DS Novel coming to UK as 100 Classic Book Collection
by JC Fletcher 
{ Nov 28th 2008 at 11:00AM }
DS Novel was hanging out on European release lists for over a year without so much as a word about when it's coming out or what it is. It seemed likely that the title would be a localized version of the hit literature collection DS Bungaku Zenshuu -- and it is!Rather than translating 100 Japanese novels, which would have been pretty dang cool, the UK release of 100 Classic Book Collection (as it is now known) features works from writers like Jane Austen, all three Brontes, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, and other favorites whose works happen to be in the public domain. The full list of novels is available at the cart's Amazon listing. 10 more books will be made available over Wi-Fi.
100 Classic Book Collection also features book search, custom recommendations, and a bookmarking feature. It should be interesting to see if Nintendo polish (implemented by developer Genius Sonority) can make this competitive with the free Moon Books Project (a project which, by the way, has had a pretty rough time lately).
Gallery: 100 Classic Book Collection
[Via GoNintendo]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim @ Nov 28th 2008 12:35PM
I hope that it would include Sol Yurick's The Warriors, George Orwell's 1984, and Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives, just to hook seal the deal for me.
Mert @ Nov 28th 2008 2:40PM
It includes only books that are at least 75 years old and therefore don't require paying for licence.
aj @ Nov 28th 2008 7:12PM
All of those books are available for 2$ at any used book shop. Or free at a library. No need to buy a 30$ game.....or whatever the base price is in Europe.
It occurs to me that I don't know what used book shops charge in Europe. It also occurs to me that people actually read books in Europe, and "classics" might not be so easy to get as they are in North America, where you can buy brand new copies of anything older than 50 years old used with ease thanks to students never, ever reading.
What a magical world Europe must be.
Zealot @ Nov 28th 2008 7:50PM
It's not illiteracy as much as it is, in fact, the enduring popularity of the "classics" that cause them to be so easily available in book stores decades and centuries after their creation. Being common fare for both high school students as well as adults who may have matured enough to seek knowledge (if extremely basic) of culture and the arts, publishers find it profitable to continually reprint certain texts year in and year out. I just can't see their availability as a result of mass stupidity.
aj @ Nov 30th 2008 12:02PM
To be fair, I'm cynical because I went through public school and university in the American south. People are dumber in the south. And damn it, it makes me weep for the future of the human race in general. I know that elsewhere people don't say things like "you ain't from 'round here, are you boy?" to anyone who speaks coherent English.
However, I still argue that very few high school kids are reading what they are told to read. And all those classic books in used book shops in pristine condition haven't been read at all....just bought because they were required reading for some university course, never read, and sold ultimately. And the fact that the classics keep getting printed is probably due to (a) the fact that high schools buy them in bulk, (b) the fact that uni students HAVE to buy them at marked up prices, (c) the fact that public domain books don't have the problem of contracts and fees to pay, and (d) douchebag psuedointellectuals like to keep them on their shelves to look smart to their equally shallow friends.
This is not to say people don't read old books. But I doubt that as many people as you think do.
Zealot @ Nov 30th 2008 3:06PM
I didn’t say that I thought book-reading was a common pastime in America. I have every right to be as cynical as you, as I spent twelve years at an impoverished rural high school, am mostly self-educated, and was just as derided for refusing to speak with the disgusting, unintelligible twang that everyone around me used, but I can’t be cynical because I don’t see it as something endemic to American culture, or, to state it in a different way, the Europe you seem to look to for hope as an enlightened anti-America where the commoner and the intelligentsia are one and the same and everyone is a wellspring of insight on deep and esoteric philosophy and literature is highly idealized. Wherever one goes, they’re going to find that there is both interest and disinterest in learning, and, whatever the case, I doubt that the fact that Europe is leading the world in mathematics, sciences, and overall education is due to the fact that their teenagers can quote more lines from 1984 or War and Peace than American teenagers can. Literacy and the ability to recognize meaningful literature are but parts of a quality education.
