The History of the American Space Shuttle - Jenkins

[rdale]

I received a Kindle version of this book at no cost if I agreed to review it.

My review - don’t get the Kindle edition It just doesn’t format well. But if his full volume set (and cost) overwhelmed you, this looks like a great alternative. The basic format appears the same, but each section has been trimmed accordingly to fit into one (much cheaper) book.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0764357700/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_nHFwDbWS7B3RZ

[Oersted]

I have the original three-volume work. Kindle is no good at anything but all-text books. Thanks for your review!

[laszlo]

To be fair, the problem is with books that were designed for a paper format instead of an electronic one and it applies to all brands of electronic readers. A paper book design can't just be scanned and electronically published and maintain its quality without major effort and changes. Each medium has different limitations for content, especially images, and unless a publisher actively works on converting from one to the other, the quality suffers.

Some publishers are either ignorant of the need to redesign or apathetic about the quality of their product. I've encountered the latter as publishers attempt to cut costs to maintain/increase their profit margins. The thought is that by getting rid of the paper, ink, binding and printing process and re-using an existing book design their margins should go way up. Then they run into needing to completely redesign an image-heavy content to display well on a small screen while meeting resellers' data size requirements. The cost of doing this right can be as much as designing a whole new book, possibly more. In fact, it's very similar to Lego rocket designs.

Some publishers abandon the project, others go text only and tell readers to get the images somewhere else (website, for example) while others push out an inferior product. Occasionally they do it right and may or may not make money on the enterprise.

So don't blame the readers, they're doing what they were designed for. Instead, let the publishers know your reactions. And when all else fails, there's always libraries, public and educational institution owned, that have lots and lots of physical books.

[rdale]

...and to be double-fair, mine was a prerelease edition so it's possible the content will look better in the end.

But in any event I'm still buying the hardcopy as I don't have the desire for the big one.

[rdale]

I got the hardcopy for Christmas and it is AWESOME! I love this in hardcopy format versus electronic. Here's a note from Mr Jenkins to clarify what I suspected in the preview release.

"I am the author and wanted to clarify precisely what this book is and is not. This is a “concise” history (and that word was originally in the title but was removed by the publisher at the last minute); i.e., a short history. It should not be confused with the three-volume “Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon: 1972-2013” tome I published two years ago. This book is meant for a more general audience and includes a short history of the Space Shuttle Program, a two-page article on each of the 135 missions, a brief description of the two accidents, and an overview of the retirement activities at the end of the program. There are a variety of color photographs of the missions that have seldom (if ever) been published in print or online. This book was never intended to go into the amount of detail contained in the three-volume “Developing an Icon” set and it was written as a handy reference for the space enthusiast or a (hopefully) enjoyable primer for the novice."