A Whole "Latte" Books

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 3:07 PM

Posted by Cheryl Pon, Google eBooks Support Team

Please note that some content may not be available in full view to users outside of the United States.

T.S. Eliot once remarked that he "measured out [his] life with coffee spoons." Wise man. I measure out my mornings with double espressos.

Whether it's a double-tall, half-caffeine, sugar-free hazelnut soy latte, cappuccino, macchiato, espresso, or just a fresh, plain hot cup of Joe, we Googlers love our coffee.

Not only do we have mobile baristas who travel around our Mountain View campus, but tutorials on how to pull the perfect shot of espresso.

Naturally curious as to where my daily java comes from and how it transforms from this picture of brilliant red berries swinging innocently on a branch surrounded by white flowers into a variety of light, medium, and dark roasts brewed in my kitchen, I dove into Google Books and Google eBooks to learn more.

If you, too, want to get educated in coffee culture throughout history, check out Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World on Google eBooks, published by Basic Books.

Interested in the cultivation and profit-making aspects of coffee? Be sure to read Edwin Lester Linden Arnold's Coffee, its cultivation and profit.

If you're keen on learning more about the corporate culture and commerce surrounding coffee, Everything but the coffee by Bryant Simon (published by UC Press), or Starbucked: a double tall tale of caffeine, commerce, and culture (Hachette Digital) are perfect for your — wait for it — coffee table. Also, make sure to read All about coffee by William Harrison Ukers or Coffee, from plantation to cup by Francis Beatty Thurber.

So grab a book and cozy up with a cuppa! Read the full post 0 comments

Fighting for the Irish Independence through words: Lady Speranza Wilde

Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 9:00 AM

Posted by Francesca di Felice, Google Books Dublin

Have you ever heard of Lady Speranza? She was a mysterious pro-Irish Independence writer for the magazine The Nation during the middle of the 19th century in Dublin. That's the pen name of Jane Francesca Wilde, the mother of the famous and controversial Oscar Wilde.

Born around 1821, Lady Wilde was the daughter of Archdeacon Elgee (son of an Italian immigrant), Rector of Wexford, and Sara Kingsbury, granddaughter of the Commissioner of Bankrupt. At this time, Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain due to the Acts of Union in 1800, and many Irish people hoped for independence from Great Britain's Protestant kingdom.

Lady Wilde embodied her country's hopes and dreams during the fight for independence, by adopting the nom de plume "Speranza," the Italian word for hope. With this nickname she signed many poems, writings, fairy tales and translations. By examining her talent with language, it's easy to understand the origins of her son's genius.



Her first poem appeared in the newspaper The Nation in 1846 and was followed by many others which won the enthusiasm of the leaders of the Young Ireland, the social and political nationalistic movement responsible for the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848.

Gavan Duffy, the editor of The Nation, didn't know that Lady Wilde was behind the Speranza poems and letters. Her article, "Jacta Alea Est," published in 1848, urged armed revolt in the cause of Irish freedom.

Because of the contents of his paper, the British authorities brought Duffy to court. Speranza’s article was used as evidence of seditious conspiracy. Duffy refused to identify the author responsible for the writings. Jane Francesca Wilde came to court and claimed the writings with pride, for she wasn't afraid to stand up for her nation. The following is an excerpt from "Dedication to Ireland," published in Poems by Lady Speranza in 1871:

My country, wounded to the heart,
Could I but flash along thy soul
Electric power to rive apart
The thunder‐clouds that round thee roll,
And, by my burning words, uplift
Thy life from out Death's icy drift,
Till the full splendours of our age
Shone round thee for thy heritage—
As Miriam’s, by the Red Sea strand
Clashing proud cymbals, so my hand
Would strike thy harp,
Loved Ireland!

The Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 collapsed quickly and the leaders were arrested. After the closure of The Nation, Lady Wilde lost hope for the cause though she continued to believe in its ideals. She started to write about Irish folklore: fairies, leprechauns, elves and the mysticism which is prevalent on Celtic tradition.

