Who needs an e-book reader from Amazon or Sony when you be possible to download tomes to a smartphone, often at a fraction of the require to be paid

By Olga Kharif

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Adam Parks is an avid reader of digital books. But you won’confidentially find him downloading the 20 or so titles he reads each year onto an electronic book device like Amazon’s Kindle. Instead, Parks flips through pages—Web-site design manuals and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War are recent favorites—upon the body his trusted iPhone.

Parks is individual of a increasing number of the vulgar getting their book fix via mobile phone, a method he considers more convenient than using a dedicated e-book reader like the Kindle or Sony’s (SNE) Reader Digital Book. "I travel a lot in Asia and in the U.S.," says Parks, a marketing executive who resides in Palm Beach, Fla. "If you are running from airport to airport and from incorporated town to city, bringing an extra piece of rigging loses some of its value."

Owning a Kindle appears to hold plenty of value towards the consumers who are snapping up the devices so fast that it’s been sold out since November. Yet the idea of downloading a book onto a device you already own may appeal to cash-strapped and space-constrained consumers.

Downloading Royalty-Free Books

And as smartphones have become more ubiquitary, in element thanks to the popularity of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, so hold the tools that fashion it easy for users to download a book for a fraction of the cost of buying one elsewhere. Users of the iPhone and its cousin, the iPod touch, have downloaded William Shakespeare’s collected works more than 300,000 times from the Apple iTunes App Store, according to Readdle, the Ukraine-based startup that created the free application that makes the download possible. The books section in the Apple iTunes App Store lists about 700 titles; Apple singly offers 72 audio books.

It’s perplexing to beat the compensation of a smartphone volume. While new titles like Twilight may cost because much as a paperback at a book store, many royalty-free classics are available for 99¢ or less. The most purchased book upon iTunes is a 99¢ collection of 14 children’s books, including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Gulliver’sitting Travels, and Robinson Crusoe. At Amazon’sitting Kindle store, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland single sells for 99¢ to $2. At Borders (BGP), the lowest price for the Lewis Carroll standard work is $3. Many repaired books on the Kindle cost $9.99.

Amazon (AMZN) doesn’t disclose sales figures for its e-readers but Citigroup (C) estimates that Amazon sold 380,000 Kindles in 2008. In December, Sony said it has sold 300,000 units of its e-reader since the device was introduced in 2006. Representatives of Amazon and Sony declined to comment notwithstanding this story.

Romance Novels Are a Favorite

Some book publishers embrace the mobile-book trend and see it as a way to attract new readers. "There’sitting a chance for us as publishers to reach a wider audience, possibly people who weren’t walking into the bookseller’s shop or going to Amazon," says Matt Shatz, vice-president for digital at Random House. "The opportunity is a lot greater by way of a phone than for a physically printed work." In the coming years, the cell phone may become the most accredited instrument for interpretation digital books as amply, Shatz says. Analysts estimate the makers of e-readers have sold fewer than 1 million units as the devices were introduced. But cell-phone makers shipped 36.5 million smartphones, capable of carrying e-books, in the third allot of 2008 alone, according to Gartner (IT).

Dow Chemical’s ugly end to 2008, with its stock decimated and its acquisition of rival Rohm & Haas in doubt, is typical of the state of M&A in the new year: conservative and to be reverenced

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By Ben Steverman

If the last few days of 2008 are a sign of things to come, the prospects for mergers and acquisitions in the new year are certainly bleak. The latest evince is the trouble facing Dow Chemical’session (DOW) proposed $15.3 billion acquisition of rival Rohm & Haas (ROH). The deal was put in doubt Dec. 29 after the Kuwait rule cancelled a joint venture with Dow that would have indirectly provided key financing for the buyout.

The Rohm & Haas deal could be saved or renegotiated, but if it’s cancelled it would hardly be a rarity in such a troubled meteorological character for mergers and acquisitions. According to preliminary data from Dealogic, 1,309 M&A deals, totaling $911 billion, were scrapped in 2008. Deal tome in the U.S. is off 29% from 2007, boundary M&A activity has all but halted again freshly.

Deal Market Falters as Capital Dries Up

U.S. have commerce bulk plunged 86% in November 2008 compared to the prior November, according to R.W. Baird. "It’s a staggering compute" that reflects the fall’session sharp tightening of credence markets and fears of a global economic slowdown, says Baird investment banker Howard Lanser. "December isn’t looking any better."

The past year "was a horror show," says William Lawlor, a partner and M&A specialist at the Dechert decree firm.

