Congratulations to Brad Meltzer, whose new book Heroes for My Son will hit the New York Times Best Seller list next Sunday at #2!

A photo of a young Isabella Rossellini with her mother, Ingrid Bergman, discovered by fellow HarperStudio author Sam Wasson.

Have you seen this video yet? If you haven’t, click on over to Vimeo and watch (can’t embed, for good reason). If you have, I’m pretty sure you would click on over to watch it again, just for fun. I would. Heck, I will. Be right back.

Okay, so. Amazing, right? I was absolutely stunned when I watched that video the first time, and I didn’t even comprehend that it was a site takeover until I watched the entire page swirl back into the salsa jar at the end. I had to watch it again (and again, and again) to catch the genius animation that snuck onto the screen, from the vines that creep up from the bottom to the slicing up of the Vimeo logo when the girl steps out of the frame to dance around the background. It’s interesting how much I have to force my brain to see the subtle shifting of the video frame and background zoom-in, since it didn’t even register the first few times I watched. This was more than an advertisement…viewing this was an experience. And even though I don’t like tomatoes or site takeovers, dang it if I don’t want to crack open a jar of salsa right now.

But aside from making me really hungry, the video also made me think of how certain media is presented to allow for an experience, to make the technology behind it disappear. That oh-so-smooth transition from “video on a video hosting website” to “Salsa Show!” was clutch to making me view this as more than a 40-second clip about a vegetable I really couldn’t care less about and something I wanted to click away from. Movie theaters are certainly designed to be invisible, and I think physical books are as well, providing only the turn of a page as the sole interruption between the written word and the reader’s imagination. Even then, that interruption is the mark of a good book: a “page-turner.” With the boom of electronic reading devices, it’s important to keep this feature in mind; which device will allow you to have an experience with a book, to make you want that salsa and nothing else, and then give it to you?

In the ramp-up to the iPad announcement, the internet ate up every little rumor and spit out post upon post of speculation about the features, capabilities, and technical specifications of the mythical creature. Then both during and after the event, many found themselves underwhelmed by the lack of glitter (No flash! No camera! That name!). Adam Frucci over at Gizmodo listed 8+ things that suck about the iPad, considering the lack of multitasking to be “a backbreaker.” But Joanne McNeil argues for the lack of multitasking in both the iPad and other devices because it solidifies the reading experience. The New York Times’s David Carr, as well as Jon Gruber at Daring Fireball, also noted the iPhone and iPad’s ability to, as gadgets, disappear, leaving as little as a finger swipe (page turn) between the user and the content. Similarly, while the Kindle can’t do much else, it certainly lets you read. What others may consider faults in these devices, readers should appreciate as features for creating a reading experience.

Now, as for what content is necessary for an experience, I’m not sure. That’s a whole ‘nother ballpark, but I think Kassia Kroszer hits one over the fence with her “What Are Enhanced Ebooks?” post. Now that we have the technology that allows us to create such enhancements and focus on them when reading, we need to actually deliver good salsa.

I really enjoyed this video from Bonnier, a Swedish magazine publisher, demonstrating their vision for a magazine e-reader tablet. Bonnier’s design team at BERG concepted an interface that really compliments how we read both physical and digital material, choosing such elements like visual page markers that make you more aware of your position within the material and scrolling systems for navigation, made possible by a full touch screen. It looks promising for the next generation of e-readers, and I can’t imagine that the technology needed to materialize these ideas is far behind.

But Robert Andrews over at paidContent.org makes an excellent argument against e-readers, as enhanced as they will become:

“Personally, I’m not convinced any of these single-function gadgets – whether for books or magazines – will be particularly successful. iPhone has succeeded because it’s not a walled garden; ereaders need more than both books and magazines.

Apple and Microsoft are rumoured to be working on multi-functional devices – it’s here, if anywhere, that tablets may really come in to their own, as near-computers, not slabs that mimic individual olde worlde media.”

The problem with the dedicated e-reader is that it’s dedicated, and I personally can’t justify spending money on something that limited when an iPhone can do more for less. Engadget already reported that the Nook has been hacked to include a web browser and Pandora (as well as other apps) proving the desire for a device to be more than multiple books. The Apple tablet (or the Unicorn, as Kassia Krozser calls it) won’t save publishing, but it will convert many more people to e-books than e-readers can.

As much as I love hardcovers and print books in general, I understand why e-book readers are frustrated about Simon & Schuster and Hachette’s announcement on delayed e-book releases. In an attempt to “preserve our industry,” both houses are (or plan on) publishing e-book editions of their titles three to four months after the hardcover release. The idea is that readers will end up paying the higher price for the book in hardcover because they won’t want to wait four months for the book in their preferred format. Most authors at those houses are on board with the plan because they stand to make more money from hardcover sales, but that’s only if people are equally inclined to buy either format but make decisions based on price alone.

If they are, then I understand why you would delay e-book releases to remove the competition for hardcover sales. But it seems that a majority of e-book readers, who have spent the couple of hundred dollars on an electronic reading device, are rather dedicated to the format and wouldn’t let a timing delay convince them to spend extra money on a hardcover. In those four months, they would spend their $9.99 on other books (and you know there are plenty out there to choose from) and possibly forget about the delayed titles by the time they’re available. As an Amazon spokesman said in the Wall Street Journal article, “Authors get the most publicity at launch and need to strike while the iron is hot. If readers can’t get their preferred format at that moment, they may buy a different book or just not buy a book at all.”

James McQuivey over at the Forrester blog posted a great response to the announcement, proposing alternatives to the delayed e-book plan, including bundling the formats and offering premium digital editions that can be released at the same time as hardcovers. We’ve discovered some challenges with bundling formats and putting the physical and digital into the same shopping cart, but we’re still working on finding solutions that won’t keep any readers out in the cold.

Abigail Uhteg documented her summer internship at the Women’s Studio Workshop with a video of 3,000 photos she took over the course of printing, binding, and signing 35 editions of her book, The Complex of All of These. It took two months from making her own paper to letting the ink dry on her signature. Abigail explains the process in some of the photos here.

Reblogged from Jason Kottke’s kottke.org:

From a 1895 article called Tesla’s Osillator and Other Inventions, a photo of Mark Twain with one of Tesla’s marvelous contraptions.

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So just to be clear, Mark Twain is still awesome, yes?

Nurse Theresa Brown was struck with the swine flu two weeks ago, and she wrote a post on the New York Times Well blog about dealing with personal illnesses as a nurse. While it put her out of commission for a while, it also gave her renewed perspective on how her patients must face more challenging diagnoses.

ABC News interviewed Jessica Amason, author of the book This Is Why You’re Fat, getting an early look at some of the highlights of the gross-food movement. Click through to read about all of the culinary creations and let us know what you think: gross, or tasty?Also, for those ready to take a big bite out of that Elvis Donut, the This Is Why You’re Fat team has an excellent food truck contest lined up for October 29. That Thursday, six mobile food vendors in Manhattan will prepare certain items that This Is Why You’re Fat will tweet about. The first person to hit all six and submit a photo of himself eating every item gets a food-truck party of his choice for 25 friends. Info on the trucks’ locations will be updated every 20 minutes, so if you want to participate, make sure you’re following @tiwyf.