I still can’t help but think you’re jumping to conclusions about an entire nation’s reading habits from what you’ve observed in a used book store. You can’t tell whether or not a book has been read just from the fact that it’s been pawned off or the fact that it was kept in good condition, so any arguments stemming from this about larger quantities of a book in a used book store implying that fewer people have read that book are invalid. I can’t divine one thing about the relationship between my used college textbooks and their former owners (except that, by the smell, the former owner of my criminology textbook commonly smoked pot while reading it.) People sell books for quick money whether or not they’ve read them—especially if it was for an assignment and a student had to wolf down huge chunks of a novel in a hurry, they’re not going to want to read it again for a long time, so they had might as well recoup a little money. It’s not a strange, passive-aggressive way of telling one’s teacher, professor, or the book itself “tl;dr”. None of this is evidence of mass student illiteracy, but, rather, inference made based upon a negative preconceived notion. I’m in no way defending the people who skip out on assigned readings. They’re lazy and they deserve to fail. But sales are still a better determinant of how widely a book is read than the number of copies sold back to stores—even if they’re bought in bulk for classes, in reality a minority of any class is going to intentionally fail by not reading it, and an even smaller number can BS their way through with internet summaries and the like.
Nigeria @ Nov 28th 2008 12:43PM
Looking at that list of novels, I'm not so sure whether this is for me any more. Too many obvious titles that I've read, and half read, from school days gone by. The two Hugo novels have somewhat caught my interest, but I could read them right now if I really wanted to.
I really wish the DS had a txt viewer.
aj @ Nov 28th 2008 12:54PM
I'm going to have to import this, because honestly, this isn't coming to NA ever.
And for those interested, you should check out Project Gutenberg. It's a database of public domain books in a hideous amount of languages. And as a tip - some books are public domain in one country, but not in others. "The Great Gatsby", for example, is available on the Australian Gutenberg site, but not the US one. So dig around. There's all kinds of good stuff for free.
http://www.gutenberg.org
parKb5 @ Nov 28th 2008 10:40PM
I am so impoting this. Does Amazon.uk ship to the US? If not are there any trusted European sites that do?
Olicon @ Nov 28th 2008 10:58PM
Now put this on a DSi, make it so you can download new books, and play music on it while you read, eh? If they do that, I will go out and buy a DSi right away!
1 gadget to rule them all (when I travel)!
Mert @ Nov 29th 2008 7:39AM
You'll be able to download new books on the regular DS too - the cartridge comes with 1MB savefile.
Knightroad @ Nov 28th 2008 11:39PM
Already have most of those books, (the 25+ ones I like anyway) already on my DS. I have Moonshell and put the free books on there via Moonbooks project. I really hope their site comes back soon by the way.
Bowser Rogozhin @ Nov 29th 2008 7:33AM
Nice to see Nintendo breaking bank with the book selection.
aj @ Nov 30th 2008 12:04PM
If they put current books on the cart, the game would cost 900$ and probably mostly have "chick lit" and John Grisham novels.
Covarr @ Nov 29th 2008 8:20PM
Why should I pay money for a hundred books that are already all in the public domain? I could legally download any book in this collection for free.
Amuli @ Dec 1st 2008 12:23PM
I don't see why everyone's complaining. I mean, why buy this $30 game when I can buy the same 100 books at $2 each? Because surely that makes a lot of sense.
Oh? You can get them from the library for free? Okay, that's fine, but don't forget your ds is smaller than any one book. I'd like to see you tote those same books around with as much ease as carrying your ds. And even if you download them, to make them portable, you'd have to use a laptop or something, once again larger than your DS.
The only thing that's comparable to this is that new Kindle, which retails for $350 AND you have to buy the literature on top of that.
You guys wouldn't know a good thing if it hit you in the face.
David @ Dec 2nd 2008 1:00AM
It's a fine idea - as the excellent Dslibris has proven - but they should have done it long ago, and had some kind of ongoing download arrangement (beyond the 10 books Nintendo promises). Project Gutenberg's already set up to this end, so why go into business with Harper Collins?
And look at the formatting, and size of the font; I expect it's locked in like that, which doesn't help the amount of Shakespeare on there. Hopefully this is all in preparation for the DSi.
Olicon @ Dec 2nd 2008 6:10AM
BOOYAH! We have a winner! I'm definitely getting this.
Anth @ Jan 3rd 2009 8:41AM
Can i ask what are the addtitonal 10 books that can be Downloaded? *I dont have wi-fi*
Nway, Im about to finish sherlock holmes book 1 and oh! I really wish that this kind of e-book stuff will continue on our DS! Like a Neil Gaiman's Book Collection or Sheldon's -etc! :)