The primary problem was the drying up of credit markets. Since the fall, even well-respected companies be favored with found it unpalatable to borrow to finance acquisitions. Never mind the riskier solitary equity shops: Their access to prime dried up earlier in 2008, with Dealogic estimating financial sponsor M&A buyouts fell 71% in the past year.

A support problem is fear: Executives and boards, along by stock investors and lenders, have trouble predicting whither the economic and financial environment testament take their companies. "If you don’t require that trust as a catalyst, deals just don’t get done," Lawlor says.

"Mergers of Necessity"

Still, companies remain eagerly desirous to make acquisitions for a multiformity of reasons. Many deals under consideration are "mergers of indispensable thing," says Robert Filek, a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Transaction Services Group. Companies are "farfetched into [deals] by means of economic realities." Companies may need to take a bribe for assets to raise capital, he says. Or weaker rivals may need to be swallowed up by stronger competitors, that can then cut costs in the merged company. The troubled fiscal sector was a hotbed of these sorts of deals, with Bank of America’s (BAC) $44.3 billion buyout of Merrill Lynch (MER) one of various examples.

In 2009 companies may be able to take advantage of opportunities created by market turbulence. The dunce market is pricing companies at "great deals," Lawlor says. "There’s just too much opportunity finished there."

Marino Marin, managing director at New York-based investment bank Gruppo, Levey & Co., predicts dealmakers in 2009 could look for M&A possibilities in industries like mining, health care, media, and technology. Baird’session Lanser predicts deals in technology, health care, and education and training outfits. He says individual equity investors, through about $350 billion "in capital sitting on the sidelines," may furthermore beginning hunting for opportunities.

Sluggish Credit, Uncertain Outlook

But even those optimistic about the M&A environment be capable of conditions must change before buyers start making, the sooner than cancelling, big deals. Credit markets have recovered a little since October. But that is only after "an almost complete failure of the banking system in the United States," Lanser says. "Banks are hushed hoarding money" needed to finance deals, he says. "You’ve got a bottleneck in credit."

And then there is the general uncertainty that hangs like a dark cloud over the entire economy. Filek offers two extreme examples: In the energy industry, the big swings in fuel prices scramble all calculations of oil and gas firms’ future financial results. That makes energy executives reluctant to pursue deals. Meanwhile, consolidation in the automotive sector is being prevented by the agency of big questions about the futurity of the U.S. auto industrial art. "Automotive M&A be possible to’t earn rolling until there is some visibility into what a restructured U.S. auto industry looks like," he says.

The superlatively good hope for a revival in M&A comes from a gradual stabilization of the two the economic environment and the credit markets. "With the new year comes new sense of possible fulfilment," Lanser says. Until therefore, Marin says, bankers desire destitution to be "very creative" to get deals done.

Efforts to save the Rohm & Haas buyout may be an early 2009 test of the ability to get deals completed despite the toughest M&A conditions in a generation.

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Bob Day figures it’ll take a good two weeks to get caught up on all his hay deliveries because snowplows mild haven’t touched many rural roads in the hills arctic of Monroe and Snohomish.

At Dayville Hay & Grain in Snohomish, Day said, there’s with appearance of truth 6 inches of snow on the ground. But a mere five miles away, roads are clogged through a foot or two of snow.

“There are lots of areas where we can’t get our trucks in, and lots of our customers’ mare arenas and barns be favored through fallen etc.” from the gravity of the snow, he said. “It’s just one story after another. The aftereffects of these storms are going to be felt with regard to a long time.”

Those traveling on Highway 522 west of Monroe were business with the aftermath of snow on Monday. Though the roadway was clear, the speed limit on a section near Echo Lake Road was marked in a descending course from 55 to 35 mph because of several holes in the pavement that developed during the recent storms.

Even during the time that the snow continues to relax, Western Washington is in the path of two more weather systems expected to hammer the clime by high winds this week.

The first is expected to memorize to the end one’s journey tonight, and one on the same level stronger system is forecast for Thursday night, said Danny Mercer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.

On Monday, stronger-than-expected winds with gusts up to 45 mph caused scattered endowment outages. More than 3,000 Seattle City Light customers in North Seattle, Shoreline and Lake Forest Park incorrigible power on all sides noon. By 4 p.m., power had been restored to all but 360 of them, utility spokesman Peter Clarke said. Scattered outages also were reported in Kitsap County and north King County, according to Puget Sound Energy.