Lady Wilde's outspokenness emerged once more when her son Oscar was accused of sodomy and she earnestly defended him. She usually quoted to him lines by Goethe to help him face the troubles of his life.

Indeed, she was used to troubles. Her husband Sir William Wilde, a famous eye and ear surgeon, was at the center of a scandalous court case regarding a young woman. Mary Travers claimed to have been seduced by him. The girl was the daughter of a colleague of Sir William and won the case, gaining £2,000.

Lady Wilde stayed always at her husband's side, like she did for her son Oscar, even when they found themselves bankrupt after Sir William's death. She moved to London (where she died in 1896) with her two sons. Despite the conditions of her late years, she didn't lose the style and appeal which made her so well known and remembered in her beloved Ireland. Read the full post 0 comments

Hobbyists unite! How one Google Books user built a vintage automobile

Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at 11:00 AM

Posted by Oliver Chiang, Google eBooks Support Team


Meet Bob Ferry and his nice 'ride': a 1906 Oldsmobile Model B Runabout. You might be thinking, "Wow, for a model that's nearly a century old, this car looks brand new." That’s because it is brand new. Bob found old magazines and publications on mechanics with pictures, diagrams and descriptions, by searching the digital treasure trove of Google Books, which helped him build the car from scratch.


"It's been a great avenue for any hobbyist," says Bob, who has amassed a collection of over 100 Google Books, from out-of-print issues of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics to Harper's gasoline engine book and Horseless Age.

Bob is a 51-year-old machinist who lives in Louisville, Kentucky, and runs a family-owned shop that builds industrial machinery. Building 'horseless carriages' has been his passion on the side for years, and an outlet for his skills as a machinist. He belongs to an Internet group of horseless carriage replica builders who share photos and ideas about the cars they are building. Some members have been inspired by Bob to also use Google Books to help them construct vintage vehicles.

An image of an Oldsmobile Runabout from an ad in "The Horseless age" Volume 16, published in 1905

When Bob started building his car, he started off with a set of plans he purchased from fellow replica car-builder Jimmy Woods, but he also wanted to add as many original qualities to the car as possible that were not in the plans, such as a steamer trunk extension and fringed 'Surrey Top'. He had heard of ebooks, so he went over to Google Books and discovered many old books and magazines about the earliest automobiles from the early 1900s. He loaded them up onto his iPad using his Google Books app and got to work.

Bob says the Surrey Top was especially difficult to design, but that the vast number of digital books were a great resource, with drawings and texts describing various car tops and the pros and cons of each.

A diagram of a steering arm lower control rod that Bob used, from "The Gasoline Automobile: Transmission, running gear, and control"

Bob, testing the early frame of his Oldsmobile

The final product, in his own words:

My car is powered by a 17-year-old Briggs & Stratton 12 HP engine and a hydrostatic transmission from a 15-20-year-old Craftsman riding mower. It is steered with a tiller arm (no steering wheel) and reaches a blazing top speed of about 6-7 miles per hour.

Bob also sees his hobby as a way of giving back to the community. He has been exhibiting his Oldsmobile replica at senior citizen's homes and local shows. The car has elicited huge smiles from seniors. "They would say, 'You know, I used to drive one like that.' Many of these are World War II vets, and I thought, if I can just bring a smile to their faces, let’s do it," Bob says.

Bob's 7-month-old granddaughter takes the vintage car for a spin

Bob plans to continue using Google Books to help him on future car-building projects. In the next few years, he plans to build a 1902 De Dion Bouton French car, a 1920 Norton Racer Motorcycle and an Orient Buckboard. He is studying early engine designs, as he wants to build the engine from scratch on his next replica car.

While he's still a fan of physical books, Bob has increasingly turned to digital books for their convenience, and to find obscure and useful information. “It has really, really been fun,” he says. "I don't know how many books are out there that I would like to try to read each one, cover to cover."

