Burning the Page: The eBook Revolution and the Future of Reading

A groundbreaking vision on the future of reading, from an early innovator on Amazon's Kindle team.

• Is digital the death knell for print?
• Or will it reinvigorate the written word?
• What will happen to bookstores, book browsing, libraries, even autographs?
• Will they die out—or evolve into something new?

In Burning the Page, digital pioneer Jason Merkoski charts the ebook revolution's striking impact on the ways in which we create, discover, and share ideas. From the sleek halls of Silicon Valley to the jungles of Southeast Asia, Merkoski explores how ebooks came to be and predicts innovative and interactive ways digital content will shape our lives. Throughout, you are invited to continue the conversation online and help shape this exciting new world of "Reading 2.0."

For those who love books, collect books, own an e-reader, vow never to own one, or simply want to know where books are headed, this is a crucial guide to both the future of reading and to our digital culture as a whole.

Jason Merkoski was a development manager, product manager, and the first technology evangelist at Amazon. He helped to invent technology used in today's eBooks and was a member of the launch team for each of the first three Kindle devices. Trained in theoretical math at MIT, he worked for almost two decades in telecommunications and e-commerce with America's biggest online retailers, and he's worked with publishers large and small to shape the future of eBooks. As a digital pioneer, he wrote and published the first online eBook in the 1990s. As a futurist, he's equally at home in Seattle or Silicon Valley, although he's drawn to the high desert of New Mexico, where he can string up his hammock and stare into the clouds and ancient petroglyphs.