Tonight’s winds likely will be a little stronger, and “isolated power outages are certainly practicable,” Mercer said. But even through winds from 25 to 35 mph and gusts up to 50 mph, the storm moving in won’t qualify as a “major wind conclusion,” he said. Thanks to the shadow by stipulation by the Olympic Mountains, the Seattle area should receive solely about one-half inch of rain betwixt tonight and Wednesday morning.

But it’ll be a different romance in the Cascades, Mercer said. Up to 14 inches of snow was expected to fall in the mountains overnight, with an additional foot or two of snow by Wednesday afternoon, he said. He cautioned that blowing and drifting snow will make with respect to hazardous driving conditions and that the avalanche danger will continue to rise through the week.

It’session still too early to say just how strong the winds might be Thursday night into Friday morning, but that storm “could have being the strongest of them all,” Mercer declared. “That’s the most significant one on our radar screen at the moment.”

Depending on the storm’s track, an more 3 or 4 feet of snow could fall in the mountains, with at least a couple of inches of rain in the lowlands, he said.

In Woodinville, Earl Jaffy has a “decent supply” of fuel for his generator ready in case the power goes out.

“Winds are a big concern here as in that place are a lot of towering trees nearest to the power lines,” said Jaffy, 74, who lost power for a week in a December 2006 windstorm. He in addition lost power for several hours on Christmas Day and had to cancel plans to devote the day with his grandchildren near Redmond.

Jaffy, a retired software-test engineer, reported that over the past 12 days, he’session spent the bulk of his time reading and shoveling snow off his roof. Jaffy’s neighbors have spent hours each day digging completely their private road, sufficiency to find it to a main road “with a four-wheel airing and a lot of effort,” Jaffy declared. “But you still get bounced around to a great extent a bit.”

Less than a mile from his house, Carol Dorney said she drove her car concerning the first time in days adhering Monday, even though her firefighter husband cleared their 800-foot-long driveway with a tractor and has made several trips in his pickup.

“We’ve lived here over 30 years, and it’s the first time we’ve always had to utilize” the tractor to push snow, uttered Dorney, 60. “I can’t remember snow comparable to this.”

Though the snow has been lovely to be turned at, Dorney said, being stuck in the protect has “been kind of boring. You get that housebound feeling, and it’s like, ‘I’ve got to get completely of here, I’ve got to possess out of here.’ “

Ken Chertok certainly can relate. A two-year resident of Kirkland’s South Rose Hill neighborhood, Chertok before-mentioned he’s still fighting to get out of his driveway, and the road by his house was impermeable until late Sunday. Though nearby roads “are down to pavement,” his street is clear enough no other than for a single car to drive down.

“This is horrendous. I think the [incorporated town’s] preparedness direct in spite of this storm was pretty pathetic,” said Chertok, an IT consultant and self-described hotheaded New Yorker. Clearing the roads “in this area was handled poorly.”

Chertok’s wife keeps telling him “to charm a couple extra deep breaths,” he said with a laughter. “I’mish-mash pissed, but the kind of are ya gonna do?”

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com

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OLYMPIA —

There were more cases of West Nile virus in Washington state this year than in any year since monitoring began in 2001, according to the Washington State Department of Health.

Three human infections were reported in 2008 — some in King County and two in Yakima County. The King County fixed had traveled to Eastern Washington during the exposure conclusion and was probably infected there.

In addition, 41 horses, 22 birds and 57 mosquito samples tested positive, through most of those in Yakima County.

Most of the cases occurred east of the Cascades, but some dead birds collected in Western Washington tested positive, showing the virus is established in Eastern Washington and is construction inroads into Western Washington, the department related.

West Nile virus is spread by infected mosquitoes. The best way to subdue the chance of pollution is to avoid mosquito bites.

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Photography, in the digital stage of life, has turn to a surprisingly artless business for amateurs: peculiarity, click, upload on computer … and send to distant friends or relatives.

But the dozen works in “Outta My Light!” — now on display at the Henry Art Gallery — emphasize that photography can be a lot more complicated than that, depending on the photographer’s tools and intentions.

As guest keeper Bridget Nowlin points out in her introduction to the exhibit, “Only two components tie all images together in this unique art form: light and time. One does not strait a camera, bank-notes, chemicals, or a lens to create a photographic image, but without light, in that place can be no photography (really ‘light-writing’). … The sort is true for time, as far as concerns without the time involved in an exposure, in that place would be no final image.”

The publish is drawn mostly from the Henry’s Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection; the Monsens are longtime Seattle photography enthusiasts who have donated abundant of their prize cluster to the museum. It spans the full stroll of the medium’s history, from the 1840s to the boon.

