About Rationally Speaking


Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Rationally Speaking enters the Kindle era

As some of you know, Rationally Speaking was an e-column I started writing back in 2000, which morphed into this blog by the end of 2005. The complete collection of essays from those five years is now available in electronic format for Amazon's Kindle.

The Kindle, of course, is the electronic reader that looks like a book (it uses natural light, no backlit screen), and if you don't have it you might want to consider getting one. I just did, which is why I decided to release the first volume of Rationally Speaking (implying that there will be others...) for the device. The Kindle2, which Amazon is shipping now, holds about 1,500 books, and one can subscribe to blogs, magazines and newspapers as well, usually at a much reduced price compared to the paper version -- not to mention of course the reduction in one's carbon footprint!

Pretty soon (as in the next couple of weeks) I will release a first volume of collected essays that have appeared in Skeptical Inquirer over the past few years, also in Kindle version. The most recent SI essays, as well as those I write for Philosophy Now, are always available from the sidebar of this blog.

Happy reading!
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9 comments:

  1. Danny Boy, FCDFebruary 20, 2009 8:42 PM

    Thanks but I still prefer the printed book. Do you think there'll be a Tales of the Rational 2?

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFebruary 20, 2009 10:30 PM

    Danny,

    I doubt there will be a Tales-2, but... Ed Buckner (the original editor of Tales) and I are thinking of offering Tales-1 for Kinle... :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Danny Boy, FCDFebruary 21, 2009 12:21 AM

    But I already have two copies of Tales-1. It's so good I bought it twice. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jesús P. Zamora BonillaFebruary 21, 2009 9:11 AM

    I'll probably buy one Kindle when e -books are sold at its marginal price.

    ReplyDelete
  5. MoizKhanFebruary 21, 2009 10:16 AM

    About the Kindle, can you subscribe to any blog? Or is there a select amount of blogs that are created for the Kindle specifically?

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownFebruary 21, 2009 11:33 AM

    Moiz,

    the Kindle allows subscription to a select number of blogs (including RS, by the way). But the selection is huge.

    Jesus,

    books are significantly less expensive in electronic format already (Kindle or otherwise, for instance the Sony Reader). Same for newspapers and magazines.

    ReplyDelete
  7. PieroFebruary 21, 2009 5:38 PM

    What's wrong with pdf's? I'm using a computer anyway, so a pdf would be the "greenest" alternative.

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownFebruary 21, 2009 9:26 PM

    Piero,

    nothing wrong with pdf, but at the moment the only way I can have potential access to the hundreds of thousands who own a Kindle is through that device's format.

    However, Amazon is working toward distributing the same material in pdf and mobipocket format. Stay tuned....

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownFebruary 22, 2009 10:35 PM

    AFAIK, kindle doesn't presently support UTF, and its support of many open e-book formats is very much lacking. So I'll have to wait until it matures a little...

    ReplyDelete

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