Do you have story about using Google Books in an interesting or helpful way? Write us at googlebooksblog@google.com Read the full post 4 comments

Google eBooks: By the Numbers, Then and Now

Monday, May 23, 2011 at 5:00 AM

Posted by Abe Murray, product manager

It’s been about six months since we launched Google eBooks. Now, we’re happy to report there are more than three million free Google eBooks available in the U.S. for your enjoyment and enlightenment (as compared to more than two million at launch). You can read them in the free Google Books Web Reader, through a free Google Books app, or by downloading them to your favorite compatible ereader.

To find free Google eBooks, click on “Free Google eBooks” in the left-hand column to narrow your Books search or browse through the Best of the Free bookshelf in the Google eBookstore.

Free ebooks aren’t the only thing on the rise... At launch, there were just over 100 independent booksellers selling Google eBooks -- now there are more than 250. And while we had just over 5,000 publishers participating when Google eBooks first hit the cloud, we now have more than 7,000 -- a 40% increase in half a year. Last but not least, installs of the Google Books apps for iOS, Android and Chrome have exceeded 2.5 million since December.

This week, we’ll be revealing Google eBooks facts and figures, and some of the stories behind them, at the BookExpo America and related events in New York.

Here’s the line-up:

Monday, May 23

IBPA Publishing University 2011
Google eBooks: How Publishers Can Maximize Ebook Sales ‹ On- and Off-line
8:00 -- 8:45 AM
The Jacob Javits Convention Center, Level 1, Hall 1A
Presenters: Pratip Banerji, product manager, Google Books with Matt Supko, American Booksellers Association

Summary: Learn how you can take advantage of the Google eBookstore and discover from the American Booksellers Association what independent booksellers’ partnership with Google eBooks means to book buyers -- and publishers.

IDPF Digital Book 2011
The Year of the eBook - Globally
8:30 -- 9:15 AM
The Jacob Javits Convention Center
Panelists: Abe Murray, product manager, Google Books with Michael Tamblyn of Kobo Books and Yoshinobu Noma of Kodansha

Summary: Digital books have “crossed the chasm” to mainstream consumer acceptance. What were the critical success factors in this global success story? And what’s next?


Tuesday, May 24

BookExpo America
The Future of eBooks Publishing Executive Panel
3:30 – 4:30 pm
The Jacob Javits Convention Center, Room 1E13
Moderator: Tom Turvey, director, strategic partnerships, Google Books
Panelists: Amanda Close (President, Random House Digital), Evan Schnittman (EVP, Business Development, Bloomsbury) David Steinberger (CEO, Perseus), Andrew Savikas (SVP, O'Reilly)

Summary: Senior executives from top publishing houses tell it like it is in a rousing panel discussion about the future of ebooks. This no-holds-barred session will tackle tough issues such as the changing definition of a book, digital rights management, and international marketing, plus new business models like subscriptions and bundling. Bring your burning questions and a pen -- you’ll want to write some of these gems down. The panel will include audience Q&A.


Wednesday, May 25

BookExpo America
Three R’s of Google eBooks: Reading, Regions and Retailing
9:00 – 10:30 am
The Jacob Javits Convention Center, Room 1E02
Presenter: Scott Dougall, director, product management, Google Books

Summary: Nearly six months since launch, hundreds of thousands of Google eBooks are being merchandised through the Google eBookstore, the Android Market and on the websites of more than 200 partner bookstores across the U.S. More than two million Google eBooks are available for free -- driving trial and excitement for digital reading in the cloud. But on what devices are people reading? What genres are most popular? Which cities have the most avid e-reading populations? Attend this interactive presentation and find out all this and more.