I had a chance to walk with Rowlin through the exhibit viewed like she pointed out what sparked her attract about the selections she made. The idea, she says, wasn’t to do a historical overview, end to observe how photography is “more than one agency.” If you’re scrutinizing about the methods behind photogravure, albumen typography vs. carbon printing, or the hazards of using wet collodion negatives, this exhibit is on the side of you.

Here are a few we looked at:

“Trichomanes Radians (Common Maidenhair Fern)” by Anna Atkins (1843). The steps behind this “photogram” are simplicity itself. Place a plant specimen on paper. Cover it in glass to restrain it below true pitch. Then expose it to sunlight. But for how long? “It just depends on the sensitivity of the paper,” Nowlin says. “And in like manner it depends upon the body the amount of light. Here in Seattle we have a lot of clouds, so sometimes the exposure can be a couple of minutes long. But if you have a clear day, it can be a couple of seconds long. Atkins was moving in England … so I imagine it was a little bit longer. These were scientific studies she was doing.” The potassium ferricyanide with which the paper was treated gives this wan plant silhouette its blue background color.

“Forêt de Fontainebleau” by means of William Drooke Harrison (circa 1865). Nowlin chose two prints from the same negative to illustrate a purpose in an opposite direction albumen prints vs. carbon prints. The image is of a masculine figure peering into in a sylvan scene — but the albumen print has a yellowing glow to it, while the carbon print is all sharp, shadowy blacks. “This is really a perfect illustration of the different qualities one can go,” Nowlin says. “The artists can choose how they want to express the final print.” The carbon print is much more stable. The albumen print would continue to yellow, she says, “if not properly cared for.”

“Gathering” by Robert ParkeHarrison and Shana ParkeHarrison (1994). This mixed-media operate (”Painting is certainly one component,” Nowlin points out) has a lot going on in it. But its starting point was a photograph of Robert ParkeHarrison, in level and tie, seemingly holding up a wild crowd of junk — chairs, a handsaw, a rake, a lamp. The husband-and-wife team then worked from one side “a lot of different processes,” Nowlin says, to get from the initial negative to the large-scale end rise. The press, mounted on wood paneling, has “a lot of texture to it, and that’s from the beeswax that’s then put on as the conclusive bed. of the work.”

Also featured: iconic work by Margaret Bourke-White, Imogen Cunningham and Seattle up-and-comer Isaac Layman.

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Sometimes there’s nothing as satisfying to a reader as a detailed roll. Even some annotated list can lead to literary heaven.

Think of Italo Calvino’s magical 1972 strange, “Invisible Cities,” with its litany of “thin cities,” “hidden cities” and “continuous cities” supposedly encountered by Marco Polo on his travels — or Australian writer Alistair McCartney’sitting more recent “The End of the World Book,” in that quite the aspects of his animated existence are alphabetized, in brief, eccentric, encyclopedialike entries.

Now Seattle’session Fantagraphics Books, under the “curatorship” of Jacob Covey, has done a person of consequence similar for mythological creatures in “Beasts! Book One” (published in 2006) and “Beasts! Book Two,” just hitting bookstore shelves now.

These sum of two units volumes on “cryptozoology” (”the study of hidden animals”) are in part an excuse to throw a bunch of well-delineated artists — including locals Peter Bagge, Kazimir Strzepek and Jim Woodring in the new book — into an anthology together. Much of the artwork is on display through Jan. 24 at Fantagraphics’ bookstore/gallery in Georgetown.

The visuals register from striking graphic design to standard comic-book gothic, goofy or gross-out. More unthought of are the finely written informational entries what one. blend fantasy, pseudoscience and macabre wit to savory effect.

Readers will recognize some of these creatures from classical myth and legend. In “Beasts! Book Two” (Fantagraphics, 207 pp., $34.99) they’ll find mermaids, shapeshifting selkies and those monstrous hazards to Mediterranean mariners, Scylla and Charybdis. But they’ll furthermore come across a host of less familiar creatures, described by writers Heidi Broadhead, Paul Hughes and Rob Lightner with pithy panache.

There’s a hopping vampire from China. “More flexible in some ways than the Western parasite,” the entry reads. “Though it, likewise, is a reanimated corpse who must sap the vital force of the living in order to reserve its thin hold on existence, it doesn’t need to maintain a strict victuals of kindred.”

