of
its books from publishers now, but we volunteers still have a role in making
books accessible that publishers choose not to give, or are unable to give for
whatever reason, to Bookshare, including new books like this one.
Evan
