The number of ebook-only and ebook-enhanced titles has become too numerous to try to list them in the format that I used in past issues of this newsletter. Therefore, I am going to try a different format. This column will be used to highlight ebooks that take full advantage of their digital format. In other words, examples of dynamic ebooks that move beyond pure text and images. 

Orpheus Emerged
by Jack Kerouac
LiveREADS.com
$4.95
Adobe & Microsoft formats
Includes interactive timeline, hypertext links and audio and video clips 

"ORPHEUS EMERGED is the first full-length work of fiction to be published since Jack Kerouac's death over thirty years ago. When Kerouac died in 1969, a trove of unpublished writings were stowed away, and kept from the light of public scrutiny until the early 1990s, when a new executor began unearthing some of the hidden treasures of Kerouac's early writing life. The novella, ORPHEUS EMERGED, has been kept under wraps until now. Completed in 1945, when Kerouac was 23 and signed his work "John", the characters in ORPHEUS EMERGED are based upon the new friendships that Kerouac was forming with Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and others. The tale reveals Kerouac formulating the very ideas that defined the Beat Generation and continue to influence millions" (from publisher's website)

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Opening Day
by Les Standiford
LiveREADS.com
$5.95
Adobe format
Includes hypertext and website links, streaming audio and video and an interactive baseball trivia game

" Reminiscent of Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, W. P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe, and the film Field of Dreams, OPENING DAY is a novella with the kind of magic charm that transcends sport and rises to the level of heroic myth. When the owner of a downtrodden team in the AA Mid Florida League discovers that his aging groundskeeper was once a star in the Negro Leagues, a public relations scheme is hatched. But what begins as a stunt leads to an astonishing outcome that no one, least of all Buck Wilson, the unassuming former great, could have predicted. " (from publisher's website) 
 
 

Shrek: Tell Your Own Tale
by Ruth Ashby
ipicturebooks.com
$6.99
Microsoft format
Interactive features allows reader to decide the paths that the characters take through the story. 

"Follow the ugly ogre Shrek to Lord Farquaad's Hassle in the Castle. Go along with the smart-talking Donkey to face the flying dragon. Or traipse through the forest with the lovely Lady Fiona. " (from publisher's website) 
 

Several ebooks, full of multimedia features are being created in the TK3 Reader format, created by night kitchen. The TK3 Reader is available for free and is compatible with Windows and Macintosh computers (QuickTime Player is also needed). Some examples of multimedia ebooks created with TK3 Reader include: 

Don Quixote de la Mancha
by Migues Cervantes Saaverda
Letterwing Books
Includes side-by-side English and Spanish translations, with accompanying Spanish narration and a music track. Also pop-up pictures linked to place names
First 24 chapters available as a free download from night kitchen

The Essential America
by Tindall, Shi & Pearcy
W.W. Norton
Series of U.S. history textbooks that include online tutorials and interactive study tools

Free samples of parts 4 & 7 are available from night kitchen through August 15th