Alice's Adventures Underground (the precursor to Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - aka Charles Dodgson) as an e-book? Does it work and do others? Classics as e-books as viewed by a traditional print editorial director - listen to this podcast. Podcast originally broadcast through TeleRead.

Alice's Adventures Underground on the Tungsten E

I can understand what it is like to have fallen down the rabbit hole in a number of ways and can relate to our dear Alice as she makes her way through the myriad gardens in Alice's Adventures Underground (the original title of Alice in Wonderland). Who would have ever thought I'd be reading this of all books on a device no larger than the size of my palm (hence the name) on a Tungsten E series, the pages scrolling effortlessly before me as I sit bumping along on the subway, garnering strange looks from the curious, and reading the next book on my list.

Carroll, of course, is a classic, but does a classic work as an e-book and can it work so well on a palm device. Granted Carroll tends to write short; that is, his sentences are not overly long or run-on, they are clear, concise and the dialogue is simple and although this book may and does work on an adult and on a child's level (the interpretations are myriad and I won't try to get into them here - that's a whole other article) the interpretations come across and the readability remain excellent even on a smallish screen in 10 point Times type.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Alice of course, had no business poking around the rabbit hole or following white rabbits in the first place no more than I have any business sticking my nose into ebooks as I move further and further away from the printed book and see the virtue that ebooks can carry just as much as a pbook.

I'll tell you quite simply, the trouble these days with ebooks is marketing. Too few people know these classics and new books are available and more, too many are, I admit as I was, concerned about readability (and with my vision I was especially concerned, since I have trouble seeing at all).

In the end though, we, like Alice, "drink the Kool Aid" as the expression goes and we join the throngs of people who have come around to seeing the virtue of ebooks, including such big name publishers as Macmillan and by now virtually almost any large trade publishing house not to mention the exclusively online venues like Blackmask and Lulu where ebooks are readily available for the picking and the reading.