Thursday, May 26

BookExpo America
Seven Years of Google Books: The Next Chapter
9:00 – 10:30 am
The Jacob Javits Convention Center, Room 1E15
Presenter: James Crawford, director, engineering, Google Books

Summary: Since setting out in 2004 to bring the world’s literary treasures online, the Google Books team has indexed more than 2 million books from publisher partners around the world. With Google Books, millions of users search through trillions of words in milliseconds to find just the book they were looking for -- and the retailers that sell it. What started out with one makeshift scanner and a dream has become a large-scale operation that delivers a free promotional tool for more than 35,000 publishers around the world. Find out what’s next for the Google Books Partner Program, Google Books search and Google eBooks.

Happy reading! Read the full post 1 comments

Define, translate and search for words in Google eBooks

Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 11:00 AM

Posted by Derek Lei, Software Engineer, Google Books

When bookworms stumble across a word we don't know, we face the classic dilemma of whether to put the book down to look up the word or forge ahead in ignorance to avoid interrupting the reading experience. Well, fret no more, readers, because today you can select words in Google eBooks and look up their definitions, translate them or search for them elsewhere in the book from within the Google eBooks Web Reader—without losing your page or even looking away.

The Web Reader works in all modern browsers and lets you read Google eBooks without having to download them. To select text in a Google eBook within the Web Reader, double-click or highlight it with your mouse and a pop-up menu opens with the following options: Define, Translate, Search Book, Search Google and Search Wikipedia. (Note: these features work in "Flowing Text" mode not "Scanned Pages" mode. Switch to "Flowing Text" in the Web Reader by clicking on the Settings menu labeled "Aa" and select it under the "Show" drop-down menu. Not all Google eBooks are available in "Flowing Text.")

Define
Click “Define” and the pop-up now displays a definition of the word via Google Dictionary, without leaving the page you’re on in the Google eBook. Click on the audio icon to the left of the word you want defined to hear the definition pronounced aloud. If you decide you do want to leave the page, select “More” to go to the Google Dictionary page for the word, which provides additional information like usage examples and web definitions.

Translate
You can also translate a single word or several sentences of content into dozens of languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish, by selecting the "Translate" option. As with definitions, you'll see the translated text displayed in the pop-up window.

Search
By selecting one of the search options, you can search for the selected text in other places within the ebook itself or across the entire web.

“Search Book” brings up all the instances in which the selected text appears in the ebook. You can also access the search options by clicking on the magnifying glass icon in the upper right-hand corner of the Web Reader. Click on a search result to jump to that section.

“Search Google” and “Search Wikipedia” open up a new browser tab displaying the search results for that text on Google and Wikipedia, respectively.

Go ahead and give these new features a spin by reading a Google eBook.

Update 5:54pm: Included details about "Flowing text" vs. "Scanned pages." Read the full post 0 comments

Books on Wheels

Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 1:00 PM

Posted by Dan Hirsch, Google Books Support Team

Please note that some content may not be available in full view to users outside of the United States.



As millions of commuters clip in and pedal off for Bike to Work Week, we, on the Google Books Team cruised through our library in search of bike-inspired writing. To our delight, books on bikes abound. The 19th century in particular proved itself a fruitful time for writing about self-powered vehicles. Since 1817 when Baron Karl von Drais invented the first Laufmaschine or "dandy horse," innumerable authors have penned user guides and treatises on bikes, trikes and velocipedes. However, these works do more than just explain how to lube a chain or fix a flat — they reflect on overarching themes of modernity itself. Bike writers cover everything from feminism to globalization. Below are some of the many bike books we liked the most.

Fast Age

"Whether velocipedes will ever become a necessity of our civilization—the 'fast' adjunct to our 'fast' age—it is impossible to say, though appearances would warrant such a prediction," writes the anonymous gearhead "Velox" in Velocipedes, Bicycles, and Tricycles: How to Make Use of Them. In 1869, Velox certainly couldn’t imagine the ultimate dominance of planes, trains and automobiles. However, his bike guide affirmatively depicts the modern age as an era defined by transportation. "Man being his own horse" was only the beginning.