The Paija, a giantess “greater quantity dangerous than any other hazard in the desolate wastes of the Arctic,” has a reputation for “tracking isolated male hunters and devouring them.” A single transitory view of her is lethal.

On a more humorous note, there’s England’s Peg Powler, who grabs “disobedient children who play too close to the water’session edge” and drowns them or eats them. “Reports of Peg Powler have decreased significantly since 1967,” we’re informed, “at the time that her area of distribution was reputedly destroyed by the construction of Cow Green tank to support topical diligence.”

So much for the virtues of environmentalism.

Some kindly creatures besides inhabit these pages: the short, squat Barbegazi of the Swiss Alps, skiing enthusiasts who sometimes rescue avalanche victims, and the further curious Tsukumogami of Japan, who are composed of “household tools and objects that have become self-aware precisely 100 years after their creation.”

A warning: “Beware of Tsukumogami congregating in expanded numbers, especially admitting that they have taken to be intemperate.”

“Beasts! Book Two” begins with an introduction by Loren Coleman, of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine, who notes that the late 1970s were a busy time for researchers in his field.

“Was the world going crazy,” he asks, “or were humans only screening sightings of new cryptids through the lenses of a improvement unsteady by UFO contactees and planetary poltergeists?”

In closing, it seems use to give the full title of the part, which goes a long way — and I bestow mean long — toward conveying its flavor: “The New Modern Now Library Series, Part the Second: A Prodigious Bestiary from the Interest of Modern Artisans: Beasts! A Pictorial Schedule of Traditional Hidden Creatures, as Curated by Jacob Covey, A.D.”

Michael Upchurch: mupchurch@seattletimes.com

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The night before New Year’session Eve is a tough gig, but the Americana/ country/rock mandible tonight at the Tractor is worth it. Joe Syverson, who played bass in Throw Me the Statue, is now leading Final Spins, a classic power-pop band set to freedom their first album forward nearest year. Final Spins are joined by Widower, who play minimalist, melancholy Americana folk burnished by beautiful boy-girl harmonies, case-harden guitar (courtesy of the Maldives’ Chris Zasche) and banjo. Sammy Barrett rounds out the kiss.

Doors open at 9 p.m. at the Tractor, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., Seattle; $6 cover (206-789-3599 or http://tractortavern.ypguides.net).

Jonathan Zwickel,Special to The Seattle Times

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Two programs designed to bring affordable housing to downtown Seattle be in actual possession of fallen short of expectations, through officials spending just $5 very great number of the $20 the masses collected from developers.

The legislation — passed in 2001 as being commercial buildings and 2006 with regard to residential buildings — requires developers who want to build taller buildings to pay into an affordable-housing government bonds. The developers paid in, but officials now say there were too many restrictions on by what means to spend the cash.

First, the money must be used for newly come construction downtown — where space is limited and land prices are high. And the funding formulary is so complex it includes numbers taken out to eight decimal points.

“It’s like if somebody gave you $100 and related, ‘You can without more use this on a Tuesday, whereas it’s raining, and you can only use it to purchase a pink purse,’ ” said Adrienne Quinn, manager of Seattle’s Office of Housing.

As Seattle grows, Mayor Greg Nickels and the City Council have sought ways to make housing more affordable for middle-income people. One method is allowing developers to build taller suppose that they set away some money or further units for affordable housing.

This month, the City Council voted to expand that policy on the farther side of downtown. As council members, developers and housing advocates hashed out the details of the expansion, some questioned whether the existing program is even working.

The circulating medium from developers was expected to create 900 new homes for people of low and moderate incomes by 2011. But on the eve of 2009, singly round 300 have been built.

The City Council will consider loosening the restrictions early next year, said Councilmember Sally Clark, who chairs the Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

“The original intent of the program was to make sure that people who were going to work in these huge new commercial office buildings downtown would be good to live downtown,” said Sarah Lewontin, executive director of the Housing Resource Group, a nonprofit that helps make known low-income homes.

“The challenge that we face today is that there really isn’t property beneficial in downtown Seattle … that’s affordable or that allows us to build projects.”

The Housing Resource Group built the Gilmore Apartments on Third Avenue using money the city charged the developers of the Washington Mutual Tower. The tower’s developers got additional height, and the Housing Resource Group built 65 apartments for people equal Ann Evans.

Evans, 31, moved to Seattle from Phoenix a diminutive more than a year and a half ago, and struggled to find an apartment she could afford on her $1,600-a-month salary as a parturition driver. One-bedroom apartments on Capitol Hill cost toward $900 a month, she uttered.