Around the World in Way More than 80 Days

In a century of expanding empires and increased global exchange, novelist and writers spilled a great deal of ink imagining fantastical trips around the world — Jules Verne's work is a quintessential example. One adventurer named Thomas Stevens actually took such a trip, but rather than luxuriating in a hot air balloon, he propelled himself on wheels. Starting off in San Francisco in April 1884, Stevens rode his large wheeled "penny-farthing" across the U.S. to New York City. From there he traveled with his bike by ship to London, then Paris. He cycled across Europe, did a big loop through the Balkans, rode a steamer down the Red Sea, then crossed the Indian Ocean to Karachi, Pakistan, where he pedaled through the Indian subcontinent. Traveling by boat from Yokohama, Japan, Stevens arrived back in San Francisco in December 1887. He lived to tell the tale and collect his memories in a Around the World on a Bicycle.

Biking in Bloomers

If you were a turn-of-the-century suffragette looking for a delightful way to attain mobile independence in a world increasingly populated by male automobile drivers, then biking was the thing for you! In her 1895 work A Wheel Within a Wheel, feminist writer and activist Frances Willard argued that a woman's ability to self-propel using pedal-power could also empower her to advance beyond the traditional restrictions of her gender. Willard writes: "Indeed, I found a whole philosophy of life in the wooing and the winning of my bicycle." Her work gives new meaning to the phrase, "it's like learning to ride a bike."

* * *

Should all this talk of free-wheelin' get you in the mood to hit the road yourself, you can find out how to get from home to office (or San Francisco to Yokohama, as the case may be) via bike by using Google Maps biking directions. For more on all things bikes, you can also browse through select archives of the magazine Bicycling. Read the full post 0 comments

Books from 16th and 17th centuries now in full-color view

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 2:00 PM

Posted by Dan Bloomberg and Kurt Groetsch, Google Books team

Google has formed partnerships with many of the great libraries of Europe, including the Czech National Library, the National Library of the Netherlands, the Austrian National Library, the National Libraries of Florence and Rome, the Municipal Library of Lyon, Ghent University, the Bavarian State Library, the National Library of Catalonia, the University Complutense of Madrid, the University Library of Lausanne and the Oxford University Library.

To date, we’ve scanned about 150,000 books worldwide from the 16th and 17th centuries, and another 450,000 from the 18th century. With our growing list of partners, we expect to scan many hundreds of thousands more pre-1800 titles.

In digitizing books from any century, we try to create clean images with black text and color illustrations on white backgrounds. This helps enhance readability, save storage spaces and serve illustrated pages faster to readers. However, partners, researchers and other readers have frequently asked us to show the older books as they actually appear, for a couple of reasons: First, these books are interesting artifacts. They have changed their appearance over the centuries, and there is a cultural value in viewing them. Second, because of aging and bleed-through, it can be very difficult to display the images as clean text over a white background; in many cases it’s actually easier to read the text from the original (what we call "full-color") images.

Printing was introduced in the 15th century, but a great flowering of experimentation in typography took place in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Secunda centuria, das ist das ander Hundert der Evangelischen Wahrheit
Johann Nass, 1568


Thargum, hoc est, Paraphrasis Onkeli Chaldaica in sacra Biblia : ex Chaldaeo
Paul Fagius, 1546

Some have great historical significance. Others have interesting typography and wood block illustrations. The links open thumbnail versions of each book (icons with 4 little squares). You get other views by clicking on nearby icons; from the thumbnail view, you can click on a page to expand it.

Below are links to a few more of these 16th and 17th century books now available in full-color view in Google Books:

Prognostication nouvelle et prediction portenteuse, pour l'an M. D. L. V.
Nostradamus, 1554
The first year of his prophecies, provided for scanning by the Municipal Library of Lyon.

Description de l'abbaye de la Trappe
André Félibien, 1689
A description of La Trappe Abbey in Soligny-la-Trappe, Orne, France. Authored by André Félibien, a French chronicler of the arts and official court historian to Louis XIV of France.

Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae: Usitata forma Quaestionum ..., Volumes 1-3
Johannes Kepler, 1635
The German astronomer’s textbook on astronomy (translated as Epitome of Copernican Astronomy); his most influential work.

Systema cosmicum : in quo dialogis IV. de duobus maximis mundi systematibus, Ptolemaico & Copernicano, rationibus vtrinque propositis indefinitè disseritur : accessit locorum S. Scripturae cum Terra mobilitate conciliatio
Galileo Galilei, 1641
Galileo's landmark work comparing Copernican heliocentrism with the geocentric Ptolemaic system. Engraved frontspiece of Aristotle, Ptolemy and Copernicus.

La operazione del compasso geometrico e militare
Galileo Galilei, 1640
Description of and manual on the operation of Galileo’s geometrical and military compass.

Tractatus de proportionum instrumento : quod merito compendium vniuersae geometriae dixeris
Galileo Galilei, 1635

Ioannis Kepleri ... Dioptrice seu Demonstratio eorum quae visui & visibilibus propter conspicilla non ita pridem inventa accidunt. Praemissae Epistolae Galilaei de iis, quae post editionem Nuncii siderii ope Perspicilli, nova & admiranda in coelo deprehensa sunt. Item Examen praefationis Ioannis Penae Galli in Optica Euclidis, de usu Optices in philosophia.
Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Jean Pena, 1611

Patris Gabrielis Vazquez ... Disputationes Metaphysicae …
Gabriel Vázquez, 1617

Relaciones universales del mundo ... : Primera y segunda parte
Giovanni Botero, 1603

La rhétorique ou l'art de parler
Bernard Lamy, 1699

Idea de vn principe politico christiano, representada en cien empressas …
Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, 1675

Idea de un principe politico christiano, representada en cien empresas, dedicada al principe de las Españas nuestro Señor …
Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, 1655

Pia desideria emblematis elegiis & affectibus S.S. Patrum illustrata
Herman Hugonus, 1624

Obsidio bredana armis Philippi IIII, auspiciis Isabellae ductu Ambr. Spinolae perfecta
Herman Hugo, 1626

Emblémes Ou Devises Chrétiennes
1697 Read the full post 0 comments

New Books API for Developers

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 10:15 AM

Posted by Kevin Landry, Google Books API Team

Today, we are releasing a new Google Books API in Code Labs. The new Books API will help you write applications to query for the more than 15 million books that are searchable on books.google.com including book metadata, pricing and more. This API replaces the Google Book Search Data and Javascript APIs.

The previous GData API and Javascript API will still be available, but ongoing development work will be focused on the new Google Books API so we encourage you to make the transition to take advantage of new features including:

• OAuth 2.0 support
• Integration with the Google APIs Console
• Library support for multiple programming languages

We’re excited about some of the new capabilities this API gives our developer partners. Using OAuth 2.0, a developer can allow users to retrieve their stored information, including bookshelves in their library, ratings and reviews. With the new JSON structure, accessing this information can be done with ease. Whether you want to use the API on a web page, in a Chrome extension, or on a device, the new Books API gives you a way to access the world’s largest selection of ebooks. Read the full post 0 comments

From Alaska: Old Harbor Books, the 250th indie bookseller of Google eBooks

Monday, May 09, 2011 at 11:00 AM

From time to time we invite guests to post about topics of interest and we’re pleased to have Don Muller join us from Old Harbor Books. Don is a co-founder of Old Harbor Books, an independent bookstore where he has worked for 35 years in Sitka, Alaska. Through our partnership with the American Booksellers Association and its IndieCommerce e-commerce platform for booksellers, Old Harbor Books is now able to sell Google eBooks from its website. In this post, Don talks about the significance of this milestone to his bookstore and—most importantly—his customers. - Ed.

Based in Sitka, Alaska, Old Harbor Books was opened 35 years ago last week by a group of devoted book lovers including myself. Old Harbor is an independent bookstore specializing in Alaskana, Native American and Alaska Native, children's, ecology, travel, natural history, philosophy and, of course, nautical books. And starting today, we also sell Google eBooks on our website. In fact, we’re the 250th independent bookseller to start selling Google eBooks since the service launched last December.

In a town with a population of less than 9,000, we’re proud to provide personal service to the readers and explorers who visit our store. We wanted to give our customers a way to buy books from us in whatever format they want—including ebooks. So whether you want to read books on your computer, tablet, smartphone or e-reader, you can now choose from hundreds of thousands of Google eBooks titles we offer.

Some of my current favorites are are Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and Confession of a Buddhist Atheist by Stephen Batchelor. Searching by title, subject or author in our online ebookstore, you can find just about anything you’re looking for—and you can buy from us no matter where in the U.S. you are.

Old Harbor Books customer and manager with me in the middle

We hope you’ll shop for Google eBooks in our newly expanded online bookstore—the 250th of its kind. If you do happen to live near Sitka, the first 40 visitors to Old Harbor Books at 201 Lincoln Street today get free Google eBooks T-shirts. We’ll also show you how to sign up for an online account and get started with ebook shopping. If you can’t make it to the store, this funny video made by fellow independent bookstore Green Apple Books in San Francisco, Calif. does a great job explaining how to buy Google eBooks from the independent bookseller of your choice and read them on gadgets you already own.

We’re deeply grateful to Google eBooks and the American Booksellers Association for making this possible by connecting our IndieCommerce-powered website to the Google eBooks platform that lets us focus on merchandising books, rather than building the technology on our own.

Posted by Don Muller, co-founder, Old Harbor Books Read the full post 0 comments

Klingon and Elvish 101, with Google Books

Tuesday, May 03, 2011 at 4:27 PM

Posted by Oliver Chiang, Google eBooks Support Team

Tlhlngan Hol Dajatlh’a’? Or as the French would say, Parlez-vous Klingon? Google Books empowers you to learn new languages -- even fictional ones, like the Klingon alien language from Star Trek, or the Elvish dialects found in The Lord of the Rings.

There is no longer any excuse to get tongue-tied at your next Klingon mixer -- unable to even summon up a simple nuqneH (what’s up) or a jIyajbe’ (I don’t understand). After reading through The Klingon Dictionary, you'll be fluently pulling off phrases like, HIjol, Scotty! (Beam me up, Scotty!) in no time.

More advanced Klingon speakers will want to put their skills to the test with The Klingon Hamlet. That's right, taH pagh taHbe’ (to be or not to be). You haven't fully experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in Klingon.

If you've read J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic series, The Lord of the Rings, or have seen the movies, you may remember that different races (i.e. elves, orcs and dwarves) each had their own languages. To say that Tolkien loved languages is an understatement. In real life, he spoke or studied dozens of different tongues, from French to Old Norse.

J.R.R. Tolkien

He was nearly as prolific at inventing new languages. The world of The Lord of the Rings was in large part created out of the many languages Tolkien invented for it.

A couple of the most developed languages Tolkien created were two Elvish tongues, Quenya and Sindarin. While Tolkien himself left extensive writings and notes about these languages -- see for instance Elements in Quenya and Sindarin Names in his work The Silmarillion -- others have also created resources to help you polish your Elvish.

Make sure to check out Ambar Eldon’s Elvish dictionaries for both tongues: Quenya-English and Sindarin-English. Are you francophone? They've got you covered there too, with Dictionnaire Elfique Quenya-Français and Sindarin-Français. David Salo's A Gateway to Sindarin is a comprehensive book about the history, sounds and grammar behind the fictional language.

If you want to start with the Elvish ABC's, check out The Lord of the Rings Comprehension Guide's section on how to write words using the Quenya alphabet. For instance, my name in Elvish writing is:

"Oliver" in Elvish

Or maybe you just want to woo an Elvish maiden or an Orlando "Legolas" Bloom. You can send along this little love letter:

Come see the night sky with me, fair maiden/knight.

You’ll be star-gazing in no time.

Read the full